CSA Newsletter ~ Week 3

Well what can we say about last Tuesday! The rain overnight on Monday filled the cistern and flooded our basement.  We got all the shares picked and then at 10.30am the heavens opened for about 30 minutes!

We had directed seeded 400ft of beans the day before, they are doing great and have already germinated.  We are however, a little concerned about the 500ft of carrot seed we planted. Time will tell if they washed away!

We have to store the ladybugs in our fridge!!

We also found we had a lot of aphids on our storage kohlrabi and our rutabaga/swede transplants. So after washing each individual transplant in water we put in a call to the Natural Insect control and purchased 2000 lady bugs. We released them under insect netting which is protecting the crops from the bad bugs in the hope the lady bugs will deal with any remaining aphids.

One of the best tips we can give for using your vegetables is to exchange ingredients for what is in your box.  i.e if you need onions use your salad onions if you need garlic use your scapes, if you are making slaw and need cabbage and carrots then use your napa cabbage and kohlrabi instead. 

This Weeks basket:

Napa/Chinese Cabbage - A few different recipes for your Chinese cabbage 

cabbage wedges, chinese tom leafery, chinese leaf parcels

Radicchio - Our radicchio is not like the traditional red variety, it is large and green! It has a bitter taste to it but I have to say it is in my top ten vegetable list! The following recipes are a great way to cut the bitterness so that everyone in the family will enjoy it radicchio mushroom frittata. grilled baked radicchio

Lettuce

Turnips - Try roasting your turnips,

Radish - You could even roast your turnips and radishes together.

Kohlrabi - kohlrabi and turnip slaw

Scapes - We like to freeze some scapes for winter.  Chop your scapes into chunks place them in the food processor with some oil and blitz.  Then place into ice cube trays and freeze.  Then during the winter months these scape cubes can be added into soups, stews or spread over a pizza base.

Beets - Beets can be boiled, roasted on the BBQ Grilled beet burgers, another burger recipe beetroot burgers kale quinoa salad, Don't forget to use the tops as well beetroot braised beet tops

Peas - Hopefully we do not need to give any recipe suggestions for these! Will they make it home even??

Kale - Add it to a lasagna.

Parsley - If you do not want to use your parsley you can place it in a Ziploc bag and put it in the freezer and then just grab out what you need when you need it! Our you can try one of the 10 best parsley recipes.

Spinach 

Don't forget you can post your photos and recipes of your meals on our FB page or e-mail them to us.