First CSA box of 2013, May 29

We are at the beginning. The first vegetables harvested for you! Your boxes all contain: 1 bunch of swiss chard, 1 head of romaine lettuce, 1 head of red bibb lettuce, 1 bunch of spring onions, 1 bunch of green garlic, 1 pint of strawberries. (value $14.50) The regular shares also have: 1 bag of spinach, 2 baby fennel bulbs, 1 purple and 1 green kohlrabi. (value $23)

 The swiss chard needs to be stored in a bag in your fridge until eating it. The green garlic can be used just as the garlic you're used to seeing and using. It is not as strong and can be chopped like an onion as it hasn't started forming cloves yet. Chop up the stalk until it gets hard to cut thru to use in cooking. You can use the green tops to make a broth or stock, straining them out before using the liquid. Use all parts of the green onions except the roots. The kohlrabi needs to be peeled. It is delicious shredded and added to slaw or eaten by itself with a vinegar dressing. It is also great with the fennel. A simple olive oil, lemon juice, black pepper and salt dressing is best, I think.

 Chard salad
 lightly steam the chard; cool immediately in cold water. ring out excess water toast 2 T sesame seeds make a dressing: juice of 1/2 orange 1 tsp balsamic vinegar drizzle of olive oil pinch of salt make the dressing and pour over cooled chard; add toasted sesame seeds and toss.

Welcome to the 2013 season a little delayed. The boxes you get your produce in each week are coated in wax to prolong their lives. If left in hot sun, they will melt thus shortening their use. Please store them out of the sun and heat. Each week you need to return your empty box from the previous week. These boxes are not cheap or easily replaced. They have “hinges” so if you want to make them flat when you empty them, carefully unfold them from the bottom without tearing. If you are going to miss a week, you need to let us know by Monday of that week at 6pm. If you are going on vacation and will miss a box, you can let us know you don’t want one that week and either get 2 boxes on another week or have someone else pick it up for you. We need you to stick to the same pick up day each week. It is nearly impossible for us to keep up with the details if there is a lot of change. If the day you’ve chosen isn’t working well for you, please let us know and we can change it for the rest of the season. If you don’t let us know you’ll be missing your pick up and we’ve made you a box, we will bring it back to the farm after market and put it in our cooler. It is up to you to arrange to come get it or pick it up at one of our Saturday markets. WE WILL NOT MAKE YOU A NEW BOX IF YOU MISS PICK UP. The value of the boxes (in monetary terms) will vary from week to week. For the small share you made an investment of $15 a week; the regular share an investment of $24 a week. On some weeks you will get a lot more value than if you shopped at market. Some weeks it will be exactly the same value. Over the course of the season, you will see a significant savings over shopping at market. We will put a dollar value on your box each week so you can see that. We work hard to grow healthy and interesting vegetables as well as tried and true staples. We will provide recipes as much as we can. If you have recipes to share, please pass them our way and we’ll put them on the blog. We will update our blog every week with box contents and recipes. We’ll email a reminder every week as well. Please let us know if we need to add anyone to our list. Please feel free to contact us with questions or concerns any time throughout the season.

We will have an “open farm” day on June 29. It will be for the afternoon and you can come out and see the farm and share some food. We’ll give more details when the time nears. Thank you for joining us for the season! We are excited to begin!

1st CSA Pick-Up Postponed......

Cool Spring. We have been talking and debating when to start the CSA this year, and the next two nights of freeze warnings have made up our mind. We were scheduled to begin the pickups on May 15. We will begin either May 29th, or on June 5th. You will be compensated for the missed weeks, and will be notified when that compensation is made either in market credit, extra produce in boxes, or the weeks missed being added at the end of the year. Those of you requesting eggs: we have a list of your names and will save a dozen for you weekly and you will pay at that time, $4.50/dozen. We appreciate your understanding and please know that we are chomping at the bit to start harvesting and putting together CSA boxes.

 Weather aside it has been a great spring. The greenhouse has functioned well and the plants coming out look great. We heat it with wood, and have burned much more than in years past. I put the last two sticks into the stove last night at 2 am and its on our list today to cut more wood. Garrett an intern from last year came through for six weeks this winter and gave us a huge boost with the greenhouse work. He is off to work in Colorado on another farm now, but the plants he seeded and stepped up are out in the field. The cows moved down the road to another farm that we are leasing and they are enjoying the lush pasture. We have been calving and everyone is vigorous and healthy. The chickens have been a struggle ever since our dog Loretta passed away last fall. She was really good at keeping rodents and varmints at bay. Since then we have been fighting a weasel that keeps weaseling it's way into the coop and stealing chickens heads. We were putting our cats in the coop at night to deter him for a little while. It only worked for so long, but it was cute to see the cats asleep in the laying boxes in the morning. We planted @ 100 apple trees earlier in the spring and are excited of the idea of harvesting that fruit 10 years down the road. The kids are good.....they definitely give us a run for our money daily but they are beautiful and healthy. They enjoy checking the cows, gathering eggs, and watering the greenhouse. Their help with these things doesn't speed up the process but makes it mean that much more. We have two great people working with us this spring. Catherine and Kate will be at markets throughout the season and you will get a chance to meet them and hopefully enjoy them as much as we do.

 In the ground we have transplanted, seeded, cultivated, irrigated, covered, fertilized, foliar fed, and begged to grow kale collards broccoli cauliflower carrots beets peas lettuce fennel squash celery zucchini cucumbers tomatoes potatoes onions garlic strawberries leeks celeriac chard cabbage kohlrabi. It all is doing well, but needs a couple of weeks of heat to get it to your table.

Thanks for your support. In years like this CSA members are especially important to the farm as we wait for the weather to allow us to start harvesting and selling at markets. Feel free to contact us with questions and we will be in touch. Anne Aaron Addiebelle Cyril