Greetings!

Hope everyone's enjoying the shares. How can we improve for next year—we'd love to hear your feedback.

In this week's market bag:

• bunte forrellenschuss lettuce
• oakleaf lettuce
• romaine
• red salad bowl
• black seeded simpson lettuce
• Chioggia beets
• horseradish greens
• "City Lights" Swiss Chard (with the really pretty stalks)
• citrus thyme
• thyme
• rosemary
• tarragon
• dill
• basil
• flat parsley
• cilantro
• purly chives and garlic chives
• purslane
• 1 pint of red raspberries
• 1/2 pint of black raspberries

Business:

July 4th holiday: Next week's Wednesday delivery down at NIST falls on the holiday, which means we'll be making deliveries on Tuesday, July 3rd next week to ensure everyone has fresh veggies for any cook-outs.

"Extras Hour": A couple members have inquired whether they, too, can purchase surplus during extras hour. Of course! Email us, and we'll go ahead and put you on the mailing list. This week, we didn't have any surplus as we transition into summer produce, but we should soon.

Tip:

The eggs you receive from Touch the Earth Farm are extremely fresh—only a few days old at most. While they are healthy and delicious, some of you may already have noticed that they don't peel very well when hard boiled. The egg white and membrane are still attached to the shell, so that when you peel the egg, you end up peeling away large portions of egg white along with the shell, making for a rather unattractive looking egg.

When I want to hard boil our eggs, especially for delicious deviled eggs, I will either leave them out on the counter for a week to ten days or leave them in the fridge for up to four weeks. Once they are older, the membrane has separated from the shell and, voila, perfect hard boiled eggs. I have also read that steaming rather than hard boiling can make the fresh eggs easier to peel, though I haven't tried that method.

News:

The broilers are heading to a USDA butcher next week, which means they'll be ready for pick-up fresh by the weekend or frozen on CSA days the week of July 9th. Duck should be available then as well. Our heritage chicken will take a few more weeks to grow out; we'll keep you posted on availability.

Many of our lettuces are beginning to bolt, which basically means that they are growing tall and preparing to flower, hence the taller stalks this week on many of the greens. Once the plants bolt, their leaves will take on a bitter flavor, signaling the end of our lettuce season.

While we've planted our lettuces where they can take advantage of the shade from neighboring tomatoes, we also decided to purchase some greenhouse shade cloth, which will shade out about 50% of the sun, in an effort to extend our lettuce harvest further into the summer and begin planting our fall crops even earlier.

The broccoli suffered most from the cold weather early in the season quickly followed by August temperatures. The flowers are bolting before they've even finished setting, meaning that any broccoli harvest will need to wait until fall. Purslane, too, seems to be suffering from the heat, losing its crisp texture, so this will likely be the last week of purslane.

Happenings:

The good news is that our first tomatoes are beginning to ripen—"Gold Nugget" an early, particularly sweet and delicious, yellow cherry tomato.

We've also harvested our first zucchini this week with several more fruits growing, so look forward to "Costata," a striking Italian heirloom squash in your bags next week.

Perhaps the best news is that the raspberries have arrived. Ripe, delicious, and delicate, the red raspberries are from three different cultivars: "Nova," "Killarney," and "Caroline." The black raspberries are "Jewel"—a bit seedy sometimes, but with a fabulous flavor. I'll be making black raspberry yogurt this week for sure!

Pitch In!

Don't forget, we recycle used pulp egg cartons, so please return them rather than throwing them away. While Maryland law doesn't allow us to reuse egg cartons for our eggs, we can use them for making homemade paper. Thanks to all who've brought theirs in!

Happy Eating!

Danielle at Touch the Earth Farm