Saturday, July 8, 2017

The 2017 Dream Team: Our Fantastic Farm Crew!

Farm Update




Fred, Carson, and Ben harvesting baby carrots for the shares
a while back.
Hi everyone!  We are heading into week 4 of the CSA, and it seems like this season is just flying by!  We’ve been planting, harvesting, and getting veggies ready for delivery this week, as well as moving the irrigation lines around quite a bit.  Despite the consistent rains we had a week or two ago, we could actually use more now.  We didn’t get the major flooding that hit the Midland and Mt. Pleasant areas, so while our ground was pretty saturated, it was able to handle all the water with just a minimal upset in our lower back field.  And now it’s bone dry again, so we’ve been irrigating quite a bit.  It’s amazing how quickly it changes from needing rain, to wanting the rain to stop, to needing it again!  In other news, Fred was at the Midland Farmers Market this morning, so I bet some of you saw him there!  As always, we look forward to seeing you all this week!  J







What to Expect in your Share this Week


If you pick up your shares at one of our regular drop-offs, here’s what your options will be!  If you have a half share, choose one in each category, and if you have a full share, choose two.

  • Blueberries for everyone!
  • Carrots
  • Beets or pearl onions
  • Cabbage, kale, or cucumbers
  • Spring mix or head lettuce
  • Frisee, 2 kohlrabi, or assorted herbs
  • Zucchini or fennel


And if have your share delivered or pick up in Lansing or Okemos, here are the options this week:

Share A:                               Share B:
Blueberries                           Blueberries
Carrots                                  Carrots
Beets                                     Pearl onions
Kale                                      Cucumbers
Head lettuce                         Spring mix
Herbs                                    2 Kohlrabi
Zucchini                                Fennel


The 2017 Dream Team: Our Fantastic Farm Crew!


Jewel, Carson, Ben, Mary, and Emily taking a few minutes out
of their day to pose for a picture
At the farm, each year is so different, and one season often bears little or no resemblance to the one before it.  You win some and lose some, and this year, we definitely won the jackpot when it comes to employees!  We have a really great team that includes a few high school kids, a few college kids, and one grad student, and they have been a joy to work with!  So when you get your shares each week, these are the people who helped bring your veggies to your table!

Mary:  Mary is Fred’s youngest sister, and this is her second year working for us.  She just finished up her freshman year at Spring Arbor University, and when she returns to school in the fall, she is going to continue working on her nursing degree.  In her spare time she likes to hang out with her friends, cook, eat great food, and baby-sit our kids.  We seriously rely on this girl for everything, so if you see her around, definitely give her a pat on the back!  Her favorite thing to do at the farm is washing and packing up the veggies for CSA shares and wholesale orders, and also picking our edible nasturtiums.  The skills she has been glad to learn at the farm include how to plant crops and how to not freak out about spiders.

Jewel:  Jewel is the daughter of some family friends, and she is just about the sweetest person you’ll ever meet.  Her older brother Keegan worked for us for several years, and Jewel has taken over for him now that he is studying to become an airplane mechanic.  At the farm, she most enjoys harvesting carrots and transplanting, and cites learning how to deal with being in the hot sun all day as the most useful life skill she’s learned at the farm.  That will come in handy, because she and her family are involved in ministry work in Iraq.  They have spent a significant portion of the last two years there, and they’ll be headed back in the fall.

Ben:  Ben is another family friend whose older brother, Joe, worked for us for several years.  Ben is one of our high school kids, and he has been great to have around!  His favorite thing to do at the farm is transplant, and learning how to use the transplanter has been his favorite skill to learn.  In the fall, he is going to return to his studies, but since he is homeschooled, we hope to still have him work for us part time throughout the season.

Mary harvests kale for the CSA shares
Carson:  Carson is our resident grad student, working on his PhD in fisheries at CMU.  His favorite thing to do at the farm is form the plastic beds into which we plant many of our veggies.  He has learned that this is an art to getting the plastic laid straight and flat, with no tears, and the proper width, and he appreciates the beauty of a nicely-done series of plastic beds.  He has also learned this year just how much work goes into farming, and what a wide variety of skills everyone needs to have.  You really need to be a jack of all trades every day, and he likes looking around the farm at all of the projects he’s been involved in.  In his spare time, he enjoys fishing, reading, and playing guitar.  After the farm season, he is planning on continuing his doctoral research, and he has a lot of home improvement projects planned for the house he bought recently.

Emily:  Emily is another long-time family friend; in fact, she and Mary have been running around together since their preschool years.  Her favorite thing to do at the farm is harvesting and bunching the pearl onions, and she also really enjoys washing and packing veggies.  Her favorite new skill she’s learned this year is seeding the flats of transplants.  In her spare time, she likes to hang out with her family and friends and watch movies on Netflix, and in the fall, she’s headed to England to be part of a theater troupe and study drama for a year.

Therese:  The most recent addition to the crew is Therese, and we really appreciate her sweet attitude!   In her spare time, she enjoys hanging out with her friends and family, and in the fall, she’s going to be returning to Olivet for her sophomore year.  Around the farm, she likes catching snakes, is a friend to the baby bunnies, and she doesn’t mind touching the stinging nettle!

So that’s our fantastic 2017 farm team!  It has been so nice to work with each of them so far, and I can’t say enough good things about them!  Just having a group that is reliable and doesn’t mind hard work is pretty awesome, but these guys are also really fun to be around and have great attitudes to boot!  We’re definitely looking forward to spending the rest of the season with them!

Recipes


If you’re like many people, you probably feel like you know what to do with most fruits and veggies in the kitchen, but you might feel a little less confident with fresh herbs.  Never fear!  Here is A Guide to Fresh Herbs from the Food Network, and some helpful tips from the Kitchn forhow to use Summer Savory!



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