SP24 (W2): New Ways to Love Turnips
Dear Farm Community -
Last week was our first spring CSA pickup week AND our first week of Wednesday night markets! We had a great time meeting all y’all at pickup and getting back into the groove of things with our Wednesday market.
On the farm this past week we spent lots of time working with flowers, even the veggie folks! The tulips are exploding with blooms and we’re doing our very best to keep up with them. We have some of our more fanciful varieties of tulips beginning to come up, including parrot tulips and fringed tulips. These varieties have textured petals and come in a whole rainbow of colors - we’re excited to be bringing more and more of them to market in the coming weeks!
Did you know there’s a new way to get our flowers, too? While CSA and market are great ways to get your hands on our blooms, if you need flowers in bulk for your wedding, baby shower, wedding shower, engagement party or other event, we are now offering DIY Flower Buckets to both the Athens and Atlanta area! Our DIY Flower buckets are perfect for those with a can-do attitude who would like to skip the florist and design their own arrangements with our seasonal, sustainably grown flowers. One DIY bucket comes with 75-90 stems of focal flowers, filler flowers, and foliage, and costs just $95. This is enough for you to arrange 1 large centerpiece or 3 bridesmaids bouquets or 6 small centerpieces or 25 bud vases! The varieties of flowers and foliage will rotate with the bounty of the seasons, but here’s an example of a DIY bucket we put together in February:
To learn more or to purchase a bucket, head on over to our web store!
Now let’s get down to business - your CSA share this week! Y’all are going to be receiving one of my absolute favorite underrated veggies: Hakurei Turnips! Unlike other turnips, this special Japanese variety of turnip is delicious both cooked AND raw! Their buttery texture and sweet flavor pairs well with a variety of other foods and shines just as well on its own. To eat raw, slice and dip into hummus (or your dip of choice), chop/grate onto your salad (try this one and customize as you see fit!), or my personal favorite way to eat Hakurei turnips -just take a bite! If you’d like to spice it up a little, try this simple recipe for Pan Roasted Hakurei turnips or this mouth-watering cheesy recipe for Hakurei Turnip Gratin with Fresh Herbs. You can even cook up those beautiful turnip greens into a savory soul food staple.
I’ll also leave you a delicious recipe for Refrigerator-Pickled Turnips that a friend scribbled on scrap paper for me one afternoon and hasn’t failed me once (Thanks Julie!):
1.5 cups water
2.5 tbsp kosher salt
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 bay leaf
1 clove garlic, roughly chopped
1 lb sweet turnips, cut into cubes
1 small beet, cut into cubes (optional, but will make your pickled turnips a pretty pink color!)
Warm the water and dissolve salt, then add white vinegar. Combine remaining ingredients in a jar, add the vinegar solution, and put directly in fridge. Pickled turnips will be ready after about 24-48 hours.
Have a wonderful week and Happy Eating :)
Diamond Hill Farmers
P.S. Our weekly-pay CSA option can be joined at any time during the season, so it’s never too late to join the party! Check out the options here:
$25 share: spinach, little gem lettuce, scallions, turnips, collards OR chard, celery
$35 share: spinach, little gem lettuce, scallions, turnips, collards OR chard, celery, arugula, beets