Dear Members,
This week you are getting Yukon Gold potatoes, onions, turnips, carrots, fennel, squash, cucumbers and green beans! I got a couple of phone calls about the fennel. Treat it like an herb or onion. The tops are edible and are commonly used on fish, salads, soups or veggies. The bulbs are commonly split in two along the flat side and baked under roasts. It can also be chopped and added to salads, stir-fries or other veggie side dishes for flavoring. It has a very distinct (& mild) black licorice taste!
Bags: Don’t forget to return all your bags, including the small bean bag. Please empty out all contents including leaves, dried onion skins and small beans that may get stuck in the mesh.
Why don’t we wash produce: This seems to be the big question every year! There are actually several reasons for this. 1. The most important reason is we want to make sure you are washing your produce! All this pre-washed produce in the grocery store/Farmers Market can be very hazardous to your health! (Do you know how many people have touched that?) Always wash your food before you eat it! 2. Once produce is washed, it starts to break down. This happens when it rains or when it is washed. You will notice that the quality goes up during the dry years and goes down during the wet years. 3. We do not have refrigerated trucks. If produce is washed and not dried entirely, it will start to mold. This may happen after it rains. We apologize for any mold that may appear in your bag.
Fruit: For those of you who get a fruit share, you will be getting Rainier cherries this week. Since the plums and apricots were lost to bad weather, we may not see fruit again until peach season in mid to late August.
Honey: Thank you for supporting Clark Sloan and his bees this year. You will find this to be a problem in our future. If you have not heard about the plight of the bees, you should look into one of several documentaries that have been made on the subject. It is pretty scary to think we are losing our bee population so quickly like this. What will we do without bees if they go extinct? (They are the pollinators of the world!) It is true that pesticides are not helping the problem, but it is a mite that is killing them by spreading a disease. I was very pleased to see that a .50 cent increase per pint/etc. did not detour most of you from purchasing Clark’s Honey!
Winter Share: It is true, it is true! We will be selling a Winter Share after all! I will send out a Sign-up form in August so keep an eye open!
Nice cool down from the heat of last week, wouldn’t you say? We got an 1 ½ inches of rain so far. Have a great week!
Jacquie, Jerry, Kyle and Alaina
Monroe Organic Farms 