July 18: Zucchini ideas…Plus, Come pull garlic!

Hello hello! Welcome back. We are in the full routine of summer now and this week we’re talking zucchini, bay leaves and garlic…yum!

FRESH garlic we have brought to the market over the past few weeks.

As shown above, we have been harvesting small amounts of fresh garlic but are ready to do our big haul! With the recent hot, dry weather, followed by a bit of rain this weekend, it’s perfect timing to harvest our garlic. The heat has dried out the stalks and then the bit of moisture (with some added irrigation action) then loosens the soil so we can dig up the bulbs carefully. After harvest, we hang or place on aerated shelves for the garlic to cure and become storage-ready to sell, use or save for planting next year’s crop. Last year we had a good group show up to blitz it out and this year we’re hoping to do the same. Do you have any extra time this week and are willing to come help us fork and pull garlic?

We are thinking of doing it July 23rd, Wednesday evening. Let us know if you can make it!

Zuccccchini!

It’s zucchini time! We are slowly entering that part of summer where you can’t turn around without running into a zucchini. We have been staying on top of pruning all the bottom leaves to keep the airflow going, and boy are the plants are producing, just in time for BBQ’ing.

Amanda made a chocolate zucchini loaf and zucchini fritters this week (See below). What’s your favourite way to eat a zucchini? Let us know if you’ve got a good recipe to share!

PS. Mark your calendars for August 8th which is National Sneak a Zucchini on Your Neighbour’s Porch Day. Look it up… it’s a real holiday!

Finally, we are bringing a new herb to the market this weekend: fresh bay leaves! We’ve chatted about bay laurel before, so now is your chance to try the aromatic herb in its fresh state where you get even more flavour than the regular dried ones hanging out in your pantry.

Fun fact about bay leaves, they are actually very good at deterring regular pantry pests such as moths. If you have ever had any type of annoying critter messing up your stores, try placing a few bay leaves around to ward them off.

That’s the news from the Patch this week. Hope your summer is so far full of adventure, relaxation, fresh produce, good friends and even better meals.

We’ll see you at our stall tomorrow :)

-OKHP Crew