Market

This Saturday, June 30th, we will have:

-Arugula
-Cilantro
-Parsley
-Basil
-Kale
-Carrots
-Beets
-Swiss Chard

Beauty and the Beets

I realized I haven't posted any recipes in a while and I was thinking about it and thought I would share with you how to cook beets. Every week at the market people ask us how to cook them and how we eat them.  It is very easy to cook beets and you have options! 

Roasting
Pre-heat your oven to 375 F. Cut the tops off the beets (save them for later) and put the beets in an oven-safe pan, put a little bit of water in the bottom of the pan, and cover with a lid or with foil.  If your beets are very different sizes, you can cut them up into even pieces. Depending on the size of the beets, it might take over 45 minutes to cook them. Check with a fork and if the fork goes in easily to the center, you know they are done. Rinse in cool water and then peel with a knife. The skins will peel right off like a boiled potato.

Boiling
Cut off the tops of the beets and cover with water in a pan. Simmer for about 45 minutes, until tested with a fork. Again, the skins will be very easy to peel off.

Beet Greens
Rich in Vitamin A, the greens should not be composted! Cook them like you would swiss chard or kale. You can sautee them with garlic, onions, and olive oil and they cook down a lot and make a great side dish. They are also great raw served in a salad!

I used to hate beets but now love them.  I love to cook them, slice them, and serve them on a plate drizzled with olive oil, vinegar, s + p, and a little bit of chopped basil.  On top of a salad with arugula and goat cheese and candied walnuts is also a killer combination.  If you are really into beets, you can also make borscht - a hearty beet soup!

Now for the beauty part. This week our tables at the market were bountiful and looked fantastic. We even had a few flower arrangements that we made from our perennial garden. 

I took some time on Friday night to walk around and take some close ups of some veggies because it is easy to forget how beautiful they are and what they turn into from tiny little seeds!

Green Cabbage

 

Savoy Cabbage

Market

This Saturday, June 23rd, we will have:

-Swiss Chard
-Carrots
-Basil (a few bunches only for the early birds!)
-Cilantro
-Parsley
-Arugula
-Head Lettuce
-Beets

We are getting a break in this hot weather and Saturday looks like it will be beautiful! Please come out and celebrate the official beginning of summer with us!

Transition

I feel like I don't remember this happening last year, but I am sure it did. We are currently in transition from our cooler weather crops to our hot summer crops and we may have pushed it a little too far with our lettuces and radishes.  With the mild spring, we planted successive crops of our greens and radishes but maybe we should have held off on the last one. Just in the past week, most of the lettuce got very bitter and all of the radishes developed a very tough skin and woody and hollow inside. It was a good thing we tasted these things on Friday night before we picked for market because I would have hated to sell an inferior product on Saturday.

 

The cold frames have done their job and we have ripped almost everything 

out of there as you can see it is rather warm inside! 

On Friday we pulled all of the lettuce out (we were able to sell only about 10 heads) and all of the radishes and made our compost pile very happy. We are now waiting for the flowers, green beans, tomatoes, eggplant, and garlic to grow as we transition into our next phase. Until then, there is plenty of weeding and watering to do!

Compost pile

Garlic

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

Happy Father's Day to all of the fathers out there and especially to my dad, Terry. He is an incredible dad and now a grandfather to Ada. I think he is happier than he's ever been now that going to "work" everyday means taking care of Ada. I know that Hannah and Ian are beyond grateful for his love and care for their daughter.

My dad has always been one of the most supportive and generous people that I know. I have never asked for something and gotten a moment's hesitation from him. All three of us are so lucky to have grown up in such a loving family and although my dad and I are too similar for our own good sometimes, I have especially enjoyed the last 3 years working on the garden project together. It has been so fun collaborating as adults on the farm and bringing what we each know to the table.  He is also one of the smartest people I know and seems to know a little bit about everything, as he proves so in his Trivial Pursuit skills at Thanksgiving every year and his daily mastery of the New York Times crossword puzzle. He knows how to get anywhere in Cleveland and I take advantage of that probably too often by calling him every time I get lost (hence, he got me a GPS for Christmas, yet I still call him just as much!). And, even though my mom does most of the cooking in the house, he does make the best pancakes and coffee. 

He is such an instrumental part of Endeavor Farm that it literally would not be possible without him. He is out there every day weeding, watering, fixing holes in the fence, and making sure everything is going as planned. Even though it is an exhausting job, I never hear him complain and we are so grateful for his hard work! I love you, Dad!

Also, a special Happy Father's Day to three very important dads to me: 

Ian, John, and Don!

Market

This week, on Saturday, June 16th, will will have:

- Scapes (they're back for this week only!)
- Beets
- Cilantro
- Arugula
- Salad mix
- Head Lettuce
- Spinach
- Napa cabbage
- Radishes
- Swiss chard
- Carrots

It's going to be hot on Saturday, so come early to get your produce right into the fridge!  We have lots of delicious veggies that dad will love for his Father's Day dinner! It will be a great day to grill out and have a nice big Endeavor Farm salad on the side!

Unpredictable

Every week seems to be different for us at Endeavor Farm. Part of farming is learning to go along with what happens and being able to be flexible when things don't go as expected. The weather has a lot to do with what grows well and what doesn't but we have tried to change what we have control over like the soil and timing of planting.  For example, last year our beets wouldn't grow bigger than a golf ball, but 2 years before that, we had more huge, beautiful beets than we knew what to do with.  Last year we couldn't get our carrots to grow, so this year Terry tilled the soil deeper and we had beautiful carrots last week! It is all about balance and experimenting and figuring out what works from year to year. It will forever be an ongoing process and maybe we will never have the "perfect" year, but that is always the goal! 

Good Surprises:

- Carrots

- Huge heads of lettuce (we compensated for last year's tiny heads, and ended up with perhaps to many this year!)

- Cilantro (I have never seen such beautiful cilantro that grows back so fast each week)

- Beets 

- Arugula 

- Salad mix

- Swiss Chard

- Radishes

Minor Disappointments:

- Shallots (they are expensive to start and aren't thriving as much as we'd like)

- Kale (it's growing, but is off to a slow start)

- Napa Cabbage (some of it bolted really early)

Watering the garden is an ongoing task, but we are grateful for not trudging in mud like last year! 

The flowers are coming along and Terry and Bev have been staying on top of the weeding!

Market

This Saturday, June 9th, we will have:

-Leaf lettuce (Red lettuce, Panisse lettuce, and Black Seeded Simpson lettuce)
-Radishes
-Arugula
-Spinach
-Salad Mix
-Cilantro
-Swiss Chard
-Kale
-Beets
-Napa Cabbage

We Must Be Doing Something Right

After last year's weather and continual struggle to grow bountiful crops, we are so relieved that things are looking up. The beets and carrots are already much bigger than we were able to grow last year and we sold out of them very quickly.  We have a ways to go this season but it was so nice bringing such a bountiful spread to the market on Saturday. We were left with a lot of lettuce because just about everyone sells greens this time of year, but our heads were massive and looked beautiful.

After the market we went back to the garden to get in some weeding. Terry staked all of the tomatoes and we are confident we will have a better crop than last year. We are only going to bring a small selection of tomato plants to the market next week, but we do have plenty left so please call or email us if you still need to get some for your own garden!

My favorite part of the farm is being able to eat what we grow. Tonight's dinner was pork steaks from Sand Farm, sauteed swiss chard, scapes, onions, Sand Farm bacon, and broccoli with a side of fried potatoes. This meal was just what I needed to start out the week and I look forward to eating more and more produce as it is ready!