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Oh deer!

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Oh deer!
This Week's Vegetable Harvest:
  • Cucumbers
  • Zucchini
  • Mixed Head Lettuces
  • Kohlrabi
  • Scallions
  • Curly Green Kale
  • Parsley
  • Summer Taster: Tomato or Bell Pepper
This Week's Fruit Harvest:
  • Fresh Tart Cherries
  • Fresh Blueberries
  • Fresh Sweet Cherries
Farm Journal
As we posted to social media, we had a very large visitor to our hoophouse tomatoes this week. This large buck and a smaller doe frequent our farm fields and in particular, to several of our tomato and lettuce plantings.
While we are awestruck by these beautiful creatures, they can be destructive. Luckily, Jeff was able to gently scare the buck out of our hoophouse without the deer puncturing the plastic walls, taking down trellised tomatoes, pulling up the landscape fabric or damaging the metal supports. Whew!
The center of our field lettuces are sometimes not as lucky. Although we fence in our field lettuces, young trees and young bushes, and we plant in multiple successions, we still don't have yet enough fencing to protect all 15 acres of our field crops from deer. We trust that things will work out (and often, they do!) and we hope that the attractive weeds we grow will look more delicious to the deer than our lettuces!
Gavin likes to make noise to scare the deer away and finds plenty of goodies remaining in the hoophouse.
Onwards! Jeff and Tyler channel their focus towards the next big task at hand: the garlic harvest! On Monday, while the team harvested, Jeff and Tyler spent time preparing for the big garlic dig. They rebuilt our garlic drying structure (creatively named the Dry Master 9000), reconfigured the tractor to handle this year's unique garlic planting, conducted test harvests to ensure a smooth harvest process and made sure all of the recording keeping processes were ready for the team.
The team moves like busy bees to harvest, clean and count garlic heads.
With 6500 garlic heads predicted to come from the field today, the team spends the day digging, pulling, cleaning, counting, transporting and drying this year's garlic crop.
We look forward to sharing this harvest for you in the coming weeks and months. Until then, enjoy this week's summer bounty!

Warmly,
Jeff, Jen, Tyler, Abbey, Arlet, Kim, Chrissie, Andromeda, Lucas and Owen
Its Gazpacho Season and More Half Cases of Tomato Puree are Available!

Our collaborators at Turtle Creek Gardens experienced a downturn in their tomato puree sales to restaurants, so we're striving to help them out and make more Shared Harvest puree available to you! 

Same delicious product, same packaging, same harvest and same offer. More information is available on our website. You can order HERE. Thank you!
Notes from the Farm Kitchen
Kohlrabi is a member of the broccoli and cabbage family. Kohlrabi forms when the stem swells to a bulb right about the soil. Some varieties are purple and others are light green or white. The bulb is delicious peeled and eaten raw. Just peel it, slice thinly and serve with or without dip. I tend to slice into match sticks and kids eat like apples!  The greens of kohlrabi can be used like kale, collards, and other hearty cooking greens. These types of greens become tender and delicious when simmered over low to medium heat for 30 to 60 minutes. 
This week, each member will receive a taste of summer in the form of tomatoes or bell peppers. Both crops are just starting to ripen so we're sharing a taste to provide a window into what's to come. You will see more of both in upcoming summer shares!
Seasonal Recipes from the Farm Kitchen
Classic Tart Cherry Pie - This is my go-to cherry pie recipe. I oftentimes leave off the top crust and just add some crushed pecans instead, or I'll play around with adding different berries (e.g., raspberries, blueberries) for texture. Its a flexible recipe!

Kohlrabi Slaw - While we wait for the cabbage harvest to come in (soon!), this is a great summer slaw.

Sunchoke Kale Hash with Farro - If you still have sunchokes stored and wheat berries (can be used in place of farro), here's a great recipe to use all.

Cooking Ideas: 15 Ways to Use Fresh Parsley

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