Monroe Family Organics CSA Newsletter for Week 6

    Farm Update

This Swiss chard is looking
bright and lovely in the field!

Hi everyone!  Man, it got hot again in a hurry!  Last week, we were breathing a sigh of relief that we had gotten some rain and we could take a break from irrigating.  All of the moisture that made its way into the soil last week is now long gone, and now we're back to irrigating like crazy to keep all of the veggies from wilting in this heat!

You know when you're in rush mode trying to get out the door on time, or you're pushing against a major deadline and you can't think about anything else until you finish your project?  That was pretty much us every day last week.  We have a pretty good crew that consists of me and Fred, two full-time employees, and two part-time guys who each come in one or two days a week.  Well, one of our full-time employees was out for three days last week with what we think is the stomach bug that's been going around.  (He took a Covid test that came back negative, so probably no worries there, but he was feeling pretty awful.)  So the rest of us were in major hurry mode to get everything harvested, washed, packed up, and on the truck in time to leave for the drop-offs.  Fortunately, we got it all done, and we didn't fall down on any of our commitments, but it was intense.  I was definitely glad to return to the farm after the Midland drop-off on Thursday, put the remaining veggies in our big walk-in cooler, and know that we were done with the harvests and drop-offs for the week.

And on Friday morning, we got an unusual treat!  We had the school-age students from our local nonprofit childcare center, the Children's Discovery Academy in St. Louis, come out to the farm for a field trip!  I got to give them a lesson on ecosystems and all that goes into making a farm work, and it was super fun!  The kids enjoyed walking around the fields and identifying the various plants growing, talking about which parts we eat from each plant, and seeing how we weed and water everything.  They also got to see our wash/pack area in the barn and get an idea of how our system works on harvest days.  Then I brought the veggies that we had leftover after our Thursday drop-off out of our walk-in cooler, and the kids got to choose some veggies to take home to their families.  Their favorite part, though, was the little machine we have to close up the bags of veggies that go to the stores we sell to.  It's just a little machine that quickly applies tape to our plastic bags, and we call it the kachunker, because it makes a ka-chunk sound when it does the tape.  The kids got to use the kachunker to close up their bags of veggies, and that that was their favorite part by far!  Who knew? :-)

In other news, the tomatoes are ripening!  We're going to have our early variety of Gold Nugget cherry tomatoes in the shares this week, and we've harvested the first few ripe romas for our own kitchen, so it's only a matter of time before we have enough to bring to you!  Like the blueberries, tomatoes are one of the sure signs that it's the height of summer!  And speaking of blueberries, we'll have them in the shares again this week,  but it's not looking like we'll have a lot for bulk orders. I'll keep you posted, but if you have the opportunity to get bulk blueberries from another farm in the meantime, I'd take advantage of that.  Each season, we win some and we lose some, and it looks like the blueberries will be a little less profuse than in many other years.  But showing the kids around the farm this morning, I was struck again by just how much life is happening out there.  The end of July is my favorite time of year, and I am relishing all of the sun, the abundance of produce from the farm, and the vibrant outdoor world around us!  

So that's it for this week!  See you all 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. 

• Yellow cherry tomatoes or blueberries
• Carrots or cauliflower
• Potatoes or beets
• Romaine lettuce or spring mix
• Basil, microgreens, parsley, or garlic
• Zucchini or cucumbers
• Fennel, chard, kale, or onion bunches

 

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:

• Cherry tomatoes
• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Spring mix
• Basil
• Zucchini
• Kale

 

Share B:

• Blueberries
• Cauliflower
• Potatoes
• Romaine
• Microgreens
• Zucchini
• Fennel

 

Share C:

• Blueberries
• Carrots
• Beets
• Spring mix
• Garlic
• Cucumber
• Onion bunch

 

Recipes

 

If you've never eaten or worked with fennel before, you're in for a treat!  It looks like a pale green bulb with long, darker green fronds on top, and you can actually use both parts of the plant!  There are a bunch of great things you can do with the bulb, from shaving it in thin slices and eating it raw, to roasting fennel wedges (here are some fabulous fennel tips, tricks, and recipes from Love and Lemons).  The fronds are totally delicious on top of fish, and they actually also make a lovely and satisfying tea that has traditionally been used to sooth an upset stomach.  Whatever you decide to do with your fennel, I bet it will be a new favorite!  

Monroe Family Organics CSA Newsletter for Week 5

   Farm Update

Hi everyone!  I hope you're all enjoying your veggies!  We're definitely glad to have gotten some rain last week!  Fred and I breathed a huge sigh of relief on Tuesday night when we got our first big rain in weeks, and the plants are definitely looking perkier as well.  We got another good rain yesterday afternoon, and it's like a weight has been lifted off of our shoulders.  So now that we don't have to spend so much time irrigating, we can get back to all the weeding that still needs to get done.  There will likely be more weeding in the upcoming weeks (since those rains inevitably also germinated plenty of weed seeds), but for right now, we are just thrilled to have some moisture in the soil.

These white onions will be in the
shares this week!

Most people think of fall as harvest time, and while we actually harvest a variety of crops five days a week throughout the CSA season, we also do several major harvests of specific crops as well.  On Thursday and Friday, we did our big annual garlic harvest, and now all of the garlic is out of the ground and curing in the greenhouse.  Many of you got some of our fresh garlic in your shares two weeks ago, which is the first garlic of the year, and because it's uncured, needs to be used up sooner than the garlic you're used to from the store.  Over the last few days, we pulled up all of the rest of the garlic from the field, loaded it onto our flatbed trailer, and brought it to the greenhouse.  Then we spread it out on the greenhouse benches, which are really more like wire tables.  The benches usually are covered with flats of tiny plants that are working on growing to the size where they can be transplanted in the field, but they are currently available to serve as a garlic-curing surface now that we are done with our major transplanting push.  For the next several weeks, the garlic will stay in the greenhouse until it starts to develop the papery skin we're all used to and which signals that the garlic is now ready to last for months out at room temperature.  Thus, even though it's July and fresh vegetables are almost at the height of their abundance, we're already looking ahead to the time when we'll need that preserved garlic that we harvested in the fullness of summer to get us through the leaner winter months.

This recently harvested garlic is waiting
on the trailer to be brought over to the 
greenhouse for curing.

And nothing signals that we are in full summer more than blueberries!  It is finally blueberry season, and there are a bunch of beautiful ripe berries on our bushes ready to harvest!  You'll all be getting a pint of blueberries in your shares this week, and we'll likely have them for a few more weeks after that as well!  

Because we never know how many will be ready to harvest at once, and indeed, how much labor we'll have available to harvest them, I am going to also tentatively start taking orders for bulk blueberries.  If you are interested in getting blueberries to put in the freezer or make jam, we'll have them available in 10-pound (13 pint) increments, and it will be $44 per 10 pounds.  Usually we get a flood of blueberry orders, so we might not be able to supply all the orders that come in.  I'll fill them on a first-come, first-serve basis, and we might not actually know until the day of your drop-off whether we'll have bulk blueberries for you (because they ripen at different rates and we have a varying availability of people to harvest them).  If you put in an order for bulk blueberries, I'll let you know as soon as we know whether we'll have them, but don't be entirely surprised if you get a text on the morning of your drop-off letting you know we'll have them.  Alas, that's just the nature of the blueberry beast.  But if you're interested in yummy bulk organic blueberries, they'll be $44 for 10 pounds (13 pints), and you can just fill out this form to put in an order!

So that's it for this week!  See you all 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. 

• Blueberries for everyone!
• Beets or potatoes
• Carrots or cucumbers
• Zucchini or micros
• Garlic or white onions
• Cabbage, kale, Swiss chard, or cilantro
• Spring mix or romaine

 

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:

• Blueberries
• Beets
• Carrots
• Microgreens
• White onions
• Kale
• Spring mix

 

Share B:

• Blueberries
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Zucchini
• Garlic
• Cabbage
• Romaine

 

Share C:

• Blueberries
• Potatoes
• Cucumbers
• Zucchini
• Garlic
• Swiss chard
• Spring mix

 

Recipes

 

This Beet Salad with Lemon Dressing is just one
of these great beet recipes!

Beets are one of those things where you either love them and have several go-to beet recipes, or you've never really eaten them except as a side dish at Thanksgiving.  Whether you're a confirmed beet-lover or you've never really worked with them before, here are 22 of Our Best Beet Recipes from Taste of Home that will give you some great ideas, from beet salads to beet pizzas to roasted beets and pickled beets!  There is something for everyone here, so check it out! :-)

CSA Newsletter for Week 4

 Farm Update

We've been irrigating like crazy lately
since it's been so dry!  These green bean 
plants are getting a much-needed drink
of water.

Hi everyone!  I hope you're all doing well and enjoying your veggies!   We're definitely enjoying the farm's bounty in our own kitchen this week!  In fact, despite the fact that we spend so many of our waking hours this time of year working, the fact that we have such good food three times a day, made with the freshest ingredients summer has to offer, makes me feel like we are, in fact, living life luxuriously.  Even though I may have spent the morning bent over weeding a bed of carrots and come home for lunch covered in dirt and sweat (which is decidedly un-fancy), once I sit down to a fresh salad, grilled zucchini, and something Fred has expertly whipped up on the grill, I am reminded that this is, indeed, the good life.

And there has been a ton of weeding this week, so with the exception of Monday (which I always spend on the road doing our delivery route down to Ann Arbor, and eat leftovers while driving back so I can get the van back in time to load up for our Alma drop-off), that has pretty much been my week.  While the weeds aren't growing as quickly now, we're still trying to dig our way out from under all of the weeds that just explode in late June.  Slowly but surely, we'll eventually get to the point where the farm isn't on the edge of getting overrun by weeds, and our pace will be able to slow down a little.  For right now, we're trying to keep the weeds under control and keep everything irrigated as well as we can so nothing gets too dry. 

Many of you may have noticed that we haven't had rain in quite a while if your yard looks as crispy as ours.  And while it's annoying to see your grass get brown and lose its softness, the lack of rain is really a problem at the farm.  One good rain is worth about a month of irrigation, and it also means that we don't have to spend a bunch of time moving our irrigation lines around the farm to make sure everything stays alive.  We got a little sprinkle on Monday night, but other than that's it's been bone dry around here.  We're still actively planting, and seeds won't germinate if they can't find any moisture in the ground. 

Here is a planting of carrots we put in
the ground just this morning.  We've
set up our drip line irrigation system
right where the seeds are planted so 
they will have enough water to germinate.

 

Fortunately, we do have our drip line irrigation system that uses little flat plastic hoses with perforations every few inches.  We put the little hoses right next to the base of the plants, so the plants get the moisture they need without us having to use an excessive amount of water.  It also helps keep the weeds under control, because if the weed seeds don't get water, they don't germinate either.  

Depending on the weather, there are different types of work and different types of things to watch out for at the farm.  When it's dry like this, we spend more time irrigating and more time fighting insect pests.  Because all of the little quash bugs and potato beetles are also trying to stay alive, they're trying to suck the moisture from our plants.  Since we're organic, we can't just spray a bunch of pesticides all over everything, but there are methods we can use to keep our crops from being eaten alive by bugs.  There are a few organically approved pesticides (like Pyganic, which is made from chrysanthemum extract, and Spinosad, which is actually a bacteria that attacks insects but is perfectly harmless to plants, animals, and humans), but they're so expensive that we have to use them sparingly.  Another effective pest control solution for some bugs is diatomaceous earth, a gritty substance that cuts up the soft bodies of things like slugs so they stay away from the plants, but washes off really easily after harvest.  It also makes our crops less palatable to some four-legged pests, simply because they don't like the texture.  It's kind of like if you were at the beach, and someone kicked sand on your sandwich.  It's still edible, but you'd get a bunch of gritty sand in your mouth.

Then of course, it's a different story when we get too much rain.  Rain during the hot part of the season causes vegetables and weeds alike to grow like crazy, but too many days of rain and clouds later in the season when the temperatures are cooler puts plants at risk of developing foliar diseases.  We're always on the lookout for signs of plant diseases when we get a lot of rain in September and October, because when a plant's leaves don't get a chance to dry out, those are prime conditions for foliar diseases to take off.  Basically, Michigan weather being as legendarily mercurial as it is means that we always have to be ready for whatever it throws at us.  We have to be ready to battle bugs or diseases or weeds, or just to spend a lot of time dragging irrigation lines around to keep our plants strong and healthy.  Then once we achieve that, we harvest them, wash them up, and bring them to you!

And that's actually my favorite part.  I love the inherent variety of the work that populates my week.  I love that I get to spend some hours on the road doing deliveries and listening to audiobooks, some time methodically pulling out weeds with the sun on my back and dirt on my hands, some hours in our wash/pack area putting together all of those little bags of spring mix and carrots and the prepacked shares for our home deliveries and Lansing-area folks.  And I get to spend some time connecting with all of you at the drop-offs, some hours doing bookkeeping, and some doing creative work, like writing this newsletter each week.  It's so varied that I never get a chance to be bored.  There will be a point toward the end of the season when I am bone tired and on the edge of burning out (because the CSA season really is a marathon), but that's not for several months yet.  Right now we've got all of that July energy behind us and lots of good summer food to eat.  And that really is the good life.

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. 

• Potatoes
• Carrots or beets
• Cucumbers or pearl onions
• Zucchini
• Spring mix
• Basil or microgreens
• Kale, Swiss chard, or cabbage

 

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
• Carrots
• Pearl onions
• Zucchini
• Spring mix
• Basil
• Cabbage

 

Share B:

• Potatoes
• Beets
• Cucumbers
• Zucchini
• Spring mix
• Basil
• Swiss chard

 

Share C:

• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Cucumbers
• Zucchini
• Spring mix
• Microgreens
• Kale

 

Recipes

 

We always get a ton of compliments on our carrots, which in my opinion, are the best carrots in the world.  I've heard the same thing from enough people that I don't think it's just my own bias either.  So if you love eating them raw, and they don't actually make it into your house after you pick them up at the drop-off because you ate them all in the car, more power to you!  But if you're looking for another really easy, really delicious way to enjoy your carrots this week, try out Fred's Sautéed Baby Carrots with Pistachios!  These make a fantastic side dish and will become a new favorite!

Fred's Sautéed Baby Carrots with Pistachios

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• 1 CSA bag of baby carrots
• 1/4 cup pistachios without shells
• Salt to taste
• Whatever seasoning you like!  We've made this with chili powder, cumin, curry powder, and basil, and they're all great.  This is pretty versatile, and you can change the flavor profile depending on what seasoning you use. 

Instructions:

Splash olive oil in a pan over medium heat, and add carrots.  Sauté the carrots until they are soft, but not mushy.  A few minutes before the carrots are ready to take off of the heat, add the pistachios and stir them around in the pan.  When the carrots are properly soft, take the pan off the heat, add salt and preferred seasoning to taste.  Enjoy!

Monroe Family Organics CSA Newsletter for Week 3

  Farm Update

 

Swiss chard, growing bright and beautiful
in the field!

Hi everyone!  I hope you're all enjoying your veggies!  We've certainly been enjoying the abundance of wonderful fresh food that this time of year has to offer!  

One of the things I love most about this farm life is that when I sit down to a meal, I know exactly where the carrots or lettuce or kale on my plate grew.  I saw it in the fields, I pulled out the weeds around it so it could live its best carrot/lettuce/kale life, and I might even have pictures of it on my phone that I took with the intention of putting them in this newsletter.  And I love being able to give you all a glimpse into the place where your food grew up as well!  This week, we've been doing a little less planting, because we've been focusing on weeding.  We did plant green beans and winter squash that will make their appearance in the shares this fall, and we launched a major weeding offensive of various carrots, lettuce, tomato plants, peppers, and Brussels sprouts.  Aside from the constant battle with the weeds, we've also seen some increased pressure from the animals who like to hang out at our farm. This is a problem because they too love veggies, and if left unchecked, they can do a whole lot of damage.  We've seen a few deer getting a little too comfortable despite the 8-foot-tall deer fence that surrounds almost the whole farm. (There's a gap in the fence in the back field where we think the deer are getting in.) And we've had a lot more woodchucks than normal lately, for whom Fred has set a few live traps, but now we just need to wait and see, and hope they don't eat too many veggies before we catch them.

I am also excited to report that our blueberry bushes are looking fantastic!  There are tons of green berries on them, and it's looking like they'll be ripe and ready to harvest in two or three weeks!  We also have broccoli available in the shares this week, but it's just the beginning of broccoli season, so we don't have tons of it yet.  We'll be including it in the shares, but it's still pretty limited, so I wouldn't base your whole meal plan on it just yet.

I also just wanted to remind you all about the 4th of July on Monday!  If you normally pick up at our Alma drop-off (or you have home or workplace delivery in the Alma area) and you have plans that prevent you from picking up your veggies as normal, just let me know!  You can either postpone your share this week and get a double share next week, or you can arrange to pick up at one of our other drop-offs this week.  If you want to go with any of those options, just let me know on Sunday so I can adjust our harvest list for Monday.  You could also have a friend pick up your share for you, but I don't need to know about that beforehand.  Thanks so much!  Have a wonderful holiday, and I'll see you at the drop-offs!

The finger weeder attachment on our cultivating
tractor helps grab the little weeds out of this 
planting of green beans.

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. 

• Potatoes or beets
• Carrots or broccoli
• Basil, frisee, or dill
• Kale, Swiss chard, or Napa cabbage
• Spring mix, romaine lettuce, or iceberg lettuce
• Fresh garlic, kohlrabi, or microgreens
• Zucchini or cucumbers

 

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
• Carrots
• Basil
• Swiss Chard
• Spring mix
• Kohlrabi
• Zucchini

 

Share B:

• Beets
• Carrots
• Basil
• Kale
• Spring mix
• Garlic
• Zucchini

 

Share C:

• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Dill
• Kale
• Romaine
• Garlic
• Cucumber

 

Recipes

 

Napa Cabbage Wedge Salad with Apples and
Buttermilk Dressing

Every week when Fred lets me know what's going to be in the shares for the upcoming week, I get really excited.   There is almost always some old veggie friend that I haven't eaten since the last season, and some weeks, there are so many that it's like my birthday, opening several exciting presents!  This week, the exciting presents are broccoli, Napa cabbage, and fresh garlic!  Fresh garlic is slightly different than the cured garlic you buy in the store, and it can be used in two different ways.  It has a fantastic fresh, punchy flavor, and you can either put it in your fridge and use it up within a week or so, or you can leave it out on your counter to dry so that it becomes more like the garlic you're probably used to from the store.  Another veggie I'm really excited about this week is Napa cabbage!  If you've never cooked with Napa cabbage before, it's pretty similar to your standard green cabbage (and you can interchange the two in some recipes), but it has a more delicate flavor and soft crinkly leaves.  If you're looking for some inspiration on what to do with it, here are 17 Best Napa Cabbage Recipes from Food 52!

Monroe Family Organics CSA Newsletter for Week 2

 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.  

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

 

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!

Monroe Family Organics CSA Newsletter for Week 1

Farm Update

 

Taran learned how to drive the tractor
on Thursday!  Up until now, Fred has
been the only one who could drive the 
tractor, which created a bottleneck that
prevented our most efficient use of time.
Now that we have two tractor drivers,
that will make our lives way easier!

Hi everyone!  Are you ready for some organic fruit and veggie goodness next week?  I know we are!

Launching the CSA is always a big project each year, but as we enter our 12th CSA season, I feel more prepared than ever for our biggest week of the year.  Aside from the normal planting, harvesting, irrigating, weeding, and delivering that we always have going on in June, I always spend a significant amount of time the week before we launch the CSA getting the systems up and running that will carry us through the season as smoothly as possible.  There is actually quite a lot of administrative work that happens behind the scenes at the farm, and since the farm is a dynamic natural system that is always changing and can’t be automated, my systems need to be able to flex and stretch as well.  There will always inevitably be things that slip through the cracks, but after more than a decade of doing this, I know what to look for and what to pay extra attention to.  So that said, here is some timely information for everyone so we can all have an awesome, fun, smooth first week of the CSA!

-It’s a good idea to add my phone number to your contacts, just in case you’re on your way to the drop-off and have a question!  I don’t frequently check my email in the afternoons of CSA drop-off days because I’m on the road, but if you need me, you can call or text me at 517-896-6884. 😊

-If you get a prepacked share at the Lansing, Okemos, St. Johns, or hospital drop-offs, I’ll send out a text to all the folks at those locations when I deliver the shares, so you know when you can come get your produce.  If you’d prefer not to receive those texts, just send me a quick email and I’ll take you off the text list.  Or if the phone number you entered when you signed up for the CSA isn’t a cell phone, just send me a good phone number for you to get those texts.

-Week 3 of the CSA is 4^th of July week! Independence Day falls on a Monday this year, so if you normally get your CSA share on Mondays, we will be delivering shares as normal.  However, if you have plans and can’t make it to the drop-off, or you normally have your share delivered to your workplace but you won’t be there, just let me know!  We can postpone your share and get you a double share the next week, or you can arrange to pick up your share at another drop-off that week.  Plenty of folks who can’t make it to a Monday drop-off in Alma choose to pick up their share the next day in Mt. Pleasant, and we can absolutely do that!  Just make sure to let me know by Sunday, July 3rd if you want to postpone your share on July 4^th or pick it up somewhere else.

So that’s it for the housekeeping stuff!  As for the farm itself, now is the time of year when everything comes to life.  There’s a reason why we wait to start the CSA until the middle of June, and it’s because now is when all of the veggies we’ve been waiting to come into season explode onto the scene in their full vibrancy.  Up until now, we’ve been harvesting our cooler season crops (lettuce, kale, spinach, radishes) and smaller amounts of some warm season crops (zucchini, cucumbers, etc.) but now a lot more veggies are ready in larger amounts.  Things have been growing like crazy, including the weeds.  Our farmhands, Callie, Taran, Tate, and I have been weeding lettuce, cilantro, dill, and onions over the last few days in an effort to keep the weeds under control, but there is still so much to do.  Plenty of home gardeners complain about the never ending weeds, but when you’re trying to keep tens of thousands of bed feet from getting taken over by weeds, that’s another story altogether.  Fortunately, I actually love the quick, methodical movements of weeding, and I love being outside with the sun on my back, so the work is enjoyable to me.  And I love that for every section I weed, we’re making sure that the plants we do want aren’t having to compete too hard with the plants we don’t want for scarce resources like water and sunlight, so they can grow up to be big and strong and delicious. 

And as they say, it’s important to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.  One of the crops we have turned loose over the last few years are our strawberries, because we always struggled with them in our soil and it was so hard to have enough for everyone.  However, we know that strawberries are really important to you all!  We pride ourselves on being a single-farm CSA, where everything we provide in the shares is grown by us, but we make an exception for the strawberries.  The strawberries in the shares over the upcoming weeks were actually grown by Jonas Miller, a friend of ours who is also certified organic and just has much better soil for strawberries.  We almost never include items in the shares that weren’t grown on our farm (the strawberries are pretty much the only things from another grower that we’ve ever had in the shares), but we always want to be really transparent when we do, because it’s so important to us for you to be able to know where your food comes from.  It’s also super important to us to only have certified organic produce in the shares, so that’s also non-negotiable for us if we were ever to include anyone else’s produce.  If you have any questions about the strawberries, or about Jonas’ farm, just let me know!  And while you can’t call Jonas and ask him about the berries (because he’s Amish and doesn’t have a phone), I can get you his address if you’re interested in stopping by his farm and talking to him. 

So that’s it!  Just let me know if you have any questions, and we’ll see you next week 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. 

 

• Strawberries for everyone!
• Spring mix for everyone!
• Kale or frisee
• Bok choy or Swiss chard
• Garlic scapes or baby head lettuces
• Green onions for everyone!
• Basil, cilantro, or microgreens

 

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:

• Strawberries
• Spring mix
• Kale
• Swiss Chard
• Garlic scapes
• Green onions
• Microgreens

 

Share B:

• Strawberries
• Spring mix
• Kale
• Bok choy
• Baby head lettuce
• Green onions
• Cilantro

 

Share C:

• Strawberries
• Spring mix
• Frisee
• Bok choy
• Garlic scapes
• Green onions
• Basil

 

Recipes

 

The fun part about being part of a Community Supported Agriculture program (besides knowing your farmers, eating locally, supporting environmentally friendly farming practices, getting truly fresh and delicious food, and engaging with your community) is getting to try new things!  Most of the stuff we have in the shares will be old favorites (like lettuce, green onions, and strawberries), and some of it might be new to you.  I always try to provide a few recipe ideas for items you may not have worked with before, and the ones that might not be as familiar this week are bok choy, garlic scapes, and frisee.  So definitely check out these recipes for some inspiration, and I always love chatting about recipes at the drop-offs too, so let me know if you have some good ones! 

Here are 10 Tasty and Easy Bok Choy Recipes from The Spruce Eats!  There are lots of options here, so you can choose what works for you, the amount of time you have, and what ingredients you have on hand! 

And here are 7 Things to do with Garlic Scapes from Serious Eats!  I love the wealth of great ideas that you can then tweak and make your own!

I was looking around online, and most of the frisee salads I found kind of look the same.  But I wanted to let you know what we did with frisee a few days ago that was super delicious!  Since frisee is an endive with kind of a bitter (in a good way!) flavor, using a sweet flavor to offset the bitterness is a great way to bring out the flavor.  Fred just made a quick frisee salad with a dressing he whipped up out of balsamic vinegar, chopped basil, and blackberry jam, and he put little chunks of brie cheese on top.  The flavor was lovely, and the brie added such a rich texture.  So if you have those ingredients or something similar on hand, that’s a great way to make a quick frisee salad that feels really fancy!