Farm Update
Hi everyone! I hope you all enjoyed your shares last week!
One of the great truths about farm life is that everything revolves around the sun. We need it to produce the heat and light that grows our food, we need it to burn off the morning dew so that our plants don't stay wet and become susceptible to disease, and it pretty much dictates the rhythm of our workload over the course of the year. As the old idiom indicates, one must "make hay while the sun shines". And while we don't grow hay, the spirit of the phrase is certainly true for us. The amount of work that must be done at the farm to keep things going directly corelates with the number of hours of sunlight we get at any given time of the year. And as you all know, the summer solstice was a few days ago, so we're pretty much at our most sunny and most work-filled time of year.
The work is varied this time of year, because we're still very much in the midst of planting even as we're harvesting thousands of pounds of food for the CSA each week. This week has been pretty dry, so we've been irrigating like crazy, which involves carrying around our heavy irrigation lines to far flung corners of the farm to make sure no little plants get too parched. We've also been making a big planting push this week, because if we don't get seeds into the ground now, it means we don't have food in August. Many of you asked me where Fred was at the drop-offs this week, and the answer is that he was planting a whole bunch of winter squash, lettuce, beets, fennel, okra, cucumbers, and tomatoes that will make their appearance in the shares in a few months.
Fortunately, we have a great crew to help! We have four farmhands that help us with all the planting, weeding, harvesting, washing, packing, and everything else that needs to happen. Callie and Taran have been working with us since March, Tate joined the crew a few weeks ago, and Jackson (who started just a few days ago) is the newest addition to the farm team. We also were thrilled to have two people who worked at the farm in past seasons come back to help us with the planting this week! Fred's brother Charlie, who worked with us for four summers while he was in college, came back on Thursday to help plant beets and lettuce. And our dear friend Lindy, who is in town from Virginia and just couldn't stay away from the farm, came over on Friday morning and helped us plant squash.
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Here's our friend Lindy on the transplanter,
planting the squash that will be in the shares
this fall! When we transplant, Fred drives the
tractor with the transplanter attached,
spikes on the yellow wheel put holes in
the row of black plastic (which helps
keep weeds down), and one or two people
put the plants into the holes as quickly as
possible. Although hand planting everything
takes a long time, this allows us to get
a bunch of planting done a lot faster. |
Aside from planting, we're also harvesting a bunch of things for the CSA. I'm so excited that we'll be having the first carrots and potatoes in the shares this week! The potatoes this week are new potatoes, which are the most delicious, tender, fresh potatoes you'll ever have in your life! They're harvested a lot earlier than most potatoes (we'll be doing our main potato harvest in September, when they're bigger and more mature), so they're especially good in dishes that really emphasize their tenderness. (If you're interested in learning a really delicious preparation, check out the recipe section below for Farmer Fred's New Potatoes with Dill and Garlic Scapes.) We're also going to have the first carrots of the season this week! These young little carrots will be smaller than what you normally see at the store; basically, they're baby carrots, but way more delicate and flavorful. Then as the season goes on, they'll get bigger and stronger, but they'll still keep their amazing flavor.
If you have young children, you may have also heard that this season, we're teaming up with our local Great Start Parent Coalition/ Family Connect groups to bring fun themed activities for families to do with their kiddos while you're waiting in line for your veggies! Many of you might not know that I also have an off-farm job as the Parent Liaison for the Gratiot-Isabella Great Start Family Connect, which is a fun parent group that puts on educational opportunities, family events, and the like for families of young kids. So I teamed up with Amanda Hawkins, my counterpart in Midland County, to launch Talking is Teaching activities at the market style CSA drop-offs in Alma, Mt. Pleasant, and Midland! Talking is Teaching is a program that encourages and supports us to talk, read, and sing with our kiddos to help build our children's brains as well as our connection to our kids. We'll be bringing different themed activities to the drop-offs each week, and right now we're gathering information to help us plan our activities. If you scanned the QR code that was at the drop-off last week, then you're all set! But if you have young kids and you didn't happen to scan the QR code last week, please take a minute to fill our our very short survey so we can plan fun and relevant activities for the kids at the drop-offs!
And now for some housekeeping stuff. Here's just another reminder about the 4th of July coming up next week! We'll still be having the Alma drop-off as usual on Monday, July 4th, but if you can't make it to the drop-off, that's totally fine! Just let me know by Sunday, July 3rd, and you can either postpone your share and pick up a double share on July 11th, or you can arrange to pick up your share at another drop-off that week. When 4th of July falls on a Monday, we often have a lot of people opt to pick up their shares on Tuesday, July 5th in Mt. Pleasant, so just let me know if you want to do that.
Also, if you have egg cartons kicking around your house, we can always use them! And if you still have the little pint containers that your strawberries came in, I can wash those up and reuse them as well. If you already got rid of them, no worries, but if you still have your containers, I can definitely reuse them for blueberries and cherry tomatoes when the time comes.
Thank you so much! Just let me know if you have questions about anything, and I'll see you at the drop-off! :-)
What to Expect in the Shares this Week
If you pick up at our Alma, Mt. Pleasant, or Midland drop-off, here are the options for your shares! If you have a half share, you’ll choose one item from each choice category, and if you have a full share, you’ll choose two. And if there is something you don’t like or can’t eat, you can bring it to the trading station at the end and trade it for something you like better.
- Baby carrots or new potatoes
- Kale, bok choy, or Swiss chard
- Zucchini or beets
- Cilantro, microgreens, or garlic scapes
- Spring mix or romaine lettuce
- Green onions
- Kohlrabi or dill
If you pick up at our Lansing, Okemos, St. Johns, Midland hospital, or Alma hospital drop-off, or if you have home or workplace delivery, here are your options! We have three different prepacked shares, and you can let me know which one you want by filling out this quick form by lunchtime the day before your drop-off. If you have a half share, you can choose one of these options, and if you have a full share, you’ll choose two.
Share A:
- Potatoes
- Kale
- Beets
- Garlic scapes
- Romaine
- Green onions
- Dill
Share B:
- Baby carrots
- Kale
- Zucchini
- Cilantro
- Spring mix
- Green onions
- Kohlrabi
Share C:
- Baby carrots
- Bok choy
- Zucchini
- Microgreens
- Romaine
- Green onions
- Kohlrabi
Recipes
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| Farmer Fred's New Potatoes with Dill and Garlic Scapes |
The more we get into the CSA season, the more we move away from the leafy veggies of spring into old favorites like potatoes, carrots, zucchini, and lettuce. But one veggie that's in the shares this week that might be new to you (and probably is if you haven't been part of a CSA before) is kohlrabi! Every year when we first bring kohlrabi to the drop-offs, a bunch of people stop short, look at it for a little bit, and then ask, "What the heck is this thing?" And rightly so. It's a funny-looking little green bulb that sometimes has large leaves sticking out of the top, or if the leaves are absent, it has the cut stems where the leaves were once attached. It kind of reminds me of the little aliens from the claw machine in Toy Story, and for that reason, is pretty much universally loved by small children. It kind of has the texture of a broccoli stem and a light, pleasant flavor. It can be eaten raw or cooked, and if you're looking for ideas, here are 20 Easy Kohlrabi Recipes from Insanely Good Recipes!
And I would be remiss if I didn't pass along the amazingly delicious potatoes with dill and garlic scapes Fred made this weekend!
Farmer Fred's New Potatoes with Dill and Garlic Scapes
- 1 CSA bag of new potatoes
- 1/3 bunch of dill
- 1 bunch of garlic scapes
- 1-2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard
- Olive oil
- Butter
- Salt and pepper to taste
Cut your potatoes into 1-inch chunks, or just halve them if they're already the right size. Cut your garlic scapes into 2-inch lengths, discarding the little light green bump. Cook them in a mixture of olive oil and butter (you can play around with the proportions to suite your taste) over medium heat, stirring frequently. When the potatoes are tender and can be cut easily with a fork, turn off the heat, add 1/3 bunch of finely chopped dill, 1 or 2 tablespoons of Dijon mustard, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir until everything is well-mixed, and enjoy this delicious stuff!
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