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Firefly Hill Farm

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Cincinnati, OH
Firefly Hill Farm

Firefly Hill Farm is a small organic farm using regenerative practices. We don’t have a public store.

Our weekly newsletters are available here

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Wg_HQqmMe7pPoOg8I0fNdYJ5SBNn-dw7

06/23/2025

How to beat the heat? Start your garlic harvest before 7.

Update: in the end, the heat won! 😂

06/22/2025

Well no problem realizing it’s summer here! Hard to believe the solstice was just a couple days ago. It feels like August!

The summer solstice bag has 9 things - here’s the run down.
1. Lettuce - we still have it … for now. If there’s anything lettuce hates more than intense heat, it might be going to intense heat suddenly. So yeah it’s stressed.
2. Mesclun mix. This is just a word for a mix of different greens usually with baby lettuce. So this is FHF mesclun mix made up of baby lettuce and arugula and greens mix.
3. Kale - now we have a kale break until the last few weeks of the season
4. Onions - these are the struggling onions that look like they’re not going to get as big as the rest. The rest are getting ready to harvest as full onions and cure.
5. Garlic scapes - yes they’re back! We are doing an experiment this year with garlic in our shaded beds above the house. They are about 3 weeks behind their counterpart in the sun. So we had to scape them. We have more bundles of 10 if you want additional. These are truly the last of these now.
6. Snap peas - new for half of you! One of my favorites
7. Broccoli
8. Carrots
9. Potatoes! We snuck in and dug some early to share. A beautiful red skinned, white fleshed variety called Red Port. It’s a new red for us and I’m liking it so far.

Enjoy and keep hydrated!

06/19/2025

That storm that came through had some intense winds that knocked down the corn. The cool thing about corn is it tries to right itself. The rule of thumb is 45 degrees. If it’s less of an a hue than that it can get back up. A lot of These are a bit more than that but it’s pretty muddy in there, so we’ll give it a chance and if they don’t come back up, we’ll try and prop them up.

06/15/2025

The mid June bag has some new for the season players! Everyone’s finding a way to grow even if the weather is a bit unusual.

To celebrate Father’s Day we have 8 things with 3 new veggies (4 to half of you)

Here’s the list:
1. Carrots! They have the greens on them because it’s fun and you can do some things with them. Pesto and chimichurri are fun choices but you can also use them almost like fresh parsley in lots of things. That said the carrots can wilt faster with them on so if you’re not going to use them cut them off.
2. Beets and their greens! Yeah for beets! My favorite way to cook is to boil them with skins on, then “rub” the skin off under cool water, slice them up, sauté with butter and salt. The greens are like their own vegetable and later in the season they will be too insect eaten to give so don’t throw them away. My favorite way to cook them is 1) remove the leaf from rib 2) cut up ribs like celery and sauté with onion & garlic & salt 3) chop up leaf like spinach 4) sauté like spinach 5) serve with a little vinegar
3) broccoli! Sprouts or heads everyone gets some this week!
4) green garlic - it’s starting to head up more and some may even be starting to form cloves
5) spring onions - different sizes and varieties this week - I just grabbed any that were either behind the rest or distressed
6) lettuce
7) arugula- see post from yesterday :)
8. Basil! 1st taste. To help basil to bush out, it’s helpful to pinch off the tops … couldn’t bring myself to compost them so you have some basil pinches!

Enjoy!

06/14/2025

OK everyone. Let’s talk about arugula. I dub 2025 the year of arugula.

As we’ve mentioned it hates hot weather so usually we get maybe 1-2 weeks here in southwest Ohio.

It is likely native to the Mediterranean where the weather is mild much of the year. This is why it’s so prevalent in some Italian cuisines.

It’s so hard to grow here, some years I haven’t even bothered but this year we were still trialing what can grow well above the house with all the shade so we got way more seed than usual.

What a coincidence that it also happened to be one of the rainiest, coolest spring in the area.

This is a really long way to say - more arugula this week!!!

Now a few of you have asked me - what can I do with all this arugula and so here are some ideas.

Salads! Of course salads of all kinds are great with the addition of arugula. But some people even make arugula the star. In fact one of Sotto’s salads is arugula, prosciutto, Parmesan and lemon juice (I assume some oil too)!

Here’s some more ideas

https://www.delish.com/cooking/g3989/arugula-recipes

https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/meals-menus/g64035967/arugula-recipes

https://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/slideshow/get-spicy-19-awesome-ways-eat-arugula

For those of you still reading … it’s also interesting to note the differences in how the arugula tastes all these 4 weeks we’ve had it. It’s all been the same variety - same seed packet even - but the flavor - especially the interplay of nuttiness, bitter, and spice all depends on the environmental conditions - the heat, the sun, even the amount of daylight.

Anyway this may be it - or maybe there will be a little more mixed with other things to make a mesclun mix. So dig deep and find a few more recipes and pretend you’re in the Italian mountains!

06/11/2025

Have hope … a little later than usual but the earliest tomatoes are starting to form fruits! Still mostly flowers and plant growth but you can’t stop a tomato from tomato-ing in southwest Ohio!

These days in the 80’s will surely help.

🍅🍅🍅🍅🌱🌱🌱

06/09/2025

Last chance reminder. LMK by today.

Hey guys. I have extras of things planted the last couple weeks. Tomatillos, Napa cabbage and purple cauliflower. These are all a bit niche so I’m not sure anyone will want starts- so I don’t want to put them all in pots. So, if you want any let me know and I’ll put the them in pots and you can grab them.

Of course I have starts because we planted them so of course you’ll get all these in your bags if you’re a subscriber.

$2 each (unless you’re a subscriber and you haven’t used your 4 freebies)

06/08/2025

If you all have whiplash with this weather, imagine the plants! The bag this week is still a reflection of the rainy spring we’ve had - greens galore and radishes as big as peaches!

We have 9 things this week. Here’s the rundown:
1. Lettuce! Everyone gets a beautiful butterhead - it’s a variety called Skyphos it has a cool red and green variegation (plus regular bags get an additional head of leaf lettuce)
2. Napa cabbage - last of this for awhile.
3. Greens mix - probably last of this for the season. This week it’s baby greens mix - so a little milder and great raw.
4. Arugula- yes more beautiful arugula! Nutty and a little spicy.
5. Kale
6. Baby onions - this week it’s mostly our yellow variety - candy. You can see they’re really starting to bulb out as the days get longer.
7. Asparagus- the last taste of this for the year
8. Radishes - big beautiful radishes - if you haven’t tried roasting them consider it (& also pickling!)
9. Garlic scapes - these are the main crop ones so a big bouquet - remember you can use these raw or cooked like you would any garlic.

Hope you catch a rainbow today with the sun & rain back and forth!

06/07/2025

Gotta put things in the ground when you have the chance … transplants really don’t appreciate super hot, super direct sun so this week wasn’t good for transplanting.
But today, that’s another story!
So even though Saturday is harvest day, I planted the tomatillos this morning before harvest. Finally! They’re in the ground.

Now onto the weekly harvest … arugula first.

06/01/2025

Happy 1st of June Bag!

The cool rainy spring we’ve had has been a boon for greens - so even more than last week of those hard to get fleeting things like arugula and mixed greens. We may even have more in coming weeks 🤞.

That same weather has slowed down almost everything else - most vegetables need sun and heat! So broccoli, peas, carrots beets are all a little behind what we’re used to.

So let’s enjoy deep rich greens while we can - it’s sure to get hot in southwest Ohio soon.

The greens focused bag this week has 9 things - here’s the rundown

1&2. Young garlic two ways - garlic scapes and green garlic. Green garlic is just garlic early in life cycle before it develops cloves or even a bulb. Here’s a link that explains it. https://www.thekitchn.com/jump-into-spring-with-green-garlic-lets-try-something-new-218135

3. Lettuce - lots of lettuce!
4. Arugula - as it gets older it is a bit spicier
5. Greens mix - it’s also more flavorful and a little spicier as it gets older
6. Napa cabbage
7. Radishes
8. Spring onions - mostly our white variety this week
9. Either snap peas or broccoli florets - didn’t have enough for either as a stand alone so you’ll get one or the other.

Also it’s the last weekend of our start sale (& I have basils now). I’ll be donating the rest to https://lifefoodpantry.org later this week.

Have a great 1st day of June!

05/31/2025

Lettuce don’t mind cool rainy weather!

05/25/2025

2025 1st bag. 🎉🎉🥳🎊🙌

As typical, the 1st bag is full of greens - some of which are short lived here in southwest Ohio.

We have 9 things to start us off.
1. Lettuce - yay! You get to eat “real” lettuce again.
2. Garlic scapes (see my post from yesterday if you don’t know about these.)
3. Spring onions - our red variety to start us off.
4. Radishes - never better than this time of year. I kept the tops on because I like them. There are a few things you can do with them - here’s a link with some ideas https://www.loveandlemons.com/radish-greens/ - but they will keep longer without them.
5. Kale - yesterday I posted about my love of kale and the power of massaging it. Here’s a recipe for sautéing it - you could totally use the scapes for the garlic. https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-cook-kale-261979
6. Asparagus- our bed mostly peaks before bags but glad I could give you all a taste.
7. Greens mix - this is a mix of various greens (mustards, mizuna, pac choi) you can eat it raw in salads or sautee it.
8. Arugula- arugula appreciates cool weather and so our window here for growing it is very narrow. This week of this year it’s perfect! We’ll see if we get another week or two 🤞.
9. Napa cabbage - a FHF favorite. Use as you would any cabbage - raw or cooked - some folks love to grill it as is!

Happy almost summer with these spring crops.

Address

5386 Hanley Road
Cincinnati, OH
45247

Opening Hours

1pm - 5pm

Telephone

+15135127689

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