Weekly Weeder

Olin-Fox Farms Volume No. 10 Issue No. 13 June 18, 2008

www.olinfoxfarms.com Summer Season Week 3

STANDARD REMINDER

Please be sure to wash your weekly share thoroughly before serving. To preserve freshness, it is NOT ‘table ready’ (i.e., pre-washed). We deliver your Olin-Fox Farms’ produce right from the fields to ensure highest quality.

REMINDER: This is the third week of the Summer Program.

Week four is the following week, June 25-28.

Schedules can also be found on our website, www.olinfoxfarms.com

This Week's News From The Farms

When it rains, it pours. The recent storms have brought welcome rainfall and some not so welcome high winds and hail. Two of our farms had significant crop damage from the hail, mainly on the late planting of lettuces. Some have recovered, and the majority of the crops are looking good enough to provide us all with another bountiful Summer Harvest.

The tomato crops are doing especially well this year, with more varieties added. We expect the tomatoes will be in full swing the second week of July.

We hope you enjoyed the Garlic Scapes that are only available for a short period of time each Spring. The good news is, the heads of garlic follow soon after. We have already started harvesting and curing some of the garlic and will be including it several times in your shares during the Summer Program along with some great recipes and information.

Also, watch your Weekly Weeder for the date of our Second Annual Garlic Roast, to be held here at Olin-Fox Farms this fall.

Notice: Please pick up your shares during the regularly scheduled pick up days and times so to ensure the quality of your produce and not to put a burden on your distribution point's coordinator. If you or someone else cannot pick up your share, please be courteous enough to pick up your share. Thank You!

Also, please keep an eye on your email for any notifications regarding delays, rescheduling, etc.

If you do not receive your Weekly Weeder by email, please let us know and we will make the adjustments to be sure that you receive it. Please be sure that your email service allows receipt of mail from info@olinfoxfarms.com, so that it does not end up in your SPAM folder. You may also find the Weekly Weeder posted on our website, www.olinfoxfarms.com.

In Your Produce Basket This Week

German Stiffneck Garlic, Squash, Redskin Pontiac Potatoes, Cucumbers

See your site's produce list for more details.

For Those With Fruit Shares: Blackberries

Please Note: With elements beyond our control such as the start or the end of a harvest, or extreme weather conditions that may limit the quantity of produce coming in, we systematically address each delivery and pick up group each week and do our very best to see that everyone receives some of everything.

Recipes/Information

An eagerly awaited event is the harvesting of the garlic. We raise primarily German Stiffneck Garlic, which, as its name implies grows a stiff neck, which can withstand Chesapeake Bay Region wind blasts. As you recall, you received in an earlier share the garlic scapes from these same plants. Now, you have the pleasure of tasting locally grown garlic, so much more flavorful than the store-bought variety, which by the way is usually of the soft neck type.

We have started raising our own garlic seed, saving the heads of garlic each year for replanting in the fall. It is interesting to note that this year's crop of garlic grown with our own seed was larger and heartier than the seed we purchased from a commercial seed company. Each year we save more of our own garlic seed with the eventual goal of growing only our own German Stiffneck Garlic.

An excellent expose on garlic, its nutrition and history can be found at http://www.vegparadise.com/highestperch.html. Here are a few highlights:

The ancient Egyptian medical papyri, Codex Elsers, dated about 1500 BCE, contains 22 formulas for medicinal remedies prescribing garlic as a cure for heart disease, worms, and tumors. Egypt's youngest pharaoh, Tutankhamen (1350 BCE), was sent on his journey into the afterlife accompanied with garlic, considered the protector of the soul and guardian of his riches in the afterlife.

Hippocrates, along with later ancient physicians such as Galen and Dioscorides, considered garlic a panacea for a host of ailments from digestive discomforts and intestinal infections to high blood pressure, senility, and impotence.

Pliny the Elder, a first century Roman scientist and physician, said, "Garlic has such powerful properties that the very smell of it drives away serpents and scorpions."

British army doctors created a juice of raw garlic diluted with water and applied it directly to wounds to control infections during World War I. The garlic juice was so successful in treating infection that Russian army physicians employed the same technique in World War II along with garlic and onions given internally to increase resistance to infections.

Native Americans used wild garlic, along with its wild shallot, onion, and leek relatives for food and medicine. Eaten raw, the green shoots were their cure for scurvy.

Garlic has more than 33 active sulfur-containing substances that do battle with enemies such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Some of the more familiar compounds are allicin, alliin, cycroalliin, and diallyldisulphide. Allicin, garlic's warrior against bacteria and inflammation, is also the culprit behind its offensive odor. Garlic's antibiotic effect is attributed to alliin, the sulfur-containing amino acid responsible for the manufacture of allicin.

Scientists believe garlic's blood pressure lowering ability is attributed to the compound allyl mercaptan, an ingredient that also lowers cholesterol, prevents atherosclerosis, and has anti-tumor and anti-diabetic properties.

Manganese, copper, iron, zinc, sulfur, calcium, aluminum, chlorine, and selenium are all part of the minerals contained in garlic. Selemium is an important trace mineral for antioxidant activity that helps to slow down the aging process. Some biologists attribute Russia's and Bulgaria's impressive number of centenarians to the abundant quantities of garlic they consume.

Roasted Garlic

It's hard to beat the flavor of roasted garlic, and it can be accomplished in the oven or on your grill. Roasted Garlic on the grill gets a special delicious carmelized texture and flavor.

2 Heads Garlic

2 Tsp. Olive Oil

Salt to Taste

Optional Rosemary or other seasoning

Oven: Preheat oven to 350 F. Remove the paper from the garlic so that just one outer layer is left covering the clove. Trim the top and bottom, so the cloves are just showing. Place in a small baking dish, terracotta garlic cooker, or in foil. Drizzle olive oil over the garlic heads and sprinkle with salt and optional seasoning. Cover the baking dish or close up the foil and bake in oven for about 40 minutes, or until a fork easily pierces the cloves. Very delicious spread on French bread.

Grill: Preheat grill. Prepare the garlic as above, and place in indirect heat on the grill. Check every 15 minutes and turn it. The garlic is done when it's carmelized and easily pierced by a fork.

Bon Appetit!