Farm share, week 6

Update from the farm on Monday:

Today was actually a very fun and interesting day! Our local farmer friends have been so generous and have really stepped up, opening their fields to us to harvest all kinds of nice stuff for our CSA. So we traveled to several nearby organic farms today to harvest crops that they had extra of, or had just decided to donate to Stone Soup.

First we went to Mountain View Farm for scallions, kale, and fennel. Then it was our old partners at the Kitchen Garden for zucchini. After lunch we harvested carrots from Riverland Farm, and cabbages from Atlas Farm (all of these fields are within 10 miles of our home farm). Meanwhile we were able to harvest a few of our own crops that didn't flood, mainly cucumbers and herbs. So this week's share is a real taste of western MA, a nice mix from our regional network of small organic farms.

We have received so much amazing additional support from our community - it's overwhelming and I'm so full of gratitude. Our flood recovery gofundme has received over $8,000, and we've also received over $3,000 in additional direct donations. That's amazing!

There are many other farmers having a very difficult time right now, but I wanted to bring special attention to the collective of farmers that we share our land with. They are refugees from Somalia, and their land was also flooded and all the crops are lost. They farm several acres by hand and have put in a huge amount of effort without being able to harvest a single crop because they mostly grow later season crops like corn and beans. They also have a gofundme and there's more info on there, please take a look if you have a chance.

• two pounds of little carrots
  
• two medium heads of green cabbage
  
• eight large scallions
  
• two medium bunches of green curly kale (I swapped one for a punnet of red currants; someone hadn't been interested in their fruit share this week)
  
• eight zucchini/summer squash
  
• two fennel
  
• a cucumber (the regular size kind, which I have no interest in; I swapped it for another fennel)

First thoughts: all the various kinds of cole slaw; roasted zucchini; zucchini and/or cabbage pancakes; roasted cabbage; roasted root vegetables (I have a bunch left from last week); canning zucchini-fennel relish and/or carrot pickles; fennel-orange salad with olives; adding some currants to this year's rumtopf.