Fall is just around the corner, but summer temperatures really soared this first week of September. For those heading outside in this high heat, try to keep the activity to a minimum, drink plenty of water and wear light clothing.

What’s Available This Week

The following items will be available on Thursday, September 4 at Hattie’s Garden (in our air-conditioned garage-barn) from 2 – 5 p.m. and at the Historic Lewes Farmer’s Market (HLFM) on Saturday, September 6 from 8 a.m. to noon. You can also email Hattie to make an appointment to stop by Hattie’s Garden at another time.

• Lemongrass – brings a distinctive, pleasant citrus aroma to a wide range of Asian cuisine, adding its unique flavor to everything from marinades, stir-fries, salads, curry pastes and cold drinks. It can also be brewed as tea. It will keep for weeks in the fridge, or slice the stalks into 2- to 3-inch strips, double-wrap in plastic, freeze for use over the winter. Below is a video on how to prepare lemongrass for cooking.
• Pak Choi Joi Choi – This is an especially nice pak choi with thick succulent stalks. All parts of pak choi are edible. Leaves and stems are great cooked lightly by steaming, sauteing or stir frying.
• Fun Jen Chinese Cabbage – nice light frilly leaves with crunchy texture and very mild delicate flavor. This is the same family as Pak choi. The thick white ribs are tasty with a pleasing light tangy sweetness. Enjoy raw or slightly stir-fried or steamed.
• Hakurei Turnips – The sweet small white globes taste nothing like the “turnip” you may be used to eating. The lovely greens are smooth and absolutely delicious when steamed or boiled until tender (only a few minutes). The turnips themselves can be eaten raw or lightly cooked. We prefer to steam or boil the whole turnip plant together! We have not met anyone who hasn’t fallen in love with these once they have tried them.
• Green Beans – Just have a few available on Thursday at the garden sale from 2 to 5 p.m.
• Fresh cut Italian Parsley – Nice culinary variety. Chefs use Italian or plain parsley to flavor their dishes and curly parsley primarily as garnish.
• Flowers – These flowers are cut and conditioned to last all week for you and come with a packet of flower food. This week we will feature Zinnias and Gomphrena.



• Mesclun – a mix of arugula and loose leaf lettuce
• Young Arugula – Only the best. Nobody does it like us.
• Spicy Arugula – We always try to cut some larger and more pungent leaves for those who like to cook with arugula or who simply prefer arugula as spicy as it gets!
• Loose Leaf Lettuce – We admit this has been a scarce item this summer AND that you have been waiting for the promise of abundance to come true! Well, it really is happening. Each week we will have more and more of this colorful wonderful young salad ingredient.
• Tomatoes – A few medium sized slicing tomatoes and plenty of mixed pints of cherry tomatoes as well as lots of Jasper cherry tomatoes. Jasper is a little red cherry with big flavor.

What’s growing in Hattie’s Garden for our Fall Market?

Many folks have been asking us what to expect from Hattie’s Garden this fall (and winter).

We continue to plant hakurei turnips every chance we get to have a steady supply. The same holds true for our carrots. Another bed of carrots was planted this weekend.

And we are watering, watering, watering to keep things alive through this heat wave.

Spinach plants will be going into the ground as soon as this heat wave passes so that we will have nice spinach for our fall market.

We have planted three types of kale: Red Russian Kale, Toscano Kale and a very hardy Beedy’s Camden Kale from Camden, Maine in case of severe winter. This will be our first year trying Beedy’s Camden Kale. We aren’t sure yet, but it looks like it might be a bit like a Siberian Kale and a bit like a regular curly kale. We will keep you posted!

We do not plant in our hoop-house for the winter until early October, so we decided to start some SunGold cherry tomatoes for our fall market customers in the more controlled environment. We just can’t let go of our tomatoes yet this year and although the SunGolds are just the little guys, they are unbelievably sweet and good. We hope it sends out the summer bounty with style!

Stay tuned for more news. Next week, I’ll talk about the delivery service Hattie’s Garden will resume in December. The last time we did this was the winter of 2012-2013. Some of you participated in a CSA last winter and this year we will expand upon that to include other sustainable grower’s vegetables, as well as a few other very popular food items found at market as we had done in past years.

Those of you with any credit left from last year’s CSA do not have to worry. All credits are brought forward in the system and will be applied to any purchases going forward.

Yours at the market and garden…

Preparing Lemongrass