Kretschmann Farm June 1, 2004
257 Ziegler Rd. kmann2@earthlink.net website: www.home.earthlink.net/~kmann2
Rochester, PA 15074 724-452-7189
Greetings from the Kretschmanns,
In a world which can be truly topsy turvey, it is still as reassuring as ever that spring follows winter with warm sunshine, lots of rain, and with a profusion of life. Despite recurring doubts and misgivings on our part, nature provides her delicacies in good time and abundance.
Enjoy the salad season! Green, green, and lots of it. All you can eat, tasty, and it’s so good for you. As they always are, the mesclun greens were a challenge to time so as to mature for the opening week. The need to cover these exotic greens to keep the flea beetles at bay, makes for ideal conditions for a small carpet of weeds to germinate. With the frequent rains, cultivations were just not an option. But…not bad.
The first two plantings of spinach have suffered from an overabundance of rain. This causes a lot of yellowing and in places where water puddles in the field, the spinach dies. But the last two plantings look very good. We were lucky last Saturday when hailstorms moved through the area. Strangely, the spinach was slightly pelleted but the lettuce field on our hilltop had no damage at all!
The cole crops (cabbage, broccoli and kale) are booming along. We should have kale next week. The beet and carrot field is doing extremely well—maybe the best early root crops in quite a few years.
Sorry, radish lovers! Flea beetles just ate the bejeebers out of the tiny radish seedlings. Rain made it impossible to get covers over them. We were able to dust with a little Rotonone later, but the damage was done. We’re hoping they will recover.
Hoping you enjoy
the veggies, we are,
Sincerely,
Don, Becky and the Crew at the Farm
P.S. Please be neat
when picking up your veggies. Helpfully
stack the empty crates nesting three together and out of the way of
others. Please don’t deposit items you
don’t want into others’ boxes, unless you know it’s OK. If you are at a pickup where you can
take your box home with you and we ever forget your veggies, if you call us or
e-mail that evening, we can bring a replacement box the next day when we pick
up the empties.
--Special veggie notes:
If you don’ t use the bag of oregano right away, it should be removed
from the bag and dried. We left the
flowers on the chives for you to enjoy.
Remove them into a vase and refrigerate the remaining tender stems.
Still absolutely one of our favorites…
Spinach
pies, Spinach pizza: Simple and versatile, just saute chopped spinach
in oil with onions and garlic, add crumbled feta cheese and salt. This can then be put atop a pizza crust and
baked slightly (black olives add pizzaz).
Or add a little lemon juice and stuff the same mix into pita bread for
"spinach pies".
Rhubarb sauce is great
over cheesecake or waffles!
Elaine's Rhubarb Sauce: Peel and cut up rhubarb into small pieces. Place in saucepan with a tiny bit of water and a lot of honey or sugar. (To 2 c. rhubarb add about ½ c. honey.) Cook over low heat stirring often. When it’s cooked down and almost sauce, add sweetener to taste. “Then, spoon it over ice cream or eat plain.” --thanks Sam.
(Rhubarb Crisp is delicious—see our website recipe box)
Vinaigrettes: Whisk together 2 tbs. wine, herb, or cider vinegar (also lemon or lime juice) with ¼ tsp. Dijon mustard and ¼ c. olive or vegetable oil, salt and pepper. For a berry vinaigrette, try adding 1 tbs. melted seedless berry jam! Raspberry, elderberry, or blackberry all work well.
Rosemary Focaccia: Chop 2 tbs fresh rosemary very finely and add to 1 c. boiling water. (can be right in the breadmaker) add 1 tbs sugar or honey, ½ tsp salt, and 1 c. whole wheat flout and 1 c. unbleached white flour. If using a breadmaker, put 1 tsp. dried yeast in cavity on top of flour and set for making dough. You can time it to be ready when you get home from work. After it has risen, punch down the dough and knead it, adding a little flour if needed. Then roll it out so it forms a square and place on an oiled cookie sheet. Cover and let dough rise until doubled. Sprinkle with tsp. coarse salt and some chopped rosemary leaves. Then dimple by pressing into the dough with the fingers every few inches. Brush or drizzle with olive oil. Bake @ 375 deg. until it sounds hollow when thumped with the fingers—20 min.