July 10 Farm Update |

Leffler Family Farms’ Weekly Update 7/10

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Around the farm

CSA members will be happy to see a few new veggies in their shares this week as summer really starts to bear down on Northern Colorado. We just picked our first small round of green beans. This season we are growing more gourmet types of green beans as they are one of my top 3 favorite veggies that we eat at home. Haricot vert green beans are a French style bean that grow very slender and are really tender when picked at the right stage. We will have purple, yellow wax and traditional green Haricot verts this season along with a few other unique varieties such as Dragons Tongue and Red Swan. Dragon’s Tongue is a larger podded flat bean with purple stripes (very sweet and amazing when eaten raw) and Red Swan is a cross between a purple green bean with a pinto bean to get an edible red colored green bean. We also just picked the first purple carrots, some of what actually made it from the sparse first planting of the season.

Bugs and weeds are increasing and becoming a problem in some of the crops right now. The brassicas that were flea beetle free a few weeks ago are now pretty infested and becoming very challenging to maintain. We probably will not see much more in the Brassica family until this fall when bug populations are way down and we can grow everything without the use of any pesticides, even organic ones. Weeds have tripled in size and are growing fast! We are thinking about having a weed pulling party soon, so please let us know if you are interested in coming out to the farm and help knock some weeds down the old fashion way!

Farmer’s table

Here is a little taste of what we cooked this past week at home on the farm.

Chiooga beets (aka Candy Cane beets) on the BBQ

Peel and thinly slice beets into rings. Put into a large enough piece of foil to make a packet that will close tightly. Sprinkle with olive oil and a little salt and close up packet. Grill over direct heat for 15 minutes, then open up packet and grill for another 5-10 minutes. This will allow for the bottom to caramelize and finish cooking. Serve as a side dish warm or cool them off and put them on top of your salad greens.

Come and see us tomorrow on the farm.

Sarah and I will be grilling out by the big silver shed tomorrow from 4-7pm. Everyone is welcome to come and check out the farms progress, so if you have a chance please stop by! We will be giving mini tours of the field so you can see first-hand what we are currently working on and what will be ready in the upcoming weeks.

Pictures…