Week #4 Saturday, July 12– Tuesday, July 15, 2008 Downloadable Word .doc for printing

In your bag
Lettuce (mix of varieties)
Scallions
Cabbage
Sugar snap peas (peas & pods are edible)
Beets (the greens are tasty as well)
Broccoli, Cucumbers
Zucchini & Summer squash
Garlic scapes*
Cilantro

*These curly, tasty treats can be cut in 1 inch pieces and sautéed in olive oil for a few minutes until tender. They’ll add a nice, mild garlic flavor to your greens, salad, eggs, etc.

Coming Soon
Next week’s bag will likely have a green cabbage and the first of this year’s green beans. They’ll be joined by a couple of fennel bulbs, some purple kohlrabi and cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce and maybe one more round of broccoli.

Solar Ovens for Sale
Anita Doyle and Naomi Jackson are long time members of Spring Hill Farm.  They sell SOS Sport Solar ovens on line in their on-line store www.earthlygoods.net. Using these ovens you can cook outdoors year round using only the power of the sun, no batteries, toxic fuels or moving parts. 

If you have an announcement you’d like to share with Spring Hill members, send the information and I’ll pass it along.

Farm News
The weather has been very unsettling this week. Last Sunday neighbors to the north were hammered with 3 inches of rain. Here, sprinkles. On Thursday, folks to the south got hit with hail. Here 1/10” of rain. Last night (Friday) we woke up to lots of activity in the sky but the rain gauge said only 3/10” of rain in the morning. We’ve been hesitating to irrigate much because of the threat of heavy rains but so far everything has gone around us. We are thankful to miss the heavy stuff but we could use a good soaker. In the fields, things are growing nicely. The potatoes look terrific. The cucumbers are coming along. The winter squash and melons are vining out, the peppers and tomatoes are filling out. The gardens are starting to get their mid-summer look – past the point where everything is ever so tender to a more adolescent look. It’s the stage of budding maturity where you still need to keep an eye on things but they can be out of your field of vision for a time. (Can you tell we have teens?)

Actually we’re trying to get things in the garden to a point where they can be neglected for a bit while we turn our attention to garlic harvest. Very soon – perhaps this coming week – we’ll be digging the garlic and laying it out in the greenhouse to cure. It’s a big project but a satisfying one. We’ve been saving seed for many years and feel we now have our own strain of Spring Hill garlic.

We watched a good movie this past week, “King Corn.” It’s a documentary about two young men who rent an acre of land in Iowa to grow corn. You get in on not only the planting and harvesting of the corn but some economics of farming and farm policy as well--worth a look!

Next Week’s Harvesters
Saturday, July 19th - Nancy Kosciolek & Rob Nordin, Joanne Johnson,
Brian Martinson & Melissa Partin, Pat & Juola Haga
Tuesday, July 22nd - Ann Peterson & Steve Petermeier, Carolyn Shrewsbury,
Mary Vanderford, Erin Thompson