After our passionate email last week, we received numerous (and very appreciated!) notes of thanks and solidarity. We were also sweetly reminded that many people need ongoing help in the form of recipe suggestions to know the best way to prepare and enjoy the vegetables that we grow.

Thank you for the reminder! We normally include recipe suggestions just in our emails May – November, but we will get things started again today. We also often hear that many of you are looking for the most simple suggestions of how to prepare this food. Thus, we vow for 2015 to offer more very simple ideas of dishes, in addition to more time-intensive recipes. (Save those for Sundays??)

Farm Family confession, first: Most simple vegetable preparation ideas are going to sound like this: “Saute with onion, garlic, butter, and salt.”  – OR – “Chop into bite-size pieces and mix raw vegetable with olive oil, salt, and pepper.”

Confession, Part 2: If you ask our children the simplest way they enjoy many vegetables, they might start reciting their favorite food poem, which includes the line “Nothing is dross under barbecue sauce!” This is known to make Janet cry a little, as topping all vegetables with barbecue sauce is less than a compliment to the cook, but hey – sometimes we have to compromise to get young eaters to eat as many vegetables as we parents would like them to eat. [Full poem information: “Song to Barbecue Sauce” by Roy Blount, Jr., pg 163, The Hungry Ear Poems of Food and Drink edited by Kevin Young.] Their next favorite line from the poem: “I’d eat Spanish moss…With barbecue sauce.”
 Out of the kitchen and onto the farm: Spring is marching onward. We prep beds as shown above, after adding a carefully calculated mix of nutrients, per soil test and planned crops to plant in said bed. 
Then we transplant all the thousands of plants from the greenhouse into the earth.

Everything that we have planted outside is still busy growing – not yet ready to harvest. Thank you for your patience! From our high tunnel, we have salad greens and cooking greens this week. As promised, we offer up that the best way to enjoy both is as mentioned above! All three are fabulous raw, tossed with just olive oil, salt, and perhaps some balsamic vinegar. For the kale and chard, we like to slice them into manageable pieces and then massage the liquids and salt into them. OR – saute the kale and/or chard with butter, onion, garlic, and salt. (The onions and garlic need more cooking time than the greens – soften them in the cooking oil first, then add the greens for a quick saute.)

We also have some beets available. They fall into our next favorite cooking style category: Dice and roast! Dice, toss with a bit of fat of your choice (butter, coconut oil…) in addition to salt and pepper, spread on a baking sheet, and roast at 375 degrees until the texture of your preference. (20 minutes?)
Oh…and those onions we suggest putting in every saute? This time of year it is scallions that are available. We love them!
Tisha of Tisha Lyn Photography is doing a fabulous farm-photography project this season, and we are honored to be a part. She visited us this past week and has teased us with showing us just one incredibly lovely photo. See below! And, if you are looking for someone for family or event portraits, we can’t recommend her enough. 

Available for Market Share CSA members to choose from this week: Beets, Chard, Salad Mix, Kale (red russian), Microgreens, Pepper Jelly, Fermented Jalapenos, and naturally leavened Hearth Baked Bread. PLUS Plants: Cabbage, Collards, Kale, earliest-season Tomatoes

2015 Market Share CSA Members: Reserve your selection online to pick up on Saturday, April 18 at our farm, at Good Health Herbs, or at the South of the James market. (Any vegetables remaining after CSA members choose their selection will be available at the SOJ market, along with transplants for your garden.)

**Anyone may order select goods from us, when available, through Fall Line Farms, Richmond’s online farmers’ market. You can use discount code “broadfork” to earn a complimentary 6 month subscription.

AND – those of you wanting to sport our beautiful (and organic!) t-shirts and/or hoodies, you can now order them directly from the printer, in the size and color of your choosing! See our online shirt shop to place your order. We can’t wait to see you sporting these! Huge thanks, as always, to the talented Jennifer Strader for drawing the artwork for us.

Enjoy ~
Janet, Dan, and the rest of the Broadfork crew
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Reminder: Our next Farm Tour is Saturday, May 9th at 2:30. Our Plant Sale is also that afternoon, from 1:00 – 5:00, where you can shop from our full selection of vegetable and herb transplants for your garden. Please plan to join us, and spread the word! Check out the new barn, featuring farm stand and CSA member pick up area, and join in a guided walking tour of our abundant vegetable farm in Chesterfield county to learn how we manage the soil and plants for optimum health, nutritional content, and overall deliciousness!  {No fee for the tour. Family friendly. Please – no pets.}

Certified Naturally Grown farm in search of (in exchange for cash or vegetables)…
:: Area rug approximately 6×9′ or bigger (to use in the area we are making in the barn in which our children may play and rest comfortably during work days)