Our awe-inspiring annual garlic harvest has come and gone. With the help of at least thirteen volunteers, somewhere in the vicinity of 4-5,000 garlic bulbs were harvested, sorted, bunched, hoisted (see pulley system in picture below), and hung to cure on the third floor of the barn. It was a crazy, satisfying day. Other than one garlic load “fatality” (the load toppled off the pallet that was being hoisted and one hundred garlic fell to their doom), it was perfect. Massive fans are now circulating air through the hanging garlic, and over the next month the bulbs will slowly and steadily cure, until the stems and outer layers of the bulb are as dry as paper. At that point, we’ll cut the bunches down and trim the stalks and the roots. But in the meantime, you’ll receive your weekly allotment of the freshest garlic you’ll ever eat. As they cure the cloves will become less crunchy and pungent, but will be equally delicious. Enjoy your garlic at every stage of the curing process!

Also this week we harvested our first potatoes of the year, nearly a month later than our usual initial harvest. The cold rainy spring months killed most of our first potato planting, but when we dug up the surviving plants we found — surprise surprise — that instead of five or ten potatoes per plant, these remaining hearty but stressed plants had just one or two potatoes per plant. And what potatoes they were… they range from medium to HUGE! One potato made a great serving of home fries for our entire family.

The basil plantings are going gangbusters. Eventually we’ll open our early plantings up to members for free pick-your-own basil, but if you’re interested in getting some now, you can order basil by the bulk bag (pesto this winter, anyone?). The cost for basil is $8/lb (less than our wholesale price) and you can order in one pound increments. Email me (info@hatchetcovefarm.com) if you’d like to place an order.

Depending on if and when you signed up, the beautiful organic blueberries from Red House Farm will be delivered this week. I’ll send out reminder emails for each pick-up day and location, but please feel free to contact me with any questions!

Thanks so much, and enjoy your meals, It’s hard to believe, but only we’re halfway through the summer CSA this week! So much more good stuff to come!

Be well,
Reba and the HCF crew

Week 9 of 18: Potatoes, Eggplant, Garlic, Basil, Mesclun Mix, Green Beans, Beets w/greens, Cucumbers and/or Zucchini and/or Zephyr Summer Squash

This week’s recipes: Eli’s Beloved Beets, Sweet Basil Pesto Tapenade, Pasta with Eggplant, Tomatoes and Bread Crumbs

This is Blueberry pick-up week (depending on if/when you signed up to buy a 10-lb box of organic berries)

This week’s cheese notes

After the garlic was pulled in the field, it was brought in front of the barn to be sorted and bunched. Then we used a 100-yr-old pulley to hoist it up to the third floor of the barn , where we pulled it through a big window/door cut for that very purpose.