Maryland's Pick July 8th

Welcome to Week 7 of Maryland’s Pick!

Maryland’s Pick items for Friday, July 8: 

We’re thrilled to announce the addition of green beans to this week's bag from Cutfresh Organics in Snow Hill MD...

Attached you will also find the recipes.

This week from the farms!  July 8^th 2011

Homestead Farms –

·         Organic Grape Tomatoes

·         Organic Cherry Sungold Tomatoes

Koinonia Farms –

·         Organic Spearmint

·         Organic Thyme

Chesapeake Green house –

·         Green Bibb Lettuce

·         Spring Mix

Colora Orchards, Swann Farms or Shlagel Farms –

·         Yellow Peaches

Swann Farms

·         White Corn

Richardson Farms

·         Eggplant

·         Collard Greens

Cutfresh Organics

·         Green Beans

Just a reminder our 1 DAY DEAL this friday will be organic cherries only $2.99lb, regularly $7.99lb... that's a $5 lb savings. On Saturday July 8 at 11am we will have a fresh, cut to order harpooned caught MSC swordfish for only $17.99lb... we look forward to seeing you & hope you are enjoying your bags...

Maryland's Pick June 24, 2010

Welcome to Week 5 of Maryland’s Pick! Thanks for all of your help and feedback with this program so far.  We recently spoke with Luke from Homestead Farms and the weather continues to be extremely tough on their crops. While we expected to have squash ready for this week, it was “cooked” by the heat earlier this month. Hopefully the rain we received earlier this week will turn everything around! Feel free to learn more about Homestead Farms and the current conditions by visiting the Homestead Farms blog at: http://www.freshorganicvegetables.com/blog/on-the-farm  

Here are a couple of highlights we’ve received from our Maryland farmers about what is on the horizon:

·         Homestead Farms tomatoes should hopefully be ready to go in two weeks.  When they start popping, we should have tons!

·         Homestead Farms has new red potatoes growing well, which should be ready to go at about the same time as the tomatoes.

·         Homestead Farms has planted watermelons and cantaloupes, which should be ready in about one month.

·         Colora Orchards should start shipping stonefruit the week of July 4^th or shortly after.  Locally grown fruit is otherwise pretty tight until then…

·         Chesapeake Greenhouse has some other varieties of lettuce growing for us.  You can expect some red bibb, lollo rosa, lollo biondi, and red/green oak leaf.

·         Local salad dressing company, Tessemae’s, will be introducing new dressing varieties this summer. We’re looking at getting some samples in the bags for you to try!

Below is the list of Maryland’s Pick items for Friday, June 24: 

Homestead Farms

·         Green Cabbage

Koinonia Farms

·         Basil

·         Poultry Blend

Chesapeake Green house

·         Green Bibb Lettuce

·         Spring Mix

Hummingbird Farms

·         Cluster Tomatoes

Maryland's Pick June 17, 2010

Welcome to week 4 of the Maryland Pick program!

We were hoping to move out of some of the lettuces and greens this week and into a slightly more diverse bag, however mother nature was not on our side.  We were scheduled to add cucumbers and zucchini, however the heat last weekend stymied the growth.  Some of you have also asked about fruit in the bags – the Maryland season for fruit is a bit later into the summer, but when it arrives in a few weeks it should be great. We expect some fantastic peaches out of Poolesville, MD!

Here is the list of what each bag should look like this week:

 From Homestead Farms:

·          1 head of napa cabbage

·          1 head of green cabbage

·          1 bunch of swiss chard

From Koinonia Farms:

·          1 clamshell of organic chives

·          1 clamshell of organic thyme

From Chesapeake Greenhouse:

2 heads of Bibb lettuce

1 head of “spring mix”, roots included!

From Arnold Farms:

2 lbs of yellow squash

Maryland's Pick June 10, 2011

We are still early in the Maryland produce season, so the bag this week is again heavy on the early “growers” such as lettuce and kale. We spoke with Homestead Farm about the produce variety and his answer got us excited – there’s a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks! Here’s a quick snapshot…

From Luke at Homestead Farms, “I would expect we will have onions, kohlrabi, and green cabbage within the next week or two. Tomatoes are on the vine, but just starting. We should also have some peppers, summer squash and egg plant early summer. We also tried sweet corn this year, but don’t hold your breath for that. The worms seem to like it more than the customers…..”

Your Maryland Pick bag for Friday, June 10 should contain the following:

From Homestead Farms:

·          1 head of Napa cabbage

·          1 head of Green Romaine Lettuce

·          2 bunches of Dinosaur Green Kale

·          1 bunch of Swiss/Rainbow Chard (medium bunch with red stems)

From Shenandoah Growers, Virginia*

1 clamshell of Organic Chives

·          1 clamshell of Organic Thyme

*Note – the herbs were originally sourced from Koinonia Farms in Stevenson, MD however there was an unexpected production issue, and we replaced them at the last minute with local herbs from Virginia. Also, some of you have asked about why the herbs come packaged as opposed to a bunch. While you can purchase some herbs in a loose bunch, the farms have provided us with herbs in a plastic clamshell container to help maintain the quality and keep the herbs fresh longer.

From Tessemae’s:

1 bottle of Tessemae’s dressing – With an abundance of lettuce this week, we wanted to throw in one of our favorite local dressings. Tessamae’s is a fantastic company, based right here in Annapolis! Learn more by visiting: http://www.tessemaes.com/

From Chesapeake Greenhouse:

2 heads of Bibb lettuce

1 head of Bouquet lettuce

Maryland's Pick June 3, 2011

Your Maryland Pick bag for Friday, June 3 should contain the following:

Homestead Farms (Poolesville, MD)

·         Green Leaf Lettuce

·         Red Leaf Lettuce

·         Green kale

·         Bok Choy

·         Napa cabbage

Koinonia Farms (Stevenson, MD)

·         Cilantro

·         Mint

Hummingbird Farms (Sudlersville, MD)

·         Vine tomatoes

·         Heirloom tomatoes

Tip of the week: napa cabbage

The napa cabbage is going to come with most of the plant attached.  It stays together better and holds up well with its leaves attached.  That being said, the plant is quite large.  You will find the outer leaves are fuzzy/spiny and need to be removed.  The spiny-ness varies from plant to plant, but basically, you need to strip off the outer leaves until you get to the tender part of the cabbage.  This will be 3-4 layers of outer leaves.  Inside you will find the most tender, crisp cabbage! 

Maryland's Pick

I just joined the Maryland's Pick at the local Whole Foods.


What does the this mean? I will pick up a red bag at Whole Foods each Friday, starting May 27 to September 30th. 


Each bag contains between 6 and 10 varieties of freshly picked produce. Types and amounts of each will vary according to season, weather and what is being harvested on our partner farms that week. All produce is local, so you’ll get what’s grown right here in Maryland. Our partner farms will vary according to the season and what each has available for harvest. 


I will blog the contents of the bag and the menu's that we make of the fruit and vegetables.