That was a fun party! Here's my hard-working crew at the end of the evening last Sunday the close of our Lambs and Lettuces Festival. We had sprinkles most of the day, but that allowed us to finish with a gorgeous sunset and a DOUBLE RAINBOW. We felt so thankful. And speaking of thankful - what about that potluck table! The crew had to keep bringing more tables into the house to hold all the gorgeous dishes. So well done. And now on to more great food...

This was a forage week for us. We like to keep our eyes out on the fields and hedgerows to spy what we might be able to bring you that's growing wild in our neighborhood. We started too late this year for nettles and watercress, unfortunately, but we are having a banner year for Elderberry Blossoms! They are the pretty bouquet at the top of your box. Put them in a vase in a cool room in your house and try to use them in the amazing Elderberry Flower Fritter recipe we've posted at the Recipe Blog. We had them for crew lunch today and they were a tremendous hit. Such a fleeting lovely treat.

Everything else is a bit more recognizable as food - lots of terrific greens, the first kale and YIPPEE! snap and snow peas! Enjoy. Remember, you want to try to eat the first things listed first, as they are the most perishable.

A NOTE ABOUT YOUR BOXES: you will be returning boxes to us this week, both at the farm and at Fat Cat. In both cases, fold flat and tuck the plastic liner into the flattened box. You can arrange them neatly behind a planter at Fat Cat, or take them into John at the counter when you get your cappuccino. In the barn cooler, just follow the signs. Those of you with egg shares, we'd like to have those cute cartons back, too.

Elderberry Flowers - A wonderful treat fried up with a lightly sauteed tempura batter. See our recipe on the Recipe Blog page or lots of other ones at the Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page.

Strawberries and Mulberries - So delightful to have enough mullberries to pack for you. We very much enjoy shaking the trees to harvest these off sheets on the ground. Beats the bending over that must be done to get those strawberries.

Nasturtium Salad - We are calling this Nasturtium Salad because in addition to lettuce, spinach, and sorrel leaves, we've also packed nasturtium leaves in here. Though mostly grown for ornamental purposes here in the US, nasturtium leaves are grown for salad greens in South America and it's easy to taste why. They are lightly peppery and delicious, in addition to being very pretty.

Nasturtium Flowers - We kept the flowers out of your salad this week, so that you can use them other ways. Garnish a soup, fill with a cream cheese dip and serve as an appetizer, or throw on top of that salad after all.

Lemon Balm - This wonderful fresh herb we've bunched for you is a terrific addition to tea, baked goods and is absolutely awesome in salad dressing. Try this recipe for dressing, or try the wonderful Lemon Balm Pound Cake we made for the Lambs and Lettuces Festival.

Arugula - Buggy, yes. By that I mean that the flea beetles do love this stuff as much as I do! But there are no bug on there now, so enjoy! We love arugula mixed with salad, we love it topping a pizza, we love it wrapped in proscuitto and speared with an olive, we love it lightly sauteed in olive oil and garlic scapes and tossed with pasta.

Garlic Scapes - These curly little friends on the top of your box are the flower head of the fall garlic we are growing. Use them just like scallions, only they taste like mild garlic! One of the most fun crops of the year until the kohlrabi comes in.

Dill and Thyme - So many great uses for these fresh herbs. We hope to give you more as the season progresses. This is just a trim to keep the plants producing. The ferny stuff is dill - great on eggs, fish, goat cheese. The small purple flowered stalks are thyme and we use it cit with a scissor into absolutely everything. Wonderful in soups. Essential!

Snap and Snow Peas - Yay!  Who doesn't love pea season!!!!??? We have eaten so many in the field we are sick some days! This is an every-day picker for us. They just keep coming and coming wonderfully. Zip the strips of tough fiber from the sides by snapping the little stem hat and zipping downward. Eat raw dipped in a Thai peanut sauce or Yogurt Ranch Dressing, or sautee lightly and they'll get even sweeter, if possible!

Kale - First kale of the year so tender and sweet, I recommend slicing into ribbons and adding it to your salad. But we are happy for you to cook it lightly with those garlic scapes, too. Great in soup. Zip the sturdy stalk from the middle of the leave and eat it like celery dipped in ranch or goat cheese.

Rhubarb - More! If you didn't get to try every Pinterest recipe you wanted to, now is your chance!

Basil to Plant - We'll be packing basil soon, but we want you tino have a TON of it, because that's how we are with herbs:) Plant it in a big container and pinch back (by that I mean use some leaves) regularly, and you will have a bushy herb fountain all season until frost.

Welcome to the start of the CSA season! We are so delighted to finally be packing boxes. This year we scheduled boxes about 2 weeks later than our average, to accommodate the slow warm-up after the long winter. Things seem to have caught up nicely, however, and this box is full-to-brimming with spring favorites.

Ah - spring. It went awfully fast, didn't it? But spring is all about fleeting pleasures. And even though we're awfully close to summer (Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year and the official start to the new season, is Saturday, June 21) we're partaking of many unique spring treats this week. My personal all-time early-season delicacy is pictured above, in all it's fresh perfect glory - a flat of pea shoots. We actually grow these in the greenhouse once it's empty of all transplants. The lower light of diffused sun makes the shoots long, leggy, thin and tender, while our field crops of snap and snow peas are out in full sun getting beefy and strong to withstand a long month of production. These little shoots we've cut for you at just 6 inches. Munch them raw, as is, use to garnish a salad or cool dish, or saute and arrange atop a bed of grains.

Below we've detailed the full Harvest List of what is in your first box. We've arranged the list in order of most perishable to least perishable, and we will do that every week. So eat the first things first! Here we'll give you just a brief idea of ways to store, prepare and eat each crop, and you'll find a few recipes for each box over at the Recipes Blog. We are including fewer recipes than we have in the past however. We are finding that most of our customers are searching the internet for recipes these days, and so we've assembled our web favorites for each week's box over at our  Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page. If you aren't already on Pinterest, do consider signing up, if only for our page. We've got so many nice pictures, ideas and recipes cataloged over there.

We know you'll likely have questions about some of the veggies - we hope to surprise you with at least one unique offering in each box - and you can contact us via email. We'll try to get back to you in a timely way. But we also hope you'll bring your questions to us in person at the Field-To-Table Dinners. There is still room to reserve seats at each of the four dates right now, so let us know when you'd like to come.  And don't forget about our upcoming Lambs and Lettuces Spring Farm Festival: Sunday, June 22, 3 til 9pm. Bring friends, neighbors and a dish to pass at our big 6pm potluck!


Strawberries - They'll be best if you eat them today. Great paired with arugula in a salad!

Salad Mix with Nasturtium and/or Viola Flowers - You know we like a fancy dressed-up salad. This week's salad was a bit of a challenge since so much of the field greens got beat up in various thunderstorms and tornados! So we picked everything we had out there that was nice - including some baby spinach and round peppery nasturtium leaves.  The flowers are edible, too, and tasty! Like pepper mixed with radish.

Dill (in a tiny bag) - This first picking of dill should insure that we'll have more dill for cucumber season in a few weeks - we've cut the fledgling flower heads off to encourage side shoots. My favorite way to use dill is to hold it over a dish and cut with scissors. Great paired with eggs, fish or potatoes. Wonderful in plain yogurt with a little salt and pepper.

Arugula - This small bag of greens may or may not be a new taste for you. This Italian favorite can be enjoyed raw on it's own as a salad (see our Pinterest page for some gorgeous salads!) or sauteed in olive oil and used over pasta. Our favorite is on pizza! But this week, since we've given you fresh garlic and garlic scapes, why not blitz them all in the blender with olive oil to make a lovely pesto for baguette slices? Perhaps some assertive asiago shaved on top?

Chocolate Mint - This mint is sweet and quite special. Try it in our Boozy Mint Brownie recipe, add to lemonade, chop over fruit salad or make a straight-up mint tea. What you won't use in a week, hang up and dry right away. When it's dry, crush and store in a sealed container. Dried mint is great added to coffee when you brew it.

Micro Beets - These tiny whole beets are shoots we thinned from our rows of fall beets. They are sweet, tender, and well, a bit weird, we know. But give them a try!  We like them tossed in with salad, but If raw doesn't suit you,  chop and add to your next saute, or better yet, act like a chef and lightly steam before arranging them in a tiny bouquet on top of a fish fillet or steak. We love these quickly sauteed in a cast iron skillet and used as a base for poached eggs.

Sorrel - These bunches of long lance-shaped leaves are a perennial herb crop that is one of the first to appear in the gardens. In fact, we've been enjoying sorrel salads, soups and sauces here for many weeks. The flavor is very lemon-y and tart.  It'll work well as a salad with a nice buttermilk dressing, but also is great ribboned into a lettuce salad. The flavor is especially delicious with fish, and you'll find lots of ideas for using it on our Farmer Kriss pinterest page. Don't wash until you are ready to use.

Oregano - Oregano is also a perennial herb and is peaking in the gardens right now. We've given you a lot of it, because it is beautiful at the moment and needs to be cut before it flowers. Make homemade pizza! We've put some great recipes for using fresh oregano up on the pinterest page and the Recipe Blog, but we fully expect you to dry most of this to use throughout the summer.  Head to the Recipe Blog for a post on blender blitzing those herbs and storing as a paste in the fridge or freezer.

Pea Shoots - We've already told you how much we love these. Crew lunch today was chopped pea shoots with pear and pine nuts lightly dressed with buttermilk and pepper. We dress up all kinds of salads with just a sprinkle of these on top. But they are terrific sauteed, too.

Chive Flowers - Pull the flowers apart and use just as you would garlic or chives. The stems are too tough to eat. We like these on top of a dish so we get both the flavor and color. Lots of ideas on our pinterest page! Store these in a vase on your kitchen counter and they'll stay nice for weeks.

Rhubarb - Lots! Enjoy. The green stems taste just like the red, so use interchangeably.

Radishes - These went super fast from tiny to spicy. Slice into a salad, or if they are too hot, add to a saute. My favorite way to enjoy these French Breakfast Radishes is to eat them for breakfast, sliced and arranged on buttered baguette. Garnish with chive blossoms and shake salt and pepper over.

Garlic Scapes - These crazy green curli-cues are nestled on top of your box. They are the flower heads of our garlic and aren't they fun? Use just like a scallion and chop into small bits to flavor whatever you'd use garlic in.

Spring Garlic - This early season treat is a personal favorite. Use just like scallions, which they resemble. You can eat this raw, where you probably wouldn't have raw garlic. But they are good cooked, too. Use the entire white and light green part. The whole thing is really quite tender.

Parsley in Pots - We love herbs here at Circle M, as you can already see. We think they are soooo important in cooking that we want you to have more than we can pack. So we'll be giving you pots to plant in the first few boxes. This is a wonderful Italian parsley. Plant in full sun to a little shade. Harvest every few days and you'll get a bushy plant that gives and gives. Basil coming next week.

Yum - CSA Box Win! This goat cheese spread features blender-blitzed oregano (you can use the stem up until where it gets woody), fresh garlic and garlic scapes.  Great on rye crisps, apples, pears or carrot slices.

Welcome to the start of the CSA season! We are so delighted to finally be packing boxes. This year we scheduled boxes about 2 weeks later than our average, to accommodate the slow warm-up after the long winter. Things seem to have caught up nicely, however, and this box is full-to-brimming with spring favorites.

Ah - spring. It went awfully fast, didn't it? But spring is all about fleeting pleasures. And even though we're awfully close to summer (Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year and the official start to the new season, is June 21) we're partaking of many unique spring treats this week. My personal all-time early-season delicacy is pictured above, in all it's fresh perfect glory - a flat of pea shoots. We actually grow these in the greenhouse once it's empty of all the transplants. The lower light of diffused sun makes the shoots long, leggy, thin and tender, while our field crops of snap and snow peas are out in full sun getting beefy and strong to withstand a long month of production. These little shoots we've cut for you at just 6 inches. Munch them raw, as is, use to garnish a salad or cool dish, or saute and arrange atop a bed of grains.

Below we've detailed the full Harvest List of what is in your first box. We've arranged the list in order of most perishable to least perishable, and we will do that every week. So eat the first things first! Here we'll give you just a brief idea of ways to store, prepare and eat each crop, and you'll find a few recipes for each box over at the Recipes Blog. We are including fewer recipes than we have in the past however. We are finding that most of our customers are searching the internet for recipes these days, and so we've assembled our web favorites for each week's box over at our  Farmer Kriss Pinterest Page. If you aren't already on Pinterest, do consider signing up, if only for our page. We've got so many nice pictures, ideas and recipes cataloged over there.

We know you'll likely have questions about some of the veggies - we hope to surprise you with at least one unique offering in each box - and you can contact us via email. We'll try to get back to you in a timely way. But we also hope you'll bring your questions to us in person at the Field-To-Table Dinners. There is still room to reserve seats at each of the four dates right now, so let us know when you'd like to come.  And don't forget about our upcoming Lambs and Lettuces Spring Farm Festival: Sunday, June 22, 3 til 9pm. Bring friends, neighbors and a dish to pass at our big 6pm potluck!

Strawberries - Just a few and they'll be best if you eat them today. Great in a spinach salad!

Salad Mix with Beet Shoots and Nasturtium and/or Viola Flowers - You know we like a fancy dressed-up salad.  The tiny whole beets are shoots we thinned from our rows of fall beets. They are sweet, tender, and well, a bit weird, we know. But give them a try! If raw doesn't suit you, pick them out and chop to add to your next saute. The flowers are edible, too, and tasty! Like pepper mixed with radish.

Chocolate Mint - This mint is sweet and quite special. Try it in our Boozy Mint Brownie recipe, add to lemonade, chop over fruit salad or make a straight-up mint tea. What you won't use in a week, hang up and dry right away. When it's dry, crush and store in a sealed container. Dried mint is great added to coffee when you brew it.

Spinach - Why such big leaves? MORE taste than those weak little baby leaves. Why such long stems? The stems have the sweetest flavor. We highly recommend you enjoy this flavorful, tender spinach raw. If you don't want stems in your salad, cut them off and add them to your eggs for breakfast. But do try them first! You might be surprised at how much you like them. We enjoyed our first spinach salad of the year with sliced strawberries, balsamic vinegar, spring garlic (see below), goat cheese crumbles (thanks Bess and Mochi) and a sprinkle of flax seeds. Yum!!!

Sorrel - These bunches of long lance-shaped leaves are a perennial herb crop that is one of the first to appear in the gardens. In fact, we've been enjoying sorrel salads, soups and sauces here for many weeks. The flavor is very lemon-y and tart.  It'll work well as a salad with a nice buttermilk dressing, but also is great ribboned into a lettuce salad. The flavor is especially delicious with fish, and you'll find lots of ideas for using it on our Farmer Kriss pinterest page. Don't wash until you are ready to use.

Oregano - Oregano is also a perennial herb and is peaking in the gardens right now. We've given you a lot of it, because it is beautiful at the moment and needs to be cut before it flowers. Make homemade pizza! We've put some great recipes for using fresh oregano up on the pinterest page and the Recipe Blog, but we fully expect you to dry most of this to use throughout the summer.

Pea Shoots - We've already told you how much we love these. Crew lunch today was chopped pea shoots with pear and pine nuts lightly dressed with buttermilk and pepper.

Dandelion Greens - Full Shares Only - We like to pack a cooking green in each box, but we didn't have kale yet and we don't want you to cook that spinach! So these tender dandelion greens are from our hoop house where they don't get full sun and bitterness. Cook just like any spinach/kale/cabbage, but they taste great with lemon and garlic.

Chive Flowers - Pull the flowers apart and use just as you would garlic or chives. The stems are too tough to eat. We like these on top of a dish so we get both the flavor and color. Lots of ideas on our pinterest page! Store these in a vase on your kitchen counter and they'll stay nice for weeks.

Rhubarb - Lots! Enjoy. The green stems taste just like the red, so use interchangeably.

Radishes - These went super fast from tiny to spicy. Slice into a salad, or if they are too hot, add to a saute. My favorite way to enjoy these French Breakfast Radishes is to eat them for breakfast, sliced and arranged on buttered baguette. Garnish with chive blossoms and shake salt and pepper over.

Spring Garlic - This early season treat is a personal favorite. Use just like scallions, which they resemble. You can eat this raw, where you probably wouldn't have raw garlic. But they are good cooked, too. Use the entire white and light green part. The whole thing is really quite tender.

Parsley in Pots - We love herbs here at Circle M, as you can already see. We think they are soooo important in cooking that we want you to have more than we can pack. So we'll be giving you pots to plant in the first few boxes. This is a wonderful Italian parsley. Plant in full sun to a little shade. Harvest every few days and you'll get a bushy plant that gives and gives. Basil coming next week.

Flower Bouquets - We don't always have flowers to pack, but in the early season we tend to, so enjoy!