Hi Reader,

Please Give Us Our Stuff Back… But Only the Stuff We Can Use 😄

First, thank you! A lot of you brought boxes, bags, cartons, jars, and other packaging back to us after last week’s reminder. We really appreciate everyone trying to help us reuse things instead of buying them over and over again.

We did learn that we need to clarify the request a little, though. We love getting reusable farm packaging back, but we can’t use every type of container.

A good rule of thumb:

• If it came from Titus Farms, we’d generally love it back - as long as it is clean, completely dry, has no odor, and is still in good condition.
  • If it has veggie bits, your cat or dog made friends with it, or you left an item in there for a couple of weeks, we cannot reuse it.
  • If it was taped shut or has a specific label, please recycle it too. We cannot use it.
• Egg cartons are always welcome, even if they didn’t come from us.
• We also happily take clean plastic bags for “extra packaging” and newspaper for cushioning tomato crates.
• Please don’t bring us random plastic containers, clamshells, tubs, or household recycling unless we’ve specifically asked for them. We simply don’t use many of those, and unfortunately some of what was returned last week had to be thrown away.
• Anything returned should be clean, dry, odor-free, free of veggie bits, and, other than egg cartons, not have ever contained non-veggies (especially meat).

Things we regularly reuse include our CSA boxes, egg cartons, dry pulp berry/quart containers, rubber bands, twist ties, clean produce bags, flower-share vases, and quart jars.

Thank you for helping us reuse what we can without accidentally turning the farm into a recycling center. 😄 We really do appreciate the thought behind everything people bring back.

Around the Farm

August is doing its thing!

This week we harvested almost all of our onions grown from plants. We still have some onions grown from sets/bulbs out in the field, but getting this big planting harvested feels pretty darn good. A big thank you to our field crew, José, Rodrigo, and Alfredo, who came in on Saturday to help us finish the onion harvest!

Meanwhile, Justin continues to tear apart our old vegetable packing shed. The further we get into that project, the more apparent it becomes that we desperately need to get some concrete poured before tomato season begins in earnest. 😅

And speaking of tomatoes…

We harvested our first decent batch of field-grown tomatoes last week!

A quick clarification for anyone who has picked up tomatoes from us at market and wondered when they might start showing up in CSA boxes: any tomatoes you’ve seen at our market stand so far this summer have been sourced from our friends at Green Wagon Farm or Monroe Family Organics and are mostly from their greenhouses/hoophouses. Until construction on our hoophouses is complete, we will likely need to rely on our field-grown tomatoes.

And our own field tomatoes are only just beginning now, and we don't yet have enough for everyone.

But there are a LOT coming.

We estimate we have a little over 2,000 tomato plants in the field right now, and they look incredibly healthy. So when they finally decide it is time, we are hoping to be absolutely inundated with tomatoes.

They are taking their sweet time ripening at the moment. We’re guessing the slightly cooler nights have something to do with that - and quite frankly, we aren’t complaining about the cooler nights!

The other very exciting development is muskmelons (aka cantaloupe)! Paul picked the first few on Tuesday, more came in on Friday, and now they seem to be exploding. Not literally. Thankfully. But if it keeps raining, they will.

Depending on how everything ripens, our weekend CSA members may see some sweet corn, tomatoes, melons… or some combination of the above. This is the time of year when we can look at a field one day and think, “Eh, maybe next week,” and then suddenly need to harvest a whole bunch of something two days later.

At the same time, many of our spring brassicas are beginning to fade away as the summer crops really start to ramp up. We’re reaching that fun part of the season where the farm starts looking and tasting a lot more like August.

One More Lettuce Update

Some of you have also noticed that we’ve had lettuce, head lettuce, spinach, and other greens from Green Wagon Farm at our Saturday market stand.

We’ve been trying to figure out the logistics of having those items available on Wednesdays too, but haven’t quite gotten there yet. Green Wagon fulfills its other wholesale orders before ours, so we often don’t know exactly what we’ll receive until Thursday evening. Because of that uncertainty, we’ve been offering those greens at the farmers market rather than putting them in the CSA store and potentially promising something we can’t get.

There is some encouraging news on the lettuce front, though. On August 6, MDHHS lifted its broad precautionary recommendation to avoid bagged salad mixes and announced “a return to routine guidance for handling produce, including lettuce and salad greens.”

As always, we still recommend washing all fresh produce before eating it, no matter where it was grown.

This Week's Harvest

If you do not customize, you will receive the Farmer’s Choice Share this week, which includes the items marked with asterisks (**).

Standard/Alternating/Monthly Shares: select 30 credits

Large Shares: select 60 credits

For this week:

• Basil - Green/Italian only while the others take a little pause.
• Beets, Red only - without tops. We should have these for another 2-3 weeks, until they pause for a bit.
• Cabbage- green or red
• Carrots**- orange and without tops, likely for another 2-3 weeks. Then there'll be a pause for our next round of carrots in September.
• Celery- still going strong! We should have this until September.
• Collard Greens - Stronger in flavor in August, but still a hearty and filling green.
• Cucumbers- get your fill now! These are starting to wane.
  • Salad Large- 2-3 field-grown cucumbers with seeds, depending on supply.
  • Small Salad aka Pickling Cucumber- a mix of sizes and colors in a bag.
• Eggplant - we grow 3 kinds, and two are in abundance:
  • Mini Mix: a mix of a few kinds of our small eggplant (that will actually never get big; they grow like this! Our favorite type being Fairy Tale).
  • Italian Style: the bigger, more egg-shaped ones. These come in three colors as well (black, white, or striped) and are excellent when properly cooked.
• Garlic- now pretty dried down to be stored outside of the fridge.
• Herbs: Flat-Leaf Parsley from Green Wagon. Limited.
• Hot Peppers - a mix of our mild-to-medium peppers, likely mostly the Hungarian hot, with a few jalapeño and serrano mixed in.
• Kale
  • Curly, Scarlet, or Dinosaur
• Kohlrabi, Spring- a smaller version of what we offer in the fall/winter. 2-3 bulbs per share. Likely for the final week until October.
• Muskmelon!! aka Cantaloupe**- these orange-on-the-inside melons are a Titus Farms specialty. The first variety is 'Hannah's Choice,' which I always found to be more floral than the next one, 'Sarah's Choice' - which is just sweet and musky.
• Napa Cabbage- a lovely alternative to lettuce. This makes an excellent slaw and is fantastic for fermentation too.
• Onions- all dried down now, so the tops will be off. We have two kinds this week:
  • Candy
  • Red**
• Potatoes, Farmer's Choice- it's looking like mostly white/golden potatoes this week with maybe a few red or fingerling mixed in.
• Rainbow Chard** - a wonderful replacement for spinach.
• Rutabaga - a hearty veggie that can be used like a potato. From the 2025 harvest.
• Shishito Peppers- the roulette-game of peppers! Some are blisteringly hot, and others are mild. You'll never know what you'll get.
• Sweet Peppers - Bell Mix**: a mix of green and ripe bell peppers. Ripe bell peppers take a while to come in, so we don't have a ton yet.
• Tomatillos- a wonderful green-tomato-like veggie that is traditionally made into salsa verde or green enchilada sauce.
• Turnip Greens- another hearty green more popular in the American South.
• Zucchini & Summer Squash Mix**- green zucchini, cousa, yellow squash, and golden zucchini could be included. These are also winding down quickly!

CSA Store Extras

• Bulk Basil (Italian/Green only)
• Fresh Eggs- limited! If you want them this week, please add them in your Farmigo account before checkout. We don't know if we'll have any for sale at market :(
• Homemade Jam
  • Blueberry
  • Raspberry
  • Strawberry

Recipes & Ideas from the Farm

Eggplant is Here!

Our Italian eggplant is starting to come in, which means it is officially time to give this somewhat misunderstood vegetable a little attention. It's actually something we eat quite a bit in the summer and love to preserve too!

All About Eggplant

Eggplant is best used fairly soon after you get it. It prefers cool temps during storage, but not too cold, so if you are planning to use it within a day, a cool spot out of direct sunlight is ideal. For longer storage, keep it in the refrigerator, preferably in a warmer spot like the crisper drawer, and avoid sealing it tightly in plastic where moisture can build up.

The main things that drive people away from eggplant are the prep or a bad experience with undercooked eggplant. Undercooking it is not an option (it just has a weird texture and flavor, but isn't dangerous). Cook it until it's completely tender and creamy, without any spongy resistance.

Eggplant can look a little intimidating if you do not cook with it often, but it is incredibly versatile - it is creamy when roasted, hearty enough to stand in for meat in some dishes, and very good at soaking up whatever flavors you cook it with.

Here are a few ideas to get you started: