Saturday market was cool & windy!!!! I am so ready for warm weather as I'm not a cold weather person at all! Anything below 70 degrees is winter to me! But this next week looks promising; sunny, up in the 70's and no rain! We did fairly well Saturday, didn't sell out of lettuce or onions again, but the strawberries were a hit!

Today we had to replant a bunch of our broccoli as there is a "lovely" little bunny chomping them all off, plus we noticed a new set of deer tracks! Hopefully it was only passing through! The zucchini and cucumbers we planted the other day are starting to sprout, so some sunny warm weather would really be wonderful! We also have 150 sweet potato slips to get in the ground, along with the okra, peppers, eggplant and tomato plants.

REMINDER WASH YOUR PRODUCE!

Just a reminder to everyone, that your produce has been field washed, but it needs to be washed by you again before you eat it. I had one customer to tell me she had found a snail in her lettuce mix, and yes we are having a problem with snails and slugs what with all this rain. We try to pick off all that we can find, but with thousands of leaves of lettuce, we are bound to miss some, so just make sure you wash it again before you eat it! We don't spray unless we have to, and we don't ever spray our greens, the bugs & snails are just an extra bonus no charge added!

We even have tadpoles in our mud puddles as they never have time to dry up between rains!

Greg tilled up the plot where we plant our tomatoes, okra, peppers, eggplants & herbs and also the plot where we plant pumpkins, gourds and winter squash last night, hoping against hope that it wouldn't rain, and we could get beds made today and covered with plastic. We then could of planted anytime we wanted as the rain wouldn't have really bothered the beds too much. But that was not to be, so we'll have to wait and see what the weather is like next week. We have lots of things in the green house ready to go out!

DON'T FORGET TODAY IS CSA PICK UP DAY!!!!!

Well it's never dull around here! We had a good day at market on Saturday, didn't sell out of eggs, or lettuce, but we can't complain. Sunday we planted cucumbers, zucchini, and patty pan squashes. Monday I baked for today's CSA delivery, you are getting persimmon bread. Now don't go oh ooh, or oh yuk! Try it, it is good! We had a bumper crop of persimmons last fall so have a freezer full of persimmon pulp! Then in the middle of hanging out my laundry I got a phone call from the library saying they had a swarm of bees in the tree by their book drop box, would I come get them! So off I went to the library to collect the swarm. It was about twice the size of the one I got the other week. No I don't have pictures of this one, but I did have an audience! The Christian Academy kids across the street were having their recess break, so they came over to watch!

So in today's box you'll get bread, eggs, lettuce, radishes, onions & a little pint of strawberries!!!!!! It's not much, but hopefully it'll get your taste buds ready for next week!

STRAWBERRIES ARE COMING!!!!!!!

I got the swarm of bees hived Wed. morning. Need to check them now and see how they are doing, and feed them again. Hopefully they will like their new home and stay put! Thursday was baking day for Farmers' Market, and Friday we picked. Our onions we planted earlier this Spring are now coming on, had them in the CSA boxes this week. The lettuce and greens are really coming on, too. Now if we can get the radishes caught up! But the really exciting news for you all is that the strawberries are starting to ripen! We picked a handful Thursday evening. So we'll have to see if there will be enough ready this week for the CSA boxes! But even if there isn't there will be the next week! So get ready. So with that in mind here are a couple of recipes to get you going! These came from the Rural Missouri coop paper this month.

Easy Strawberry Cheesecake
1 graham cracker crust
8 oz. whipped topping
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 pint fresh strawberries, washed, hulled & halved
First, cream the cream cheese, gradually adding in the sugar. Add vanilla & whip until fluffy. Fold in whipped topping. Pour into crust. Garnish with fresh strawberries. Refrigerate for 1 hour, until firm

Strawberry Cobbler
Filling:
4 cups strawberries, fresh or frozen
1/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. instant tapioca
1 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

Topping:
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
4 Tbsp. cold, unsalted butter, cut into cubes
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 9x9" baking dish. In a large bowl, mix together the strawberries, sugar, tapioca & lemon juice. Pour into the baking dish. In a medium-sized bowl, stir together the flour, coconut, sugar, walnuts, baking powder & salt from the topping ingredients. Use a fork to mix in the cubes of butter. Stir the butter into the other ingredients until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. Sprinkle the topping over the filling. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown & crispy & the filling bubbles. Let cool for at least an hour before serving.

BEE SWARM!

Barely got home from delivering 2nd week of CSA boxes, when I got a call from someone in town who had a swarm of bees in their front yard! So I grabbed one of the empty CSA boxes still in the back of my truck, duct taped the handle holes closed and made Megan our daughter grab the camera and headed back into town to get the swarm! So here's the picture, even though you can't see much (swarm right above my hand in picture) I thought I'd best put it up since I made Megan go and take the picture and she got nailed in the cheek taking the picture! By nailed I mean stung! She was not too pleased with me! So I will put it out in hive in the morning. If you double click on the picture it will pop up enlarged in new window!

DON'T FORGET CSA DELIVERY TODAY!

Todays box will have more mixed greens, onions, radishes, eggs, swiss chard and tot soi. Hope you enjoy!

Friday sure was gloomy, cool & drizzly! Luckily picking the greens and radishes was inside the hoop house! We picked arugala, mizuna, rainbow swiss chard, totsoi, blackseeded simpson, oak leaf, lolla rosa (red), endive, escarole and winter density for greens, and pulled a few radishes. Then took them to our 2 bay outdoor sink for soaking, rinsing & bagging. Now that was fun in the rainy cold! Then we pulled onions, cleaned and bunched them, then loaded everything into the truck except the eggs.

Then this morning we were up bright and early at 5:00 a.m. to pack the eggs and load into the truck, open the chickens and hoop houses and hit the road! We arrived at market at 6:30 a.m. and unloaded the truck and sat up, ready for market to open at 8:00 a.m.! We had a so so day. We brought home eggs and greens, as those are in abundance at the market now, but today didn't seem like a produce buying day as a whole. Didn't see a lot of people carrying produce, more seemed to be carrying flowers and plants!