Sweet peas have arrived! This is the best time of year for one of our pint-sized customers, who asks about peas on every farm visit! Of course they are amazing fresh, sweet and crunchy all by themselves. If you can hold back from munching them all on your way home, the internet offers a bunch of options to try them sauteed. From the plain and simple to those with mint, lemon, seasame or garlic and parmesan – pick your flavor profile!

Radishes remain the in the box for a few more weeks. If you’ve been tossing out your tops, try quick pickling or fermenting, along with your turnip greens. They are a nice savory condiment to liven up any meal! Tip to tail eating for vegetables! Have a great week – enjoy!

China Gold Napa Cabbage is new to your box this week! While it’s the main ingredient for making your own kimchee, we’ve also found it our go-to for slaw. We love it tossed with canola oil, lime juice, cilantro, shredded or sliced radishes and turnips and a pinch of chili powder and salt as a great summer side. You can also try it with peanut oil, sesame oil and mirin – wherever your menu and your tastebuds take you! Garlic scapes also hit the box this week – they are the flower and stem part of the garlic plant, trimmed to keep the energy in the development of the bulb/cloves. Chop up and add to a stir fry, or pair with the basil in your box for a garlicky pesto. Flashy Troutback is the lettuce of the week! While we’re not big on kitchen gadgets, we highly recommend a lettuce spinner for washing and drying your lettuce once you get your box home. Keeping the lettuce in the spinner in your fridge keeps it both moist and dry – an antidote to wilting. Also, it’s much more likely to get used if it’s prepped and ready to go! We’ve picked up spinners at the big thrift stores (if you are so inclined), and have found them useful for gently washing and drying herbs and berries as well.

This week brings new box additions of radishes and chard, with romaine lettuce. Only a few years ago I learned about the french connection of sliced radishes, butter and a little flakey salt on a baguette (or forget the bread and dip your radish in soft butter with a dash of salt). I remain intrigued, and can’t wait to try this recipe I found of butter braised radishes with sorrel! Here’s a roasted preparation that includes both radishes, turnips and their greens. As for the chard, if you’re looking for something hardy, try this one-pot meal that brings chard, lentil and kielbasa together with onions, tomatoes and smoked paprika (the recipe gives the option of regular paprika, but trust me – it’s not optional!)

With salads such a mainstay this time of year, here’s a wilted salad with ginger sesame dressing to try with your Tatsoi. As for the romaine – you know what to do: Caesar salad anyone? Enjoy! Got good recipes? Add them to the comments below!

Our inaugural week’s boxes host a medley of greens, including mustard, Tatsoi, Pac Choi, salad turnips and New Red Fire lettuce. Together, these can be torn and tossed as a bed for our favorite salad topped with soba noodles, and the protein of your choice. Individually, the Pac Choi can be marinated and grilled as a side, as we did above, while mustard greens are a classic pairing with sausage and chunky pasta. The first local lettuce salad of the year is always a treat, simply dressed, and the salad turnips can be treated like a milder cousin of the radish, a crisp and crunchy salad topping sliced raw. Enjoy!

And cucumbers, eggplant, peppers and all the other sun-loving plants for your kitchen garden? Stop by during the FINAL week of our plant sale! Check out the plant list, and stop on by: Sat/Sun, 9am-2pm.

NEW this week: cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, summer squash, winter squash and pumpkins.

Plant sale: Sat/Sun 9am-2pm. Updated plant list HERE

Sat/Sun 9am-2pm. Current plant list at https://urbanfuturesfarm.com/plant-starts-grow-yer-own/ (Super-cute Flashy Trout Back Lettuces for attention 🥬🥬🥬)

Saturday and Sunday, 9am-2pm. Plant Starts – Grow Yer Own!

We’d love to help you get your garden started with healthy, vigorous plants, selected for great taste and our PNW climate.

Saturdays and Sundays, 9am – 2pm. Cash, check or new this year, debit and credit (Visa/MC).

List of plants at https://urbanfuturesfarm.com/plant-starts-grow-yer-own/

Recent years have seen a progressive weakening of the standards regulating what it means for food to be certified as “organic.” The corporations that now control the USDA certification process have so weakened the definition of organic that today “organic” bears little resemblance to what was intended when Congress passed the Organic Production Act (OPA) in 1990.  Despite the fact that the OPA required that organically certified produce be grown using soil improving practices, last week a judge ruled against a group of true organic farmers, bizarrely and erroneously stating that food doesn’t even have to be grown in soil to be certified as organic. This is another good reminder to be skeptical of the “organic” produce you see on the store shelves, and to build relationships with local farmers you can trust to grow your food sustainably and truly organically, in fertile, healthy, biologically diverse soil. To learn more about the lawsuit check out the email below:

https://mailchi.mp/realorganicproject/john-tester-5223880?e=a98f288347