Week 14: Our farm to table meal
This week, we had the opportunity to cook lunch for all our classmates and instructors—something we looked forward to for a very long time. Ethan and I spent the early part of the week planning our menu, harvesting vegetables, and gathering ingredients. Thursday morning, we had three hours to put everything together.
We cooked the following:
- Beet burgers with fresh dill
- Carrot falafel patties
- Zucchini fritters with an herbed greek yogurt dip (a HUGE hit!)
- Massaged kale salad
- Quick refrigerator pickles
- Fresh raspberry-mint iced tea
Everyone really loved and appreciated the meal. The zucchini fritters were definitely the favorite. We will be making them again at home ASAP!
What new summer recipes have you tried this year? Reply to this email and send us your recipe!
What class have we most been looking forward to this year? For me, it was pest identification! I got introduced to a lot of pests common in Iowa while working at Echollective Farm last year. It sounds funny, but I was relieved to learn that the pests in Washington are mostly the same (though the pest pressure is fairly light here, at least on Whidbey Island). We got to spend the afternoon looking for insects and their tiny eggs on the undersides of leaves.
Thankfully, we were also looking for (and finding) the good bugs that eat the bad bugs. For example, wherever we found large numbers of aphids, we also found adult ladybugs. Where we found cabbage moths, we also found parasitic wasps attacking their eggs. It was comforting to know that we have these little helpers on the farm keeping the farm ecosystem in balance.
I’m excited to learn more about what insectary plants we can grow to help the good bugs thrive!
In terms of our rotations, we are back to the beginning again! I worked on propagation (seeding) this week and Ethan was back on the BCS two-wheeled tractor.
Seeding vegetables is one of my absolute favorite jobs on the farm. Pictured above is a Chioggia beet that I helped to seed during one of our first weeks of the program. We are finally harvesting them to bring to the farmers market now. It still surprises me to see how long it really takes to bring a vegetable from seed to harvest! And guess what? I seeded beets again this week! I love the cyclical nature of the farm and the special vegetables that grow well both at the beginning of the season and at the end.
