Late Spring Crops

As we get further into the summer, the number and variety of foods in season locally will explode, but for now we are still waiting and watching eagerly as each new one appears. Or at least I am!

Spring starts out with greens grown in hoophouses, asparagus, rhubarb, some herbs, and maybe some leeks that were either overwintered or grown in a hoophouse. But now that we are getting further along into the season, we are seeing green garlic, radishes, bunching onions and spring onions and a shift to greens grown in the field, while the asparagus, rhubarb, and herbs continue.

Now, at the beginning of June, we're at a tipping point. The really good stuff, the crops that feel like treats, are just about to start coming in. I have been harvesting my earliest snap peas in the garden and I expect to start seeing peas--snap, snow, and shelling--in the farmers market quite soon. The garlic in my garden has also just started forming scapes (stalks with would-be flowers), which are delicious. Growers cut them off to encourage the plants to form larger bulbs, so we'll be seeing scapes in the farmers market soon, too. And, of course, STRAWBERRIES! If we're lucky here in Greenfield, some of the vendors from further south in the valley might have early strawberries this weekend. Otherwise, we'll need to wait just a little longer. I am personally looking forward to picking some, maybe at Uppingil Farm in Gill, so I can stash them away in the freezer as well as enjoying them now.

The folks at the farmers market are always a bit ahead of my garden, it seems--some because they are further south and some because they are growing in hoophouses. So it probably won't be too many more weeks before we start to see other things like baby carrots, more summer leeks, more herbs, and maybe early fennel. As I wait for each new item to make its appearance, I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas--right down to imagining all the wonderful things I'm going to do with the anticipated treats.