JT and I shopping at local farm produce stand

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Farmer market lasagna

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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 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 May 27, 2011

Your Maryland’s Pick bag will contain the following produce:

From Homestead Farms (Poolesville, MD):

·         Dandelion Greens

·         Mustard Greens

·         Turnips

·         Green Leaf Lettuce

·         Red Leaf Lettuce

From Godfrey Farms (Sudlersville, MD)

·         Asparagus

·         Strawberries

The bag will also contain a list of recipes we compiled based on this week’s produce.