I think that every year a few more CSA members learn to love garlic scapes.  I don’t know how you could resist them for long.  Scapes are gorgeous, they’re incredibly scrumptious, and they’re a once-a-year event.  They certainly earn their reputation as a rare and treasured treat.  Scapes are the flower spike of the garlic plant, and we cut them off so the plant will put more energy into the garlic bulb (resulting in a larger head of garlic at harvest time).  We use scapes like we use garlic: chopped up fine and sautéed along with whatever we’re cooking.  But they’re at their most exquisite when solo, and my favorite garlic scape dish is included in this week’s recipes (if you can call something so simple a recipe) .

The other crazy-looking thing in your share this week is purple kohlrabi.  Peel it and shred it into salads or slaws, cube and sauteé it with garlic scapes and butter, or slice it thin and put it in a sandwich.  Think of it as a crispy cross between a broccoli stem and a cucumber.

While many of our early season crops are still struggling to shrug off the effects of this cold and wet extended spring, the spinach is in heaven.  We’ve never had enough spinach to give it to the CSA two weeks in a row, and we’re excited to be able to do so now.

Things to look forward to:  the summer squash and zucchini are starting to show up on the plants.  They may be tiny and slow to arrive, but they’ll be here soon!  We’re also hoping to have new potatoes within a few more weeks.  We just built a new “shed” (it looks more like a blue-tarp covered wagon) to house our big equipment investment of the year: a root washer.  Last year’s apprentices said that a root washer was the thing they most wished to have on the farm, and since we want to keep our apprentices happy (see picture below), that’s what we went for.  We can’t wait to set it to work!

Have a great week!

Reba and the HCF crew

Week 3 veggies:  Lettuce Head, Garlic Scapes, Spinach, Broccoli, Redbor Kale, Kohlrabi

This week’s recipes:  Kale Chips, Garlic Scapes, Quinoa and Wilted Spinach Salad

Instead of brass knuckles, the thugs at Hatchet Cove Farm prefer to intimidate with garlic scape knuckles. L to R John “Angry Thug” Wright, Neil “Happy Thug” Attfield, and Les “Fierce Thug” Macare.