Today's Share should included the following: Some cilantro, a pound of fingerling potatoes, a large red leaf lettuce, sixteen collard leaves, a few small walla walla onions (use the tops too), and four beets.

NEW FARMER, NEW CROPS.  In his long experience working with farmers, Jim has learned that because we work in isolation, each farmer invents his or her own ways of doing things and specialties.  When farmers get together as Rosemattel and Hunters' Greens have this year, some healthy cross polination occurs.  For example, Jim and Diane never got into growing fingerling potatoes because the seed potatoes were so much more expensive.  This spring Brenda gave us some, we planted them and to our surprise, they by far out produce regular potatoes.  We have been converted.  Brenda also gave us some celery seedlings, which we have never succeeded in getting to sprout.  Time will tell whether we can successfully bring the crop to harvest.

Brenda is also much more tuned into plant pests and diseases.  You may all notice that some of the leaves on the Hunters' Greens beets are an ugly withered yellow.  We never thought about it much, but Brenda tells us it is leaf miner damage.  Brenda has protected some of her crops from this pest using row covers and diatomaceous earth, a natural pest deterrent.

FINGERLING POTATOES.  We've gotten a couple of tips on delicious ways to prepare fingerling potatoes.  Jim's brother John wrote with the following, "Fingerling potatoes are great roasted in the oven. Toss them in a little olive oil, salt, pepper, amybe some dried rosemary. Put them in a pyrex baking dish, by themselves or with other veggies (or chunks of kielbasa), bake at 400 F for about a half an hour. Pretty much the same as you would do with roasting new potatoes."

Jenny at the Vancouver drop site offered a similar recipe, but specified kosher salt.

BEET VARIETIES.  If you are observant, you may notice the differences between two beet varieties in the share.  Notice the shapes, and you may be able to notice one is more uniform in shape and size than the other.  We seem to recall that one is an open pollenated variety and the other is a hybrid.  We'll talk more about this next week, after you've made your observations.

So, until next week, Bon Appetit.