Hello everyone, welcome to week eight of your Featherstone Farms summer CSA.

I'm Abby, I'm standing in for Jack today and I'm going to give you a little tour of what we have going in the boxes today.

First on the line we have another week of sweet corn. We've had a nice steady supply of corn this year. This is a group that doesn't have a lot of worms so hopefully you've got nice clean sweet corn for the grill.

First pick of the year on watermelons just happened. So everybody has a red watermelon. Those are seeded so spit those out as you go.

We've got zucchini again, green and yellow. You'll get one or the other.

We've got these red salad turnips. These are scarlet queen salad turnips. So they're good both cooked like a turnip that you’d use or you can slice them fresh like a hakurei turnip. These skins are a little bit tough so it might be nice to peel them before you add them to salads or stir fries.

This also is a first for the year. We have cherry tomatoes we just started picking. So you'll have either sun gold or a red round cherry tomato. First of the year so those are sweet and delicious.

We also have our hot peppers! This week we have serranoes. These are, we've noticed, growing really big in our rich Featherstone soils so it looks bigger than some serrano varieties that you're used to but this it is a hot hot pepper. Use them sparingly if you're not used to the heat.

We also have green bell peppers coming out of the field. These are nice nice big fat sweet green bell peppers.

We have another round of Asian eggplants. I love cooking these on the grill. I imagine Jack's told you in weeks past but I just love to slice these toss them quick with olive oil and a little salt and pepper and roast them quick on the grill. You don't want them to get too overcooked so they're too mushy but those are awesome on the grill especially with zucchini. These are some of my favorite vegetables to cook on the grill.

Another first for this week. This is a a big week of first for the fruiting crops this week. We have Cherokee purple heirloom tomatoes. Victor just picked these this week. You'll see a lot of them are still on the green side. This guy's about ready to eat but some of them coming out of your box are going to be more on the green side because they do have to travel a couple days to get to you. We pick them a little bit under ripe so that they don't get too over ripe and get squished on the way to you. Those you just want to leave on your counter and let them ripen up before you use them but they will turn they will turn red just like the others.

Next we have more shishito peppers. This is a little bigger bag than last week for everybody who got a taste. Also awesome on the grill. I love to just toss them in olive oil and salt and blacken them on the grill. Maybe add a little more salt when you're done. Makes a really great snack.

We have another round of lettuce. This this group didn't get rained on so I'm hoping it's going to make it to you in really good shape. I think the label says red lettuce but we had to supplement with some green so you're going to have either a redhead lettuce or a greenhead lettuce but they're looking pretty good this week.

We also have cilantro. Y'all know what to do with cilantro.

We've got this really nice lacinato kale. We started picking a new a new patch this week so it looks awesome for your kale salads or however you like to use it.

We've got big basil bags for people who like to pesto. There's a really beautiful new patch on in the field too so that looks awesome. Don't put that in the fridge. Basil doesn't like the fridge so keep that on your counter and use it soon.

And then last we have parsley which is also looking great this week. My favorite way to store it is to put it in a jar of water with a plastic bag on top. You can put it in the fridge or on the counter. I oftentimes just leave it on the counter but that's that's it.