CSA Newsletter for Week 10

 

Farm Update

Hi everyone!  This week, we are officially halfway through the CSA season, and we're starting to feel a change in the air.  You know how around mid-August, there's something about the air that feels just a little bit like fall, even though it's still really hot out?  We've noticed that change recently.  I think of it as back-to-school weather, and it always makes me want to buy school supplies and walk around MSU campus drinking orange spice tea.  But maybe that's just me. 😂

We are officially done with our massive potato harvest!  That was a huge job, but it is done for the season!  The humongous amount of weeding has also finally subsided, and now we're basically just doing maintenance weeding.  We'll be starting our large onion harvest this week, which should also be a big job.  Remember those 60,000 onion plants we put in the ground in March?  Now they all have to come out of the ground, so I expect that will take up a major portion of the next few weeks.  After the onions are harvested, we'll lay them out to cure in one of our coldframes that isn't currently planted.  Onions that are intended to be stored for long periods of time at room temperature need to be cured first so they don't rot after a few weeks, and the empty coldframe is just the right place to do it!  

New this week, we're finally into our green peppers!  I'm especially excited about our green Carmen peppers, which are an elongated sweet pepper variety with a fantastic flavor.  They kind of resemble hot peppers because they're longer than your traditional green bell peppers, but they're actually sweet instead of spicy.  So if you've never tried them before, you're in for a treat!  We're also on the verge of having a ton of slicing tomatoes! Right now we're getting the first trickle of red, ripe slicers, and we've got plenty of tangy green tomatoes on the vine (which will be making an appearance in the share this week!  Yum!) But as the week wears on, a lot more of them will be ripening, and we'll probably be fully into tomatoes next week.  Then we'll start drowning in them and eating them for every meal, and by October I'll be pretty content to never see another tomato again until next summer.  And then next July, I'll be counting down the days until the tomatoes are ready again.  I know this, because that is what has happened pretty much every year since we started the farm 10 years ago.  There is a very cyclical nature to farming, and while each growing season is unique, there are some things that don't change, like weeds in June, rain in October, and feeling like you can take on the world in February.  And lots of tomatoes in September.

So welcome to week 10 of the CSA!  See you guys at the drop-off!

What to Expect in Your Share

If you are going through the line at one of our traditional style drop-offs (Alma, Mt. Pleasant, and Midland), here’s what the options will be at the different stations.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose one item at each station, and if you have a full share, you choose two items at each station! 

• Potatoes
• Cherry tomatoes
• Beets, kale, or a bag of small onions
• Leeks, okra, or 2 green peppers
• Romaine lettuce
• Microgreens, basil, or green tomatoes
• Garlic, onions, or slicing tomatoes

If you have a prepacked share, here are your options.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose either share A, B, or C, and if you have a full share, you can choose two of them.  So just fill out this Google form by lunchtime the day before your drop-off to let me know which share you want for this week!  If I don't hear from you, I'll just choose for you. :-)

Share A:  Romaine, cherry tomatoes, potatoes, beets, 2 green peppers, onions, and microgreens.

Share B:  Romaine, cherry tomatoes, potatoes, kale, leeks, garlic, and microgreens.

Share C:  Romaine, cherry tomatoes, potatoes, bag of small onions, okra, slicing tomato, and basil.

 

Recipes

About 15 years ago, microgreens were the fancy thing that all the cool restaurants were using to convey how hip they were.  Now they're a little more mainstream, and even regular home cooks have access to these flavorful tiny versions of the vegetables we know and love!  And now that we're all eating at home more, what a perfect time to fancy up our everyday meals and make every dinner a celebration!  If you've never really worked with micros, here are 8 Ways to Kick up Your Meals with Microgreens from Urban Cultivator.  Fred and I regularly use micros in some variation of all of these ways (except the pesto, because we have tons of basil), and it definitely makes a regular dish feel special.  So check it out and give some of these a try! 

CSA Newsletter for Week 9

 

Farm Update

Hi everyone!  Hope you're all doing well!  As always, there's a ton of work to be done, but these days we're able to keep up with it a lot better!  We're continuing to do a ton of weeding, which has paid off because the plantings we put in over the last few weeks are looking great!  If all goes well, we're going to have a lot of really nice veggies for you in a few weeks!  We've hit a leaner week as far as variety goes because we had a series of unsuccessful (or partially successful) plantings last month, so you'll probably notice that there is less variety this week.  The first of our new lettuce plantings will start being available this week though, and we're starting to get our first red slicing tomatoes too!  Our bell peppers and delicata squash will be coming in soon, and I am beyond excited about that! While the squash vine borers we've been battling have done a number on many of our winter squash varieties, they miraculously don't seem to have caused trouble for the delicata squash, which is good, because delicatas are my favorite squash!  We were having some trouble with flea beetles eating our kale, but right now it's looking pretty healthy! We're also getting to the end of our massive potato harvest!  What a huge job! But it's so gratifying to see all those bins of potatoes stacked up in our walk-in cooler.  That's the food that will get us through the rest of the year, and as I think about that, I am so grateful to have the kind of life where we coax our food from the earth by the sweat of our brow.  Each season there's plenty of sweat, and also some blood and tears, but loading the delivery truck down with good food every day, and seeing thousands of pounds of potatoes in the cooler, it makes it all worth it.

   I won't be seeing those of you at the Alma drop-off on Monday, but I'll see the rest of you this week!  Fred is flying solo on Monday evening so I can catch up on some paperwork/maintenance stuff that has built up over the last few weeks.  But for the rest of you, I'll see you next week!  Here we go into week 9 of the CSA!

What to Expect in Your Share

If you are going through the line at one of our traditional style drop-offs (Alma, Mt. Pleasant, and Midland), here’s what the options will be at the different stations.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose one item at each station, and if you have a full share, you choose two items at each station! 

• Green beans
• Cherry tomatoes
• Potatoes
• Kale, beets, or Malabar spinach
• Basil, microgreens, or onions
• Two ears of sweet corn
• Young romaine lettuce

If you have a prepacked share, here are your options.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose either share A, B, or C, and if you have a full share, you can choose two of them.  So just fill out this Google form by lunchtime the day before your drop-off to let me know which share you want for this week!  If I don't hear from you, I'll just choose for you. :-)

Share A:  Green beans, cherry tomatoes, potatoes, kale, basil, sweet corn, and romaine lettuce.

Share B:  Green beans, cherry tomatoes, potatoes, beets, onions, sweet corn, and romaine lettuce.

Share C:  Green beans, cherry tomatoes, potatoes, kale, onions, sweet corn, and romaine lettuce.

 

Recipes

My favorite recipes are the kinds that include lots of fresh ingredients, require only a skillet and a stove, and take less than 10 minutes!  That's why I love this Green Beans with Lemon and Garlic Recipe from the Food Network!  Check it out if you're looking for something really yummy to do with your green beans this week! 

CSA Newsletter for Week 8

 

Farm Update

Hi everyone!  It was another big week at the farm last week, and we got several huge projects done!  We harvested and brought in about 5,000 pounds of potatoes, and now they're taking up almost our entire walk-in cooler!  All in all, it took our crew about 24 man hours to accomplish it, but we were able to knock it out before Fred hit the road for the Midland drop-off on Thursday!  The crew also got done several major weeding projects this week, taking care of plant beds that had gotten out of hand, but are thankfully now back under control.  Fred did plenty of planting this week as well; he was able to get the next round of carrots, cilantro, dill, cabbage, and lettuce into the ground for future weeks of the CSA.  As always, there's still a mountain of stuff that needs to be done, but it feels so good to be making progress instead of getting deeper into the hole.  And thank you to all of you guys for coming along for the ride!  We so appreciate all of the encouraging words and well wishes you guys have sent our way over the last few weeks!  Despite being in the CSA for a while, many people don't realize that the acronym stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  And this is a perfect example of how the community support keeps us going through all of the crazy stuff a farm season can throw at us!  Thanks so much, and we'll see you all in week 8!

What to Expect in Your Share

If you are going through the line at one of our traditional style drop-offs (Alma, Mt. Pleasant, and Midland), here’s what the options will be at the different stations.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose one item at each station, and if you have a full share, you choose two items at each station! 

• Carrots or beets
• Potatoes
• Cherry tomatoes
• Kale or Swiss chard
• Leeks or fresh bunched onions
• Basil or microgreens
• Garlic or mini cabbage

If you have a prepacked share, here are your options.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose either share A, B, or C, and if you have a full share, you can choose two of them.  So just fill out this Google form by lunchtime the day before your drop-off to let me know which share you want for this week!  If I don't hear from you, I'll just choose for you. :-)

Share A:  Carrots, potatoes, cherry tomatoes, kale, leeks, microgreens, and garlic.

Share B:  Carrots, potatoes, cherry tomatoes, kale, onions, basil, and garlic.

Share C:  Carrots, potatoes, cherry tomatoes, Swiss chard, onions, microgreens, and mini cabbage.

 

Recipes

I'm so thrilled to finally have a ton of cherry tomatoes!  They're one of my all-time favorite veggies, and there is so much more you can do with them than throw them in a salad!  If you're looking for ideas, check out these 21 Cherry Tomato Recipes from Rachael Ray! 

CSA Newsletter for Week 7

Farm Update

What could this crazy stuff be?  It's actually 
our garlic, laying out to cure!  You can see
the heads of garlic overlapped with the alium-
shaped garlic flowers on the other end of the
stalk.

Hi everyone!  Hope you're doing well!  Despite being crazy busy, it was a good week at the farm!  Since I was handling the deliveries and drop-offs myself last week, that freed up a bunch of hours for Fred to get the farm back in working order!  One of the main orders of business was to get the weeds under control.  Fred actually mowed down some ragweed that was taller than him, if that's any indication of how bad some sections had gotten!  He was able to mow down a bunch of weeds and take the cultivator through other areas, which is basically a weeding attachment for our tractor that can take out weeds in between the rows of veggies, but doesn't get close enough to damage the veggies (or the weeds that are right in with them). To get right into the rows of crops requires weeding by hand, which Fred and the crew also did a ridiculous amount of this week.  A huge shout-out to Fred's brother Charlie, who worked for us at the farm for years when he was in college, and came back to help us out in a huge way this week even now that he is a grown-up with a legit career.  He's been helping out twice a week throughout the summer now that much of his work is from home, and this week he devoted his whole week to the farm and really took charge of managing our teenage crew.  So a huge thank you to Charlie, without whom we never would have been able to accomplish what we did this week!

We also got a bunch of seeding done!  We did some direct seeding (which is when we plant seeds directly into the field), and we seeded a bunch of flats that will grow for a few weeks until we are ready to transplant them into the field.  Among the things that were seeded this week are the lettuce that will be in the shares in September, and a bunch of multicolored carrots that will make their appearance in October.  We actually planted a new variety of carrots than the one we've traditionally used, because the seed for our normal Mokum variety was unavailable with everything going on.

Before Fred could plant in the field, there were a bunch of crop beds that had to be mowed down and turned under into the soil.  When we turn under an old planting, all of the organic matter in the plant goes into and builds the soil, making it healthier.  Then when the old planting is turned under, it looks like bare soil that is ready to be replanted.  Normally we let it rest for a little bit before replanting (mostly to let any weed seeds in the top few inches of soil germinate so we can get rid of any emerging weeds before planing the crops), but right now, we just really needed to get the next plantings into the ground.

So we were able to get a bunch of stuff done along with the normal harvesting, washing, and packing of veggies for the drop-offs, and we're feeling really good about that!  I'm going to be doing most of the drop-offs by myself over the next few weeks so Fred can continue with the forward progress, but we're making our way out of the woods (another idiom!)  So wish us luck as we enter another busy week!  See you guys at the drop-offs! 

PS:  If anyone is interested, our friend Jonas has 70 chickens to sell that he raised for an order that fell through!  They're pasture-raised, free-range chickens that didn't have any gluten in their supplemental feed, so if eating meet without gluten is a priority for you, these are your chickens!  They're $3 per pound, and if you're interested, you can call Corina Thomas at 989-304-0077 to ask questions or place an order. :-)

What to Expect in Your Share

If you are going through the line at one of our traditional style drop-offs (Alma, Mt. Pleasant, and Midland), here’s what the options will be at the different stations.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose one item at each station, and if you have a full share, you choose two items at each station! 

• Potatoes
• Carrots or beets
• Cabbage, Swiss chard, or kale
• Cherry tomatoes, blueberries, lettuce, or green beans (this part may change a little throughout the week, because we don't know how long the blueberries will be harvestable.  Just a heads up!)
• Garlic, fresh shallots, or okra
• Basil, microgreens, or summer savory
• Zucchini, cucumbers, or leeks

If you have a prepacked share, here are your options.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose either share A, B, or C, and if you have a full share, you can choose two of them.  So just fill out this Google form by lunchtime the day before your drop-off to let me know which share you want for this week!  If I don't hear from you, I'll just choose for you. :-)

Share A:  Potatoes, carrots, chard, cherry tomatoes, garlic, basil, and cucumbers.

Share B:  Potatoes, carrots, chard, garlic, microgreens, leeks, and a surprise veggie! (Surprise veggie could be either blueberries, lettuce, or green beans).

Share C:  Potatoes, carrots, cabbage, cherry tomatoes, fresh shallots, basil, and leeks.

 

Recipes

Oh, potatoes!  I think they are pretty much the ultimate comfort food, and we all have a favorite way to prepare them, whether they're mashed, fried, baked, or made into homemade potato chips!  If you're looking to try something new with potatoes this week, check out these Greek Lemon Chicken and Potatoes from Chef John on allrecipes.com!  (I basically love all Chef John's recipes, and this is no different!)  And just so you know, if you're getting summer savory in your share, you can use that in place of the oregano in the recipe, because their flavor is so similar.  Enjoy! :-)

CSA Newsletter for Week 6

Farm Update

Have you guys ever wondered what the process
is for bagging up all of the prepacked shares?
Here's Abby, our one-girl assembly line, packing
up a bunch of shares!

Hi everyone!  It's been another busy week on the farm!  Most farm seasons have a similar rhythm year after year, with similar tasks and a similar pace in any given month.  Normally we expect it to be absolutely crazy from mid-June until mid-July, and then it tapers off slowly.  Usually we're able to figure out how to schedule in a chance to get away overnight and go camping sometime in August so we can recharge for the rest of the season, because most years we have plenty of workers, and the sheer amount of work to be done has stabilized.  This year, not so much.  Because we couldn't get enough people during our crazy-busy period, there was a lot of important work that went undone, and as we all know, "a stitch in time saves nine".  So now we're hitting the point where we have to put in nine times the effort to make up for what we weren't able to do when we needed to.  There's a reason that many of the idiomatic expressions that came out of a more agriculturally oriented time (like "make hay when the sun shines") are about getting things done at the proper time.  Because if you don't get the weeds out when they're smaller, they take over a few weeks later when they're huge.  And if you don't put in the next succession planting of various crops when you need to because you're busy getting everything harvested and on the road to the CSA drop-off, then you don't have those crops six weeks later when you need them.  Another idiom I love is "Let's cross that bridge when we come to it."  I often cite it when it seems that someone is overthinking a solution to a future scenario that may never occur, or letting worries about what they will do several steps later in the process interfere with the work they are doing now.  However, now we've come to the river crossing to find that the bridge hasn't even been built, because we were too busy three weeks ago to spare people to build it.  So now (to extend the metaphor), instead of being able to step back and take a breath, it's all hands on deck to get the bridge built.  

So to free Fred up to lead the bridge-building crew (so to speak), it's going to be just me at the drop-offs for the next few weeks.  That will free up tons of hours for him over the next few weeks to get the farm back on track.  Because we don't want to get to a point where we don't have enough variety to bring you guys a good CSA share a few weeks down the road.  August is going to be a transitional month, and there may be some weeks where a particular crop becomes past its prime midweek and another one becomes available to take its place.  So it's highly likely that some of the stations at the drop-off might change from our Alma drop-off on Monday to our Midland drop-off on Thursday.  The same might occur in our prepacked shares, where a particular item in one of the shares becomes unavailable later in the week, so we have to replace it with something else.  If we need to do that, I'll try to keep you apprised if the share you requested has a change to it.  

We so appreciate all of the encouraging words so many of you sent us last week after the birds took out so many of our blueberries!  Thank you so much for all of your support and encouragement!  Fortunately, more of the blueberries have ripened since the great bird attack, so we'll still have some blueberries in the shares next week!  Next week's shares should be pretty nice.  Many of the items will be more compact, so it might not look as voluminous as it does some weeks, but there will be a lot of great stuff in there.  (Think smaller items like blueberries and cherry tomatoes, rather than bulky items like kale.)

So here we go into Week 6 of the CSA!  Just let me know if you have any questions about anything, and we'll see you next week! :-)

What to Expect in Your Share

If you are going through the line at one of our traditional style drop-offs (Alma, Mt. Pleasant, and Midland), here’s what the options will be at the different stations.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose one item at each station, and if you have a full share, you choose two items at each station! 

• Zucchini, cucumbers, or basil
• Blueberries or cherry tomatoes
• Lettuce or carrots
• Green beans
• Potatoes or beets
• Cabbage or Swiss chard
• Green onions, garlic, or okra

If you have a prepacked share, here are your options.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose either share A, B, or C, and if you have a full share, you can choose two of them.  So just fill out this Google form by lunchtime the day before your drop-off to let me know which share you want for this week!  If I don't hear from you, I'll just choose for you. :-)

Share A:  zucchini, blueberries, carrots, green beans, beets, cabbage, and okra.

Share B:  basil, blueberries, lettuce, green beans, potatoes, cabbage, and green onions.

Share C:  basil, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, green beans, potatoes, chard, and garlic.

 

Recipes

If you were born and raised here in the North, you may never have experienced okra, but I'll tell you what, our friends in the South know what they're talking about when it comes to this awesome treat!  I experienced okra for the first time last year, and it is one of my favorite foods ever!  Try out this Fried Okra Recipe for a traditional Southern favorite, or this Red Lentil and Okra Soup, which is very similar to a delicious soup Fred made yesterday!

CSA Newsletter for Week 5

Farm Update

Bunching carrots is a messy business!  You'd
never guess it when you get the carrots in your
shares, but we are always covered in mud after
a carrot-bunching session!  Here, Jen, Brayden,
Charlie, and Max are laughing at some oddly
shaped carrots.

Hi everyone!  Each week you win some and you lose some, and I think this week we came out about even.  On the upside, we're very pleased to have gotten a few more workers!  We were starting to fall behind on some important things because there were just not enough hours in the day.  Finding good workers for the farm is especially difficult, because not only do they have to be able and willing to work long hours in the hot sun, but they also have to be strong, fast, make good decisions on the fly, and have a good eye for what quality produce looks like.  And there aren't too many people who possess all of those qualities.  But we've had a few faithful teenage farm workers who have recruited some of their most capable friends, and suddenly, we're able to get things done!  Now we're making a dent in the weeds that were threatening to take over, we got a new round of lettuce planted, and we got our garlic harvested and curing.  We've also been harvesting a ton of blueberries, but we actually have a local guy named Tomas bring a crew of a few friends or relatives, and they harvest our blueberries for us every year.  The blueberry harvest is such a huge job that we wouldn't be able to get anything else done if we were doing it ourselves, so we're always glad to have Tomas and friends come out and do the blueberries!  

But with the good also comes the bad, and there has been some of that this week too.  We've discovered a new insect pest that we've never had to deal with before, the squash vine borer.  These annoying bugs do exactly what their name implies, boring deep into the vines of our winter squash, where they're nearly impossible to get to, and killing our squash plants.  Fred did some research, and it's likely that they're affecting us this year for the first time because last fall was so wet and we weren't able to till last year's squash planting under until months later than we usually do.  So we're doing our research and trying to figure out how to meet this latest challenge, because we want to be able to bring you guys a bunch of yummy squash this fall!

It's actually good I'm writing this now and not last night, because yesterday we were so dispirited that this would have been a completely different newsletter.  Fred stopped by just as I was about to mow the lawn yesterday and told me that he had been out to the blueberry patch, and a massive swarm of birds had come through and eaten most of our beautiful blueberry harvest.  We would probably be able to cover the CSA, but there would definitely be no berries for bulk orders, and none to sell to the stores we supply or the other CSAs to which we contribute.  We would have to tell the people we had offered blueberries to that we wouldn't be able to come through with their orders.  And let me just tell you, I HATE not being able to come through on something I said I'd do.  I actually wrote the beginning of this newsletter while riding around doing our Midland deliveries on Thursday, because the cardinal rule of summer on the farm is that you don't waste time.  And being a passenger in a vehicle and not doing something else productive is wasting time.  But when Fred came home and told me about the blueberries, I was devastated.  I planned to scrap the newsletter I had written, and as I was riding around on the lawnmower, I was mentally composing a new newsletter about heartache and resilience that pulled in quotes from Teddy Roosevelt and Rudyard Kipling, and acknowledged the collective heartache that our local community and our world at large has been through this year.  But there was no time to sit down and write that newsletter last night, because we had longstanding plans to have some friends over for dinner, and I had to get that started.

So when Fred texted me this morning saying he and Tomas had taken a look at the blueberries, and Tomas thinks he can still get about 60% of what we expected to have this week, it was an enormous weight off my shoulders.  Maybe we could fill some of the bulk blueberry orders that you all requested last week after all, and maybe we wouldn't have to leave another CSA to whom we promised blueberries in the lurch!

The bottom line is that I don't know what to expect for next week as far as blueberries go.  If you already put in an order for bulk blueberries, I can't guarantee that we'll be able to fill it, but I will try my best to fill as many as possible.  We can't guarantee that the birds won't come back to finish off the blueberry patch, but I am pretty sure that we'll be able to get you each a pint of blueberries in your share, and cautiously optimistic that that we'll be able to fill at least some of the bulk orders. 

So I'll just keep that newsletter I composed while mowing the lawn in my back pocket for a rainy day (or drought, or flood, or hailstorm, or plague of locusts).  Because with the farm, you just never know when I'm going to need it!

What to Expect in Your Share

If you are going through the line at one of our traditional style drop-offs (Alma, Mt. Pleasant, and Midland), here’s what the options will be at the different stations.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose one item at each station, and if you have a full share, you choose two items at each station! 

• Cucumbers
• Carrots or beets
• Blueberries
• Lettuce or potatoes
• Zucchini or green onions
• Swiss chard, kale, or fennel
• Basil or kohlrabi

If you have a prepacked share, here are your options.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose either share A, B, or C, and if you have a full share, you can choose two of them.  So just fill out this Google form by lunchtime the day before your drop-off to let me know which share you want for this week!  If I don't hear from you, I'll just choose for you. :-)

Share A:  Cucumbers, carrots, blueberries, lettuce, zucchini, fennel, and kohlrabi.

Share B:  Cucumbers, carrots, blueberries, potatoes, zucchini, kale, and basil.

Share C:   Cucumbers, beets, blueberries, potatoes, green onions, chard, and basil.

 

Recipes

It's basil time!  If you're not sure what to do with basil aside from making pesto, here are 20 delicious ideas!  There's a great cucumber basil mocktail recipe in here that is extremely similar to one I made last night for the kid contingent at our dinner, and it was a hit!  So definitely check out these great recipe ideas! 

CSA Newsletter for Week 4

Farm Update

Hi everyone!  Here we are, entering week 4 of the CSA!  Last week was a hard-hitting week with tons of work, but this week should be a little less extreme.  We got some rain last week, and we’re likely to get more this weekend, and we are so thankful!  The plants are a little less desperate, and we’ll have to spend a little less time on irrigation, so that’s a huge win!  The recent hot weather was longer than we’ve had in a long time; Fred was talking with our neighbor the other day, and Mike doesn’t ever remember a stretch of 90-degree days that long in his seven or so decades of life.  But the heat has broken, and the plants (and farm workers!) have made it out safely on the other side.  This heat has really spurred on our tomato plants, which are now about 8 feet tall, and are having to be re-trellised regularly.  To keep our tomato vines up off the ground, we have them held up by two rows of twine close together, which are wound tightly around metal T-posts.  Trellising is the process where Fred takes all of the new growth on the tomato plants and wraps it into the rows of twine, and it has to be done periodically throughout the season as the vines grow longer.  They’ve been growing so quickly lately that Fred has had to trellis the tomatoes way more frequently than usual! 

If you remember a few months ago, I had information in the newsletter about a great source for pasture-raised, non-GMO, non-hormone chickens from a local Amish farmer, Jonas Weber.  Jonas is currently taking orders for turkeys for Thanksgiving or Christmas if you’re interested!  The turkeys will be 15 to 25 pounds, and they’ll cost $2.25 per pound.  He’ll be taking orders for the next week or two, so if you’re interested, get in touch with Corina Thomas at 989-304-0077.  Since Jonas is Amish and doesn’t have a phone, Corina is a neighbor with a phone who will be answering questions and taking turkey orders.  So if you are interested in getting a really great Thanksgiving turkey, give Corina a call!

Jonas is also considering starting a periodic farm box that will include a gallon of raw milk, some butter, cheese, eggs, and a chicken, and he’s looking for input from our CSA members on whether people would be interested in this option!  All of the aforementioned products are produced by him and his parents, and they’re all pasture-raised, non-GMO, and non-hormone.  I stopped by there Friday morning to get some more information about their products, and he gave me a sample box of what their meat and dairy share would include, and I just have to say, I am so excited about this!  The thing about a lot of Amish farms is that they have really top-notch products, but not really a good way to market them.  So Jonas and his folks are wanting to get some feedback from our CSA members about whether this is something people would be interested in, and whether it would make sense to hire a delivery vehicle to bring their meat and dairy shares to our drop-offs!  So if this is something you’d be interested in, just send me an email, and I’ll let him know the level of interest in these awesome local farm products!  Or if you’d be interested in some items but not others, let me know that too!

In other news, we’re going to have blueberries for everyone this week!  The heat over the last week has really ripened the berries, so they’re a full week earlier than we thought they’d be!  We’re also going to have enough berries to take some bulk orders this week!  The bulk blueberries will come in 10-pound increments (which is about 13 pints), and they’ll be $37 per 10-pounder.  We don’t know how many blueberry orders we’ll be able to fill this week, so if we get just a ton of orders and can’t get you blueberries this week, we’ll try to fill the requests as we can over the next few weeks.  So if you’re interested in getting a bunch of blueberries for freezing, making jam, etc, just let me know and I’ll put you on the blueberry list!  

Also new this week, I'm going to experiment with a new way to collect requests for prepacked shares!  In the interest of saving me several hours a week doing emails, as well as increased accuracy, I'm going to try out a Google form instead of having you guys email me.  So when you choose which share you want, just fill out this quick survey by noon the day before your drop-off.  And if you think of anything that should be on the Google form and isn't there, let me know so I can tweak it for next week!  Thanks so much! See you later this week! 😊

What to Expect in Your Share

If you are going through the line at one of our traditional style drop-offs (Alma, Mt. Pleasant, and Midland), here’s what the options will be at the different stations.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose one item at each station, and if you have a full share, you choose two items at each station! 

• Carrots or beets
• Potatoes
• Blueberries!
• Lettuce or cabbage
• Kohlrabi or basil
• Zucchini or cooking greens mix
• Green onions, pearl onions, summer savory, or microgreens

If you have a prepacked share, here are your options.  If you have a half share, you’ll choose either share A, B, or C, and if you have a full share, you can choose two of them.  So just fill out this Google form by lunchtime the day before your drop-off to let me know which share you want for this week!  If I don't hear from you, I'll just choose for you. :-)

Share A:  Carrots, potatoes, blueberries, cabbage, basil, zucchini, and green onions

Share B:  Carrots, cucumbers, blueberries, lettuce, basil, zucchini, and pearl onions

Share C:   Carrots, potatoes, blueberries, lettuce, kohlrabi, cooking greens mix, and pearl onions

 

Recipes

If you're one of the many people who have a little bit of a love-hate relationship with zucchini because your mom's/grandma's/neighbor's garden produced way too much of it when you were a kid, hopefully these 41 Best Zucchini Recipes from Bon Appetit will help change your mind!  Enjoy!