Dear Farm Community -

Of course the big news this week is what a beautiful and charming weekend we had hosting community on the farm! The weather gods graced us with cool, breezy, and beautiful skies for the farm dinner on Saturday evening, and laughter echoed through the fields as Chef Ry served up some of the most incredible, delicious, and stunning food! It was incredible to see our veggies alongside the foods from so many other farms we love - woodland gardens, decimal place farm, southerncap mushrooms, middle GA growers co-op, riverview farms, springer mountain farms, hickory hill farm, and food from Ry’s very own garden all went into making the meal something so special. The heirloom tomato salad was just out of this world, the grilled mushrooms with flowering brassicas were a crowd favorite, and the macerated peaches n’ cream dessert was to die for! Stay up to date with Ry and her events at her instagram page or rystable.com. And if you missed this farm dinner, keep your eyes peeled for other on-farm events by reading the newsletter and following us on instagram!

Friend of the farm and Athens photographer Marco Battezzati photographed the event ~ we’ll share more pics when we have them, but we’ve included a few early faves above and below!

Farm Yoga with Phelan LaVelle on Sunday was also a total blast! After a thunderstorm delayed us a bit we were left with clear blue skies, and Phelan led a practice overflowing with gratitude for what this earth, community, and life have to offer. If you missed it and want to get in on that good yoga (or you joined us and want more of that bliss…) head to her website and check out her class schedule - she teaches in Athens every week! :)

It’s been a minute since we’ve truly updated you on what we’re doing out in the fields. We’ve been busy! We’ve planted our eggplant, celery, okra, cucumbers, and more more more successions of tomatoes. Our summer squash plants that went in way back when are beginning to produce a TON of squash. Okay - not a literal ton, but we harvested over 300lbs of it this past week! That number is only going to go up as we continue our march into summer. Our pepper plants are sizing up and we’ve got fingers are crossed for a successful pepper year that makes up for our not-so-stellar pepper yield last year.

One of the big milestones we reach around this time every year is our garlic harvest! Last week we harvested all of our soft-neck garlic, and the hard-neck varieties are nearly ready—likely coming out of the ground this week or next. After a bulk harvest like this, we always set aside a bit to share fresh (it’s zingy and delicious right out of the soil!), but most of it gets strung up to cure. That’s when it transforms into the papery, familiar garlic you know and love from the grocery store—only grown with a lot more love and a lot less industrialization ;)

Obviously this week’s CSA is all about garlic! With garlic front and center, try out this comforting and elevated recipe for garlic bread grilled cheese from Bon Apetit, or throw it back to the Barefoot Condessa with her recipe for Baked Shrimp Scampi that is an absolute buttery flavorful crowd pleaser (for a gluten free version, ditch the bread crumbs and sub in an equal amount of almonds pulsed into crumbs in a blender or food processor - this produced a delicious GF result!)

While you cook up these flavorful and inspired garlic recipes, throw on one of the best documentaries ever made (in my humblest of opinions) ~ “Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers” directed by Les Blank (accessible for free on kanopy ~ all you need is a public library card!) This 1980 film is a beautiful and quirky love letter to “the stinking rose” featuring interviews with garlic fanatics of all kinds: cooks, members of garlic appreciation societies, attendees of the Gilroy Garlic Festival, and the queen of farm-to-table herself, Alice Waters! You can wade deeper into garlic fanaticism in The Book of Garlic by Lloyd J Harris, which dives into folklore, medical uses, history, recipes, and more. Here’s a recipe from those very pages, contributed by none other than Les Blank:

Dottie’s Spinach
FROM LES BLANK

2 pounds fresh spinach, steamed and chopped
2 white onions, diced
1 large head of garlic, minced
3/4 pound cheddar cheese, grated
Bread crumbs
Cayenne pepper
1/4 pound butter

Melt the butter in a large frying pan. Cook the onions in the butter until transparent, but not brown. Add the garlic and cayenne pepper to taste. Add the spinach. Mix well and cook for five minutes. Add the grated cheese and when melted, put the mixture in a greased casserole. Cover the top with bread crumbs, dot with pieces of butter, and bake at 350F for 30-40 minutes. Serves 6.

Stay smelly 🧄
Diamond Hill Farmers

it doesn’t all stink!

join our CSA