By Joe Dennis, Nostalgia Farms, Walcott, IA
Tis the season, and I don’t mean Christmas. The Freight House Farmer’s Market is back on the riverfront and we are thrilled to see new and old friends visiting our growers.
The greens have been coming in force: lettuce mix, spinach, romaine lettuce, and butter crunch lettuce along with kale and Swiss chard. We’ve also been harvesting radishes and early strawberries.
I know it’s summer when I end my days getting a couple flats of tomatoes in the ground before the next round of rain. We are still in the midst of trying to get as much planted as possible in the next few weeks, especially, tomato, peppers, eggplant, beans, summer squash and cucumbers. Winter squash and additional plantings of beets, carrots and the like can wait until the end of the month for us.
As I mentioned, we are still harvesting lots of spinach and our lettuce mix. We have been harvesting close to 100 heads of ‘Baby Star’ Romaine and ‘Esmeralda’ bib lettuce for the last few weeks. I picked the first strawberries from the high tunnel for Mother’s Day and we should be at peak production in May and June. I’m also picking kale and Swiss chard — these are great greens to add to your garden for the simple fact they can be harvested all season long, and withstand both cool and hot weather. With a little protection in the fall, kale can be harvested through several heavy frosts.
Nostalgia Farms Foods at Front Street
In other news, we are very excited to add Front Street Brewery in downtown Davenport to our restaurant buyers. Thanks to Chef Brian Olsen for getting back into the restaurant business and keeping his interest in buying from local farmers a priority for his culinary creations. It takes a special chef willing to work with what is fresh and local and be willing to change up their menu accordingly.
I’ll be asking Chef Brian to provide us all with a recipe or two in the upcoming months –one of his requests has been for squash blossoms. I plan on growing a few plants just for this purpose. Usually stuffed with cheese dipped in batter and fried, they are sure to be a hit with his customers. The biggest challenge is to keep them chemical free and to keep the squash beetles away from the blossoms. I will grow these plants under protection of a row cover or inside a cardboard box with top off and a piece of screening for a lid.
Since our greens are so popular, here’s a great idea for a simple dressing with two different salads.
Two salads and one simple dressing.
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Joe Dennis is a farmer at Nostalgia Farms in Walcott, Iowa. Together with his partner, Ed Kraklio, they sell locally-grown, organic produce at the Freight House Farmer’s Market in downtown Davenport, IA near LeClaire Park, every Tuesday (3-6 pm) and Saturday (8 am -1 pm). You can visit the farm’s website at: www.nostalgiafarms.com. Read more of Farmer Joe’s blog posts on MVHNews, or try any of the Nostalgia Farms recipes on this website. |
