Sunday, June 26, 2016

Newsletter for June 26, 2016

Farm Update

Our lovely pearl onions
Hi everyone!  It's been a pretty intense week at the farm.  Fred has been out there pretty much nonstop, harvesting, washing, and packing veggies for the CSA and wholesale, moving irrigation around, weeding, chasing away deer, and all of the multitude of other things we do at the farm.  One thing we haven't done much of this week is planting, because it's so dry that anything we plant runs a really strong risk of just not coming up.  Usually we plant every week or two, so that we have veggies that are the right size for harvest at any given time, but the conditions have just been so unfavorable for it that we decided not to last week.  That has its own pros and cons; the pro is that we won't expend valuable resources (seed, time, labor expenses) only to not have the crops come up, but the con is that we run the risk of having a gap in crop availability later in the summer.  We're supposed to get a pretty big rain system this afternoon, so we have our fingers crossed that it will hit us and give us the rain we need to get back into our normal production patterns.  Fred is hosting a transplanting workshop through MSU out at the farm today, so farmers and future farmers from all over will be visiting us at the farm.  As much as you don't usually want rain during an event like that, I bet pretty much everyone there would be happy to get rained on today. :-)


What to Expect in Your Share this Week

Not only are our baby carrots
beautiful, nothing beats a fresh,
locally-grown carrot for flavor!
Here are the options in each veggie station this week!  If you have a half share, you'll choose one from each category, and if you have a full share, you'll choose two.  You'll probably notice that there are fewer options than we usually have, and that is also due to the extreme dryness.  Many of the crops aren't sizing the way they should be due to lack of moisture, so the variety coming out of the field is a lot more limited than usual.  We're hoping to start getting some consistent rain so the veggies can get back on track and you guys can have lots of choices in your shares!

  • Baby carrots
  • Pearl onions
  • Lettuces (might be any combination of romaine, spring mix, read leaf lettuce, or head lettuce)
  • Zucchini
  • Small cabbage, bok choy, or green onions
  • Kale or cooking greens
  • Surprise veggie!

If you have your share delivered to your home or workplace, or if you pick up at our East Lansing drop-off, here are your options for this week.  If you have a half share, choose one, and if you have a full share, choose two.

Share A:                                      Share B:
Baby carrots                                Baby carrots
Pearl onions                                 Pearl onions
Lettuce                                         Lettuce
Zucchini                                      Zucchini
Small cabbage                             Bok choy
Cooking greens                           Kale
Surprise veggie                           Surprise veggie

If you have a preference for share A or share B, just let me know by noonish the day before your delivery day, and I'll make sure you get your preferred share.  If you don't have a preference, I'll just choose for you. :-)


Recipes


One of the fun things about having a CSA is introducing people to veggies they've never tried before.  I absolutely love it when someone comes to the drop-off the next week after taking home something they've never seen before (kohlrabi, garlic scapes, bok choy, microgreens) and tells me how they prepared it and how much they loved it.  I had a friend come to the Alma drop-off last week and ask what one does with bok choy, so I figured some of you might be wondering the same thing.  So Clare (and everyone else), just in case you're still wondering, here are 10 great things to do with bok choy!

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Veggie Spotlight: Microgreens

Farm Update

Our first Midland CSA drop-off of
the year!
Hi everyone!  It's been a busy week at the farm.  We've officially started the CSA for the season, and it was so great to see everyone!  We've been doing a ton of planting, weeding, and harvesting, and we also finally got our new driveway put in.  This will make it a lot easier to get around all of the time, but especially in wet and muddy weather, when our driveway was previously pretty much impassible.  It's been pretty dry, which has encouraged a lot of insects to come out.  Basically, they're looking for food, and our irrigated crops look a lot more attractive to them than all of the dry plants in the surrounding environment.  We've been having more deer trouble, but Fred has been going out in the middle of the night to try to interrupt their patterns of movement.  He actually camped out in the field a couple times last week, and it seems to have helped a little.  We're definitely going to have to find a more permanent solution though.  But as for the animals we like, the pigs are growing so quickly!  They've been sleeping in the shade a lot because of the hot weather.  The heat has also been good for our tomatoes, sweet corn, and zucchini, which are getting noticeably bigger every day.  This is the most intense part of the year for us, and this year is no different, but we wouldn't have it any other way.

What to Expect in Your Share this Week

Here are the options in each veggie station this week!  If you have a half share, you'll choose one from each category, and if you have a full share, you'll choose two.

  • Romaine or spring mix
  • Zucchini for everyone!
  • Green onions for everyone!
  • Strawberries for everyone!
  • Kale, Swiss chard, or bok choi
  • Basil or microgreens
  • Surprise veggie

If you have your share delivered to your home or workplace, or if you pick up at our East Lansing drop-off, here are your options for this week.  If you have a half share, choose one, and if you have a full share, choose two.

Share A:                                      Share B:
Romaine                                     Spring mix
Zucchini                                     Zucchini
Strawberries                               Strawberries
Kale                                            Bok choi
Basil                                           Microgreens
Surprise veggie                          Surprise veggie
Green onions                              Green onions

If you have a preference for share A or share B, just let me know by noonish the day before your delivery day, and I'll make sure you get your preferred share.  If you don't have a preference, I'll just choose for you. :-)

Veggie Spotlight: Microgreens

Microgreens, packaged and ready to go to our local restaurants.
Whenever we bring something new and unusual to the CSA, we get a lot of questions.  “What is this?”  “How do I use it?”  One of the new and different things you’ll be seeing at the drop-off this week are our microgreens.  While we grow these primarily for our local restaurants, we use a lot of them at home, and now you can too.  Even though they look fancy, these microgreens are basically the very small plant (often from the same seed we plant in the field) of things like basil, cilantro, arugula, radish, and many others that harvested when extremely small.  To grow them at the farm, we  first fill greenhouse trays with a premixed organic soil from Morgan’s Composting that has the perfect nutrient mix to grow a healthy plant. Then Daniel, who has worked for us for a several years, will sprinkle the seed over the tray at a predetermined rate by hand.  After this he covers the seeded flat with vermiculite and waters the flat in the greenhouse to induce germination of the seed. Then after germination, the densely seeded flat forms almost a carpet of small 1-2 inch tall plants that are then cut by hand in large clumps with a knife.  These cut greens are then washed and spun in a hand spinner, and then packaged.  This entire process, from seeding to harvest, takes as little as 6 days or as long as 3 weeks, depending on the type of microgreen being grown for this time of year.  This week we will mostly have micro radish and micro arugula, along with maybe a little bit of a couple others.  They are best used quickly, as their storage life is not as long as larger leaves.  Restaurants and enthusiastic home cooks often use them to decorate the top of a dish.  In the case of the radish, it can also easily give something just a little more spice, and the arugula can provide some of that distinct arugula flavor. These micro greens are great used in sandwiches and other foods, and offer a gorgeous color contrast against the dish.  We’ve heard many health claims about mow microgreens are healthier than other greens, but we take these claims with a grain of salt, as most of this information comes from those who are either marketing microgreens or selling supplies.  Whatever the truth is about the health claims, there is no question that they are a beautiful and easy way to add some greens to a dish, and a great way to add a little flavor and more visual appeal to whatever you are putting on the table.  Enjoy!

Recipes



It's probably a safe assumption that you don't use microgreens every day, so here are some recipe ideas!  Some of them call for ingredients that are not available locally this time of year so you can't follow all of them exactly, but they are absolutely great as a springboard for customizing your own microgreen meals.  Check them out here!

Saturday, June 11, 2016

Spring Veggies: What They Are and Why They Thrive Right Now

Farm Update

Our piggies have arrived!  Here, they
 are just chilling in their shelter.
Hello everyone!  I hope you are all as excited as I am about the CSA starting this week!  It has been a hot and dry last few days, and the plants are really feeling it.  Fred has been irrigating like crazy, but the plants really just need a good rain to come out of survival mode and start growing again.  Looking around the farm, some of the crops are actually ahead of schedule.  The garlic, potatoes, and sweet corn will likely be earlier than usual, and we've actually been getting zucchini out of the heated greenhouse for the last several weeks despite the fact that it's usually a high summer crop.  If you get radishes at the drop-off this week, they'll probably be a little spicier than usual, because there's something about dry weather that causes them to be more intensely spicy.  In other news, our piggies have arrived!  We have eight little ones who are a mix of two heritage breeds, Hereford and Gloucester Old Spot, and they are super cute!  They serve multiple purposes around the farm.  Their presence makes the deer a little nervous, so they are a natural pest deterrent.  They help our farm stay tidier by eating all of the veggie scraps.  And of course, come fall they'll be delicious bacon and pork chops.  Pigs are certainly a multi-functional animal if ever there was one, and we love having them around!  On another note, I've heard from a few people that they are going to miss the first drop-off because they're out of town, so if that also applies to you, please just let me know by the day before your drop-off!  That way I can postpone your share and get you a double share when you get back.  See you all soon!

What to Expect in Your Share this Week

Here are the options in each veggie station this week!  If you have a half share, you'll choose one from each category, and if you have a full share, you'll choose two.

  • Radishes or spinach
  • Strawberries
  • Spring mix or romaine
  • Kale
  • Green onions
  • Garlic, dill, or cilantro
  • Bok choi or cooking greens mix

If you have your share delivered to your home or workplace, or if you pick up at our East Lansing drop-off, here are your options for this week.  If you have a half share, choose one, and if you have a full share, choose two.

Share A:                                      Share B:
Radishes                                      Spinach
Strawberries                                Strawberries
Spring mix                                   Romaine lettuce
Kale                                             Kale
Green onions                               Green onions
Cilantro                                       Garlic
Cooking greens mix                    Bok choi

If you have a preference for share A or share B, just let me know by noonish the day before your delivery day, and I'll make sure you get your preferred share.  If you don't have a preference, I'll just choose for you. :-)

Spring Veggies:  What They Are and Why They Thrive Right Now

In my childhood and adolescence, I never actively thought about vegetables.  If you had asked me about them back then, I could have named most of the basics, and if you gave me a shopping list of produce, I could have found them all fairly admirably at the grocery store.  But it wasn’t until I was in my early twenties that I had any concept of seasonality.  It had never occurred to me before how odd it was to have cherries in January, carrots in March, asparagus in October, and bananas pretty much ever.  We are so used to all things being available at all times, so learning to enjoy fruits and vegetables in season is often an education for us in this modern age.  One of the biggest questions I get during the CSA season is “When do you expect to have blueberries/ tomatoes/ zucchini/ sweet potatoes?”  So for all of you wondering exactly what types of veggies are coming out of the fields this time of year, here is a primer on spring produce in Michigan.

Fred shows Jane and baby Timothy the nasturtiums in the
greenhouse.
Greens and other leafy things:  Kale, lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, bok choi, and herbs such as dill and cilantro are some of the stars of the spring produce scene!  They do well this time of year because they are cold-hardy, which means they can be planted early and withstand the frost.  The cooler temperatures and prevalent rainfall we usually get in spring are just the conditions that leafy greens love.

Radishes:  Radishes thrive in the spring because they are a fast-growing crop that doesn’t take too long to mature, and they also prefer cooler temperatures.  Because they grow so quickly, they are one of the first crops ready in the spring.

Rhubarb and asparagus:  While we don’t actually grow rhubarb and asparagus at the farm, no discussion of spring veggies would be complete without them.  There are two reasons we don’t grow them.  The first is that because they are some of the earliest produce, their season is actually almost over by the time the CSA starts, which doesn’t make a ton of economic sense for us.  The other reason is that they are perennials, which means that we can’t practice crop rotation with them, and they are much more susceptible to perennial weed pressure.  Asparagus does best in the spring because it requires a lot of moisture in the soil to survive.  Rhubarb requires average temperatures of less than 75 degrees to keep growing, so once the summer heat is upon us, rhubarb shuts down until temperatures dip into the 40s again in the late fall.
The corn is already a lot taller than it usually is this time of
year.  Fred experimented with starting the seeds in the
greenhouse and then transplanting it, and it seems to have
worked pretty well!

Strawberries:  Strawberries are one of the favorites of spring!  There are actually a few types of strawberries:  June-bearing (which prefer a shorter day length and are harvested all in one fell swoop in June), and everbearing (which produce small amounts of berries throughout the summer and have no preference for day length).  Although you can have strawberries in the summer with the everbearing types, the quality of the June-bearing varieties is so much better that it makes sense to enjoy the best berries in their short spring season.

Peas/ pea shoots:  Like leafy greens, peas and pea shoots prefer cooler temperatures and wet weather.  They are very cold-hardy, which makes them ideal for early planting, but they start to wither when the temperature gets too hot.  So as the days get hot and dry, peas are no longer in their element.

Garlic scapes:  These are actually the curly upper part of the garlic plant we all know and love.  While the root hides underground becoming the garlic we’re used to, the garlic scapes are the reproductive part of the plant.  Once the weather gets too warm, the garlic scapes die off and the root becomes the main event.

Green onions:  The main difference between green onions and bulbing onions is the variety.  Green onion varieties have been bred over time to have a slender bulb and lovely green shoots, whereas traditional onions have been bred for the bulb.  The green onion shoots do well in the spring for the same reason as most of the green leafy veggies:  the cooler spring temperatures are easier on them.

So now is the time to enjoy these spring veggies while they’re at their best!  As the weeks and months move along, spinach and strawberries will make way for corn and tomatoes, and asparagus will be only a pleasant memory.  For this reason, there is a simple beauty in being fully engaged in each season as it passes, and fully enjoying the bounty in its own time.

Recipes



I'm assuming you probably don't need help coming up with ideas on how to eat your strawberries, so let's talk kale!  This Easy Garlic Kale Recipe is one of the simplest and most delicious ways to prepare kale; indeed, it is pretty much our go-to kale technique.  Bonus:  you can also use your garlic scapes! 

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Your First CSA Drop-Off: How it Works and What You Need to Know

Farm Update

The lettuce is looking gorgeous out
in the fields!  The deer seem to agree,
so here's hoping they move on before
they do more damage to this lovely stuff!
Hello everyone!  We have an official start date for the CSA!  We'll be kicking off the drop-offs the week of June 13th, so mark your calendars or program it into your phones!  Alma will begin Monday, June 13th from 5-6 PM, Mt. Pleasant will start Tuesday, June 14th from 5-6 PM, Midland will be Wednesday, June 15th from 5-6 PM, and East Lansing will be anytime from 4:30-9:00 on Thursday, June 16th.  On the farm front, things have really taken off!  It's been pretty hot and dry, so we've been irrigating a lot.  The blueberry bushes are looking really nice, with lots of green berries on them.  We're still having some struggles with the local deer population; last week they came through and did quite a bit of damage to a really beautiful stand of lettuce we had.  So Fred has been going out late at night (when they usually come through) for the last few days to scare them off, and hopefully they'll get wary and stay away.  Our coldframes, which used to be planted with spring veggies, are entirely planted with the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and zucchini we'll have later this summer.  We also have some early zucchini and their accompanying squash blossoms coming out of the heated greenhouse already!  It's been so nice to have zucchini on the table already, and we've sold some of it to local restaurants as well.  Also, in case you're interested, we're now on Instagram!  You can follow us there to see what we're doing at the farm one photo at a time!



Your First CSA Drop-Off:
How It Works and What You Need to Know


Arugula blooms in the coldframes.
One thing I have learned in the last few years of hanging out with CSA farmers is that we all have our own ways of doing things.  Different growing methods, preferred crops to work with, management styles, and of course, different types of CSA drop-offs!  So if you’ve never been in a CSA before (or you just have never been in our CSA before), you probably have some questions about what to expect at your first drop-off.  I was going to write a whole article all about it, but I realized that the details in last year’s article on the topic are still equally relevant.  So you can read about that here.  There are a few things that will be different though, and here they are:

The East Lansing drop-off:  Instead of having a regular drop-off in East Lansing this year, where we set up the tables and you all walk down the line and choose your veggies, we’re going to be doing all prepacked shares this year.  So here’s how it will work:  The drop-off is still on Thursdays at the East Lansing Food Co-op, but instead of having to be there between 5:00 and 6:00 PM, you’ll be able to show up anytime between 4:30-ish and 9:00 (or even the next day if your schedule is crazy).  You can just go into the co-op and someone will help you get your bag of veggie goodness!  You’ll still get some choice as to what goes in your share too, because we’ll offer two prepacked options.  When I send out the newsletter each Saturday, I’ll let you know what will be in Share A and what will be in Share B for the upcoming week.  Then, you can just send me an email anytime by noon on Wednesday and let me know which one you prefer.  If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume both options sounded equally awesome to you, and I’ll just pick one. J  If you need to postpone your share because you’ll be out of town, that will work just the same as last year:  you can just let me know by Wednesday and I’ll postpone your share that week and get you a double share the following week.

It's been really hot and dry lately, so
Fred has been spending a lot of time
watering and irrigating.
Home/ workplace delivery:  If you are signed up to have your share delivered to your home or workplace, it will be pretty much the same system as last year.  However, the details on that are not in last year’s article, so for those new to the home/workplace delivery option, here is how it works.  You also will have a choice of two prepacked shares, Share A and Share B.  I’ll let you know in the newsletter each Saturday what those options will be, and you can just email me by noon on the day before your drop-off and let me know which one you prefer.  Again, if I don’t hear from you, I’ll just choose for you.  So if you’re super busy and forget to let me know, don’t worry, we won’t skip your share or anything.  We’ll come by sometime in the mid-afternoon on your drop-off day and leave your share near your front door, so if that happens to be a sunny spot, it’s a good idea to leave a cooler out where we can put your veggies so they don’t get all wilty.  If you are going to be out of town and need to postpone your share, just let me know by the day before your drop-off, and I’ll plan on skipping that week and getting you a double share when you get back.


So that’s it!  Just let me know if you have any questions about any of this, and we look forward to seeing you soon! J

Recipes


Although we have had spinach for a while now, I'm still not over being excited about it, and just about everything I cook has spinach in it somewhere!  If you're loving spinach right now too, check out this Spinach Pie recipe!  You can also add whatever other veggies you have on hand for a really flavorful and interesting meal