CSA Newsletter for Week 9 of the 2023 Season

 Farm Update

Hi everyone!  It's starting to feel a little bit like fall out there!  The weather is getting a little cooler, the days are getting a little shorter, the kids are going back to school, and the massive job of bringing in the potato harvest is underway.  It's that transitional period between summer and fall that makes me feel like the glass of summer is half empty, and I am preemptively mourning the end of Michigan summer, even though we have a few weeks left.  

But summer inevitably slides into fall, and the farm is naturally starting to orient itself more toward preparing for the cooler months.  As I mentioned, we are harvesting the rest of the potatoes this week to store for the fall and winter months.  Our winter squash are looking good out in the field, and they'll be ready to harvest in a few weeks.  They are especially large this year, probably because we had such a hot and wet summer, so expect an abundance of delicatas, acorns, and all your other favorite winter squashes once we get into mid-September.  Over the next few weeks, we'll be planting our leafy greens for the last few weeks of the CSA, including spinach, which feels distinctly autumnal.  Spinach is one of those crops that can't handle the heat, so we have to be sure it's going to stay cool enough before we can plant spinach for the mid-to-late fall.  In the next few weeks, we're going to hit that point in the year where the temperatures stay consistently lower, which is good news for spinach and other fall veggies, and bad news for those of us who don't feel like we've had nearly enough summer yet.  (I'm definitely talking about myself here.)

One of the good things that happens at this transitional period of the year is that the weeds start to slow their growth.  We were able to get those extraordinarily large weeds in the back field back under control this week, and since the weather is starting to turn, we won't have to work so hard to stay on top of them from here on out.  Now we just have smaller, more manageable weeds in some of the newer plantings to take care of, and now that the kids are going back to school this week, I'll be able to spend some more time out in the fields working on keeping those weeds under control.

In the meantime, there is still the normal harvesting, washing, bagging, and delivering of the vegetables to keep us outside, so I intend to really soak up the rest of summer before the weather turns.  So let's all lean into late summer, enjoy the last summer veggies to the fullest, and when fall comes, we'll be ready to fully enjoy the new season in its turn.

So that's it!  See you at the drop-offs!

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. 
 

• Carrots or beets
• Potatoes
• Slicing tomatoes or cucumbers
• Kale, chard, or leeks
• Cherry tomatoes or green beans
• Basil, microgreens, or baby frisée
• Onion, zucchini, or shallot

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:

• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Slicing tomatoes
• Cherry tomatoes
• Basil
• Kale
• Zucchini

Share B:

• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Slicing tomatoes
• Green beans
• Microgreens
• Leeks
• Onion

Share C:

• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Cucumbers
• Green beans
• Baby frisée
• Chard
• Shallot

Recipes

Late summer is the perfect time for tomatoes and basil, and we have been eating a startling number of Caprese salads lately!  They are so simple, and with flavorful, fresh ingredients, you really don't need to do anything fancy to have a spectacular meal.  This particular Easy Caprese Salad recipe uses a balsamic reduction, but you can make it even easier by just sprinkling olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette on your lovely Caprese salad, no reducing necessary.  So make up a delicious, easy Caprese salad and enjoy it outdoors to celebrate late summer goodness!

CSA Newsletter for Week 8 of the 2023 Season

 Farm Update

Hi everyone!  Hope you're doing well!  Unlike much of modern life, which mostly moves ahead in straight line with one thing leading to another, the farm is cyclical in nature.  While no month in any farm season is the same as the last month, from year to year, most Aprils are similar to the other Aprils, most Junes are similar to other Junes, and October will almost always find us harvesting leafy greens in the rain and handing out bags of root vegetables at the CSA drop-offs.  There is something beautiful about that cycle; while it's not fun to be overrun with gigantic weeds in August or harvest in a chilly October rain, there is comfort in knowing what to expect from each month, year after year.  And this year is no different.

Like most Augusts, the weeds are making a really valiant attempt to swallow up everything at the farm, and until this week, it was starting to look like they might win.  In every crop bed, there is a best time to weed, when the weeds are small and can be taken out easily.  In a perfect world, we'd be able to weed each bed at the right time, and then pass back through every few weeks to keep everything looking tidy.  Even if you've never gardened before, you probably have heard that weeds are the bad guys when you're trying to grow food or flowers, but you may not know why.  For one thing, they compete with the plants we want for scarce soil nutrients and water.  For another thing, if they get too tall, they can shade out the crops and keep them from getting all the sunlight they need to grow.  They also make it a lot harder to harvest the veggies.  Since we harvest everything by hand, it's hard to see what we're doing if the weeds are in the way, and it also makes it harder to keep weeds out of the spring mix.  Weeds are just generally a nuisance, and this year, we had a lot of weeds in the back field get away from us.  We weren't able to get back there to weed at the right time because we were too busy with other things around the farm.  And then it got really hot and really wet, and the weeds just took off in those tropical rainforest conditions.  So last week, we spent every spare moment trying to hack down the weeds so we don't loose a bunch of plantings.  We plant everything in long, straight beds that vary from 200 to 600 feet long, with a few feet of soil in between each bed.  Well, the weeds in between the beds got so large that some of them towered over me and looked like mini trees.  They were smaller and more manageable in the onion beds (you can see the difference in the picture above between what I had already weeded and what I hadn't gotten to yet), but they got really out of control around the peppers and Brussel sprouts.  So we got the heaviest duty weed whacker the tractor supply store had to offer, and went to town hacking down the insanely large weeds.  It took a lot of time and a lot of strength, and truth be told, my whole body was pretty sore by Friday.  But the back field is looking a lot better, and we've rescued the onions, peppers, and Brussels sprouts... for now.

This is also the part of the year that starts what most people think of as "the harvest season".  While we actually started the earliest harvests of overwintered leafy greens back in March, and have been harvesting four days a week since June, now is when we start to bring in the large harvests of storage vegetables that will last through the fall and winter.  This week, we will be bringing in thousands of pounds of potatoes in the margins of time around harvesting for the CSA, washing and packing the veggies, and bringing all of the veggies to you all at the drop-offs.  If you've ever seen those huge potato harvesters driving around in large fields, bringing in thousands of pounds of potatoes may not seem like a big deal to you.  However, we are a much smaller farm, and we don't have that kind of equipment, so it's actually a much more daunting task.  Fortunately, we have our handy dandy potato digger, which makes harvesting potatoes a much easier and more efficient process than digging them up by hand.

Basically, the potato digger is a contraption that we hook onto the back of the tractor (you can see it in the picture to the right), and it has a metal plate that digs into the soil and loosens up about the top foot of earth.  Then the potatoes and dirt are propelled up a series of metal grates and fall out the back of the machine, where they lay on top of the soil and wait for us to pick them up.  Then we collect them by hand and put them in large wooden bins in our walk-in cooler in the barn with the dirt still on them, and then wash them up as needed when it's time to bring them to the CSA.  Leaving the dirt on until we are ready to distribute them helps them stay in peak condition for longer because it acts as a protective barrier from the air, which would begin to dry out the potatoes if they were left exposed to the air for a long period of time.  

Speaking of protective barriers for your veggies, I had some folks recently ask me about the best way to store everything from the CSA so it will last as long as possible.  So here's a quick tutorial on how to store your CSA haul when you get home from the drop-off!

The first thing to know is that we do clean your produce up at the farm before we bring it to you.  There are regulations about calling produce pre-washed, so we can't label them as such or tell you that you don't have to rewash your veggies when you bring them home.  But I can say that whenever I bring things into my own kitchen, I don't rewash them.  If you do want to rewash the items, do it right before you use them, because if you do it as soon as you bring your veggies home, you'll really decrease their lifespan.  

The next thing to know is what to keep out on the counter and what to put in the fridge.   It's generally best to store things like tomatoes, onions, and garlic that has the papery skin out on the counter.  If you get tomatoes that come in a plastic bag, it's best to take them out and just leave them in the open on the counter.  People are often surprised to learn that basil does much better at room temperature as well, and that if you put it in the fridge, it might get blackish after a few days.  I usually just leave it in the bag it came in out on my counter, and it usually lasts up to a week that way.  I store other fresh herbs in bags in the fridge, but I know plenty of people leave them in a cup of water on the counter, so play around with what works best for you when it comes to dill, parsley, and cilantro.

Most everything else, like root vegetables and leafy stuff, does best in the refrigerator.  And you know how I mentioned that leaving the dirt on the potatoes acts as a protective barrier between the potato and the air?  Leaving your veggies in the bags they came in will do the same thing, and they'll last a lot longer than if you take them out of the bag.  And if it's a leafy item and it doesn't come in a bag from the CSA, like kale or chard, I'd put it in a plastic grocery bag when you put it in the fridge.  If your leafy veggies get exposed to that dry refrigerated air, they'll get wilty a lot faster, but if they're in a bag, they'll last about a week and a half in the fridge.  Root vegetables like potatoes, carrots, and beets will last a really long time, like several months, if you leave them in the bag.  If you have any other questions about how to store your veggies, just let me know!  

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. 
 

• Leeks or tomatoes
• Potatoes or beets
• Carrots or cabbage
• Green beans, spring mix, or cherry tomatoes
• Kale, chard, or cucumber
• Basil, cilantro, or parsley
• Onion 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:

• Leeks
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Cherry tomatoes
• Kale
• Basil
• Microgreens

Share B:

• Tomatoes
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Green beans
• Cucumber
• Basil
• Onion

Share C:

• Tomatoes
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Spring mix
• Chard
• Parsley
• Onion

Recipes

I love pretty much all veggies, and when people ask me what my favorites are, I never know how to answer.  It usually comes down to what I haven't yet had ample opportunity to eat this season.  So I was pretty excited when Fred said we were going to be able to bring leeks to the CSA this week, because I definitely haven't had enough leeks yet.  If you've never worked with leeks before, they are delicious and oniony, and they are great sautéed, grilled, in soups... there are so many delicious ways you can cook leeks!  This Vegetarian White Pizza with Shaved Vegetables and Pesto recipe caught my eye, both because of the leeks and also the basil... and because pizza.  Some of the veggies on the pizza are no longer in season, but you can switch out the asparagus and peas for things you do have on hand, like tomatoes or even microgreens.  That is the beauty of pizza; it is endlessly customizable!  Another super customizable and delicious idea for your leeks is this Farro and White Bean Salad with Seasonal Vegetables.  You can include any veggies you have on hand if you have something you want to use up, and you can even change up what types of beans or grains you use.  But really, anything you make is bound to be great with the bounty of late summer! Enjoy!

CSA Newsletter for Week 7 of the 2023 Season

Farm Update

Our basil is looking bright and strong out in 
the fields!  We have had a bunch of it lately!

Hi everyone!  It feels like we are finally into the height of summer now, and it is super busy at the farm!  We are harvesting massive quantities of food each week, planting fall crops every chance we get, and trying to get out from under the mountain of weeds that have taken over the farm in the past few weeks.  That's pretty much going to be the name of the game next week too, and probably the week after that.  This will likely be a shorter-than-usual newsletter, partly because we don't have anything new and fascinating going on at the farm, and because partly because there is just so much work to be done.  So keep your fingers crossed, and send out all the thoughts, prayers, and good vibes so that we can keep our heads above water and stay out in front of everything that needs to be done to keep the farm running.  Each farm season is a crazy adventure, and this is no exception.  Thank you all for coming along for the ride with us and helping make the farm what it is!  See you this week at the drop-offs! 😀

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 Swiss Chard
• Surprise veggie!  (This could be green beans, spring mix, slicing tomatoes, blueberries, or okra. Basically, we have a lot of things that are right on the edge of availability right now, so there might be different things in this station throughout the week.)
• Kale, beets, or cabbage
• Zucchini, cucumbers, or green onions
• Basil, parsley, or microgreens
• Onion or garlic

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.

Our next variety of cherry tomatoes is
almost ready!  Our previous variety,
Golden Nugget, is on its way out, and you'll
start seeing these Yellow Minis in the shares
soon.  This variety is indeterminate, so 
they will have a much longer season, and
their vines will get much longer (about eight
feet) by the time they stop growing.

Share A:

• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Beets
• Surprise veggie
• Zucchini
• Basil
• Onion

Share B:

• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Kale
• Surprise veggie
• Cucumbers
• Parsley
• Onion

Share C:

• Potatoes
• Swiss chard
• Cabbage
• Surprise veggie
• Green onions
• Microgreens
• Garlic

Recipes

During the long, dark, cold winters when pretty much nothing is growing, it is so great to pull something out of the freezer or pantry that we preserved when the getting was good.  And that's right now!  The height of summer is here folks, and now is the time to make zucchini bread for the freezer, can those pickles, and freeze those stray green beans for soups in January.  I especially love pickled veggies, because they are delightfully tangy and crunchy, and they are great as a side dish, on a sandwich or salad, or just to snack on and remember summer once the snow starts flying.  If you have a few bags of carrots in your fridge, what better way to put them to good use than by pickling them!  Then you can pull them out in February and remember when the days were long, the sun was hot, and you could go outside without having to put on five extra layers first.  If you've never made pickled carrots before, here is a good recipe for Quick Pickled Carrots to get you started!  I'm planning on making some in the next few weeks, because even though every day is just packed, I know that February Me will really appreciate that August Me took the time to leave myself and my family the gift of pickled carrot goodness.  

And speaking of pickles, if you are wanting to make pickles with your cucumbers, here is my very favorite pickle recipe!  I've been making this recipe for years, and you can't go wrong with Pop's Dill Pickles!  

CSA Newsletter for Week 6 of the 2023 Season

 Farm Update

Hi everyone!  The nature of farming and gardening is that it is a huge ecosystem of moving parts.  Each crop, insect, animal, and person is on its own path, but those paths intersect and push against each other, sometimes changing the trajectory of the individual plant, person, or bug.  And all of us (plant, animal, person, and insect) are all at the mercy of the weather.  This ends up meaning, inevitably, that some individuals in the ecosystem have to suffer so that another can do well.  For example, the potato beetles have to suffer an untimely death so that the potatoes can thrive, and the people can have an abundant potato harvest.  The onions, who would love nothing better than to be left in the ground over the winter to come back in the spring, flower, and produce their little onion babies, are frustrated in this plan by the humans, who very inconsiderately pull them out of the ground and eat them before they've had a chance to produce a new generation of onions.  And the people pour a lot of blood, sweat, and tears (and water and compost) into the plants, and sometimes that crop just doesn't work out.  At the farm, there are always some things that are thriving and some things that aren't.

I always try to take that philosophical view when faced with multiple simultaneous disappointments, and right now is no exception.  While looking over the proposed roster of CSA veggies for this week, I couldn't help but grumble that we should have a lot more kale, much more spring mix, a bunch more blueberries, and... hey, what's the deal with the peppers?  Why don't we have peppers yet?  

And I know why, of course.  We had a few late frosts that damaged our kale plants much more than we expected, then we had an extended drought that caused the blueberry plants to be too thirsty for too long, and they didn't produce as many blueberries as usual.  And our last planting of spring mix didn't germinate properly for a reason we can't quite pin down, but it might be due to excessive heat, or to oversaturation of the soil after so much rain.  Any one of these weather-related shortfalls would be more easily absorbed, because a farm as diversified as ours has natural shock absorption, and the things that are thriving can pick up the slack for the things that are not.  But when they are all happening at once, it feels a little bit (or a lot) discouraging.  We have an idea in our minds of what the CSA shares this time of year should include, and how much variety there should be, and this week, nature just hasn't cooperated with that vision.  We'll likely still have some of those veggies at the drop-offs, but I am hesitant to put them on the roster, because I don't want anyone to base their meal plan around them and then be disappointed at the drop-off.  

But as always, even though we don't have as much of some crops as we feel we should right now, there are things that are doing well and growing abundantly.  Green beans are here, and we have a lot of them!  I always look forward to our fresh green beans, and they have finally arrived!  Our onions have hit the bulbing stage in their life cycle, which is when they start putting more energy into the underground part of the plant, instead of the above ground part, and the bulbs are starting to look more like what we generally think of as onions.  And this week, we seeded the next round of spring mix, carrots, cilantro, and dill, which will be ready to harvest in the fall.  Fred and I actually got to visit two large farmers markets over the last few weeks (the Davison Farmers Market last weekend and Detroit's Eastern Market this morning), and we were reminded again of how top-notch our veggies are and how much quality and variety we actually do have compared with what is generally available.

In the meantime, the life cycle of the farm continues to march on.  The hot weather and plentiful rain we've had recently have really caused the weeds to grow by leaps and bounds, so we have a lot of weeding to do in the upcoming week!  Fred was actually able to drive the tractor with the mowing attachment over the especially tall weeds growing up in our potato beds, because the green above-ground part of the potato plants are beginning their annual process of dying back.  Around this time every summer, the potato plants start to put less of their limited energy into their leafy parts, and more energy into their roots (ie, the part we eat).  When that happens, the leafy parts start to lose their vibrant green color and look a little less vigorous, and they get a little limp.  When this happens, they are no longer as tall, and Fred can actually drive over them with the mower attachment on the tractor and get the tall weeds under control without damaging the potato plants.  So he did that this week, which definitely helped.  It's all a part of the natural cycle that is the farm, and I guess that includes the wins and losses too.  I try to remember that, let it go, and keep my expectations realistic.  But you still might hear me grumble a little bit at the drop-off.  :-)

With that said, here we go into week 6!  See you soon! 

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. 
 

• Green beans
• Potatoes
• Cherry tomatoes or carrots
• Cucumbers, fennel, or cabbage
• Basil, green onions, or cilantro
• Swiss chard or zucchini
• White Spanish onion, garlic, 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:

• Green beans
• Potatoes
• Cherry tomatoes
• fennel
• Basil
• Zucchini
• White Spanish onion

Share B:

• Green beans
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Cucumber
• Basil
• Chard
• Fresh garlic

Share C:

• Green beans
• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Cucumbers
• Cilantro
• Zucchini
• White Spanish onion

Recipes

It's green bean season!  Green beans are one of the most delicious vegetables out there, and I always look forward to eating a whole bunch of them through late July and August.  But when I was a kid, I thought I didn't like green beans, because I had only ever had the sad, grayish, falling-apart-mushy ones from a can.  So if you have never had fresh green beans, you are in for a treat.  The first step to making awesome green beans is don't boil them!  Fresh green beans are such a gem, and boiling them just takes all the wonderful flavor and texture out.  We love to sauté ours in olive oil and add a little spice, and if you're ready to never eat sad mushy green beans again, here is a recipe to get you started!  Check out these Simple Skillet Green Beans from Healthy Seasonal Recipes!

CSA Newsletter for Week 5

Farm Update

Hi everyone! I can't believe it's the end of July already!  Where has the summer gone?  

Things at the farm are humming along as usual. Aside from the usual massive amount of time harvesting, and we also managed to get a lot of the planting done that we needed to do!  On Wednesday while I was doing the Lansing area deliveries, Fred and the crew were getting a bunch of lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, and kohlrabi planted.  Although it is the height of summer, we're in fall planting mode at the farm.  Different crops have different seasons, and we always have to be thinking a few months ahead. Fortunately we were able to get our fall brassicas and lettuce into the ground before the rains on Thursday, which is a huge relief.  We have been getting nervous about finding a period of time that was dry enough to prep the ground and get the next round of crops planted, and that finally happened this week!

Our tomato vines are getting really long!  This week, we 
raised the lines of our tomato trellising system for the fifth time
this season.  Keeping the tomatoes off the ground keeps them a lot
cleaner and makes them much easier to harvest.

Despite the more-than-sufficient amount of rain we've had lately, we're starting to have to irrigate some of our larger plants again.  Our potato plants, tomato vines, and collards are all pretty large right now, and when plants get really big, they require a lot more water to thrive.  Since these particular crops are planted in black plastic mulch to keep the weeds down and the water from our drip line irrigation from evaporating when it's dry, sometimes the ground around them doesn't soak in a lot of rainwater.  This is just fine when the plants are smaller, but when they are really big, this often means that we need to do some additional irrigation.  And in the greenhouses, the plants are protected entirely from the rain (which really helps prevent foliar diseases).  But that means we are pretty much always having to irrigate the hoophouses, even when it's raining cats and dogs outside.  The tomato vines are getting nice and long, and we spent some time this week trellising them.  For our tomato plants, we have a trellis system that consists of a long line of T posts with twine wrapped tightly around the line.  Imagine two clothes lines that are really close together, and it's pretty much just like that.  We then snake the tomato vines up through the two lines of twine to keep them off the ground, which keeps them cleaner and makes them a lot easier to harvest.  As the tomato vines grow out throughout the season, we have to keep raising the height of the lines to accommodate the longer vines.  For our determinate varieties (where almost all of the tomatoes are ready to harvest at roughly the same time), we'll end up trellising them about five times throughout the season.  For our indeterminate varieties (which have a much longer season because the fruit ripens at different times), we'll trellis them about eight times, because they keep growing for much longer.  Finding the best way to grow and care for each crop in the diverse system that is the farm is both an art and a science.  Being outside in a dynamic and vibrant natural system, even the science often feels more like art.

So here we go into week 5!  Next time I see you, I'll officially be in my next decade of life!  I'm actually turning 40 today, so I'll be spending most of the day celebrating with my family, and I'll catch you guys next week at the drop-offs!  :-)

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
• Cherry tomatoes
• Carrots or cabbage
• Fennel, chard, or kale
• Zucchini or green onions
• Basil, microgreens, or cilantro
• Cucumber, fresh garlic, parsley

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
• Cherry tomatoes
• Carrots
• Chard
• Green onions
• Cilantro
• Cucumber

Share B:

• Potatoes
• Cherry tomatoes
• Carrots
• Kale
• Zucchini
• Basil
• Fresh garlic

Share C:

• Potatoes
• Cherry tomatoes
• Cabbage
• Fennel
• Zucchini
• Basil
• Cucumber

Recipes

You guys have probably noticed that there have been carrots in the shares pretty much every week, and this week is no exception.  More than anything else we grow, I always hear from people how much they love our carrots, and I totally agree!  In chatting with folks at the drop-offs, I've heard that either their carrots are always gone within a couple days, or that they have a few bags of carrots still in the fridge from previous weeks that they haven't eaten yet.  (Incidentally, whether you're in the first category or the second category appears to come almost entirely down to whether you've got kids in your house.  Kids seem to be carrot eating machines!)  But if you're in the second category, here is a great recipe to help you use up some of those carrots!  This recipe first appeared in last year's newsletter, so you might remember it from last July.  But this is one of Fred's classic carrot recipes, and I love it so much I'm bringing it back out!  Enjoy!

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!

CSA Newsletter for Week 4 of the 2023 Season

  Farm Update

This Lacinato kale will be in the shares this week!
It's also called dinosaur kale or Toscano kale, and it has a
nice hearty texture that is great for cooking.

Hi everyone!  It's amazing how different things are at the farm now than they were a month ago!  Everything is growing quickly, everything is abundant, and we have a ton of variety.  And now we are definitely on the edge of too much rain.  We've gotten quite a lot of rain lately, and all of the plants have gotten a good soaking.  This time of year, when our potato plants are really large and require a lot of water, we still have to irrigate them even when the rainfall has been sufficient for most other crops. But even they have all the water they need right now.  Now the trick will be getting enough dry days in a row so Fred can plant the next round of crops.  We have a lot of seeds and transplants that need to go into the ground, but the soil needs to dry enough for Fred to prep the ground, and then we have to actually do the planting.  How many dry days we would need varies a lot based on a number of factors (temperature and wind being the main ones), so we could actually use a little less rain at the moment.

The slicing tomatoes get closer to being ripe every day! 

As has been the case for the last several weeks, the main thing we've been spending a bunch of time on each week at the farm is harvesting, and also the washing and bagging of the veggies.  There is also weeding and seeding and deliveries and working on constructing the greenhouse, but the main thing is harvesting all the veggies that end up on your table each week!  And we've got a few new things this week, including potatoes, fennel, parsley, and cabbage, along with some of the old favorites!  The thing to know about the potatoes this week is that new potatoes are amazing, and they are a totally different food than the storage potatoes that you can get at the store.  So if you've only had those big bags of potatoes from the store, these will be pretty different.  Since they've just been harvested, they are a lot less starchy, and they have a wonderful creamy texture that you just can't get with potatoes that have been out of the field for several months.  I hope you enjoy them, and all the other goodies this week! 

So that's it for this week!  Thank you so much, and we'll see you at the drop-offs! :-)

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 spring mix
• Cherry tomatoes or fennel
• Zucchini or Swiss chard
• Parsley, basil, or microgreens
• Cucumbers, frisée, or green onions
• Cabbage, kale, or collards

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:

I am super excited about parsley in 
the shares this week!  I think tabbouleh
or fried potatoes with parsley
will definitely be on the menu this week!

• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Cherry tomatoes
• Chard
• Cabbage
• Frisée
• Parsley

Share B:

• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Cherry tomatoes
• Zucchini
• Cabbage
• Cucumbers
• Basil

Share C:

• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Fennel
• Zucchini
• Kale
• Green onions
• Basil

Recipes

Cabbage is one of those things that people either love or hate.  I don't think I've ever heard from someone that they were kind of so-so about cabbage.  I love cabbage, but that wasn't always the case.  What changed my mind, back when I was a young little 20-year-old and had first started dating Fred, was a cabbage dish very similar to this one that he cooked for me.  So if you love cabbage, you will love this recipe.  And if you're not a a cabbage fan, give this Easy Fried Cabbage a try.  It might change your mind! :-)

CSA Newsletter for Week 3 of the 2023 Season

 Farm Update

It is so great to see all the plants looking
so healthy and verdant again after such a
long drought!  The crops are definitely
glad about all the rain we've been getting!

Hi everyone!  I hope you're all enjoying your veggies so far and making some awesome meals! We've definitely been enjoying having the bounty of summer veggies in our kitchen, and it is wonderful to have such a wide variety of great produce to work with!  During the winter and early spring, what we can make is very limited by the lack of good veggies, so we really relish this time of year when almost any food we want to make is possible!  We've had the first few cherry tomatoes in our kitchen for the last few weeks, and this week we finally have enough ripe cherry tomatoes to bring to you!  The yellow cherry tomato variety that will be in the shares this week is Golden Nugget, which an open pollenated variety with great heirloom tomato flavor.  They'll have a slightly shorter shelf life than some of the cherry tomato varieties that appear later in the season, but my guess is that won't be a problem, because they're so delicious you'll probably want to eat them all right away!  We've also got some really nice slicing tomatoes that are coming along nicely in the hoophouses, and they should be ready to harvest in a few weeks.  They're still green right now, but I'm already getting excited for the first BLT of the season.  It feels like real summer now that we're into tomato and basil season!

These golden cherry tomatoes are 
coming in the shares this week!  

With all this heat and rain, things are really taking off!  The crops are growing really quickly, and so are the weeds.  In any given week, we spend most of our time harvesting, and we felt like the weeds were getting away from us earlier in the week.  Fortunately, the farm crew was able to get a lot of weeding done later in the week, and things are back under some semblance of control for now.  The insect pressure we were experiencing a few weeks ago has also gone down now that it's not so dry out.  When we hadn't had rain in weeks, all the plants in the ecosystem surrounding the farm were really struggling, and naturally, the bugs wanted to eat the healthiest plants they could find.  Unfortunately, those were all the plants that we were irrigating like crazy, so it was definitely a battle to keep them all from getting eaten by desperate insects.  But now that we have gotten plenty of rain, the bugs have dispersed to other areas to avail themselves of all the lush green foliage that is around in the environment now. 

We are also excited to be making progress on getting the new hoophouse built!  If you've been reading the newsletter for a while, you may remember that we bought an old hoophouse at an auction in November.  We were just waiting for the weather to turn around enough to start reconstructing it at the farm, but we ran into a labor snafu back in March, and Fred wasn't able to get it put up before the planting season was in full swing.  We've been working on it little by little in the time margins that have presented themselves, but it was definitely slow going.  Yesterday our friend Danny came up to help at the farm, and he and Fred got some major work done on it!  There are still a few structural things we need to do with it, and then we have to put the plastic on, but it really feels like we are making real progress on the project, which is a relief.

The new hoophouse is coming along well!
We've got tomatoes planted in it already, and 
when we get the plastic on, that will help protect
the plants from the temperature fluctuations and 
cold rain we inevitably get in the fall.

Last week of the CSA, we had a whole bunch of people postpone their shares because of the 4th of July holiday.  If that's you, you can either get a double share this week, or some week in the future if that works better for you.  I have put all of the folks who postponed last week down for a double share this week by default unless you told me otherwise, but if you have an extra share coming to you and you don't want it this week, just send me an email or text and we can defer it to some future week.  If you have a prepacked share, when you fill out the form to let me know what share you prefer, you'll just select the full share option if you're making up for missing last week.  And if you postponed your share last week, but you just fill out the form and select a half share this week, I'll just assume that you are planning to take your makeup share sometime in the future.  This can get a little confusing, so if you have any questions, just let me know!  

So that's it for this week!  Thank you so much, and we'll see you at the drop-offs! :-)

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. 
 

• Cherry tomatoes or beets
• Carrots
• Spring mix or cucumbers
• Zucchini or pearl onions
• Green onions or basil
• Kale, bok choy, collards, or Swiss chard
• Microgreens mix, micro cilantro, 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:

• Cherry tomatoes
• Carrots
• Spring mix
• Pearl onions
• Basil
• Collards
• Micro cilantro

Share B:

• Cherry tomatoes
• Carrots
• Cucumbers
• Zucchini
• Basil
• Swiss chard
• Kohlrabi

Share C:

• Beets
• Carrots
• Cucumbers
• Zucchini
• Green onions
• Kale
• Microgreens mix

Recipes

Once we start having cherry tomatoes, basil, and zucchini, it feels like real summer!  And just in case you don't already have plans for those beloved summer veggies, Fred has been making this really delicious salad lately that uses all three of them!  This is a true summer salad, and it only takes a few minutes to make!

Fred's Summer Zucchini Salad

Ingredients:  Zucchini, cherry tomatoes, basil, shaved parmesan cheese, olive oil, salt.  Use whatever amounts make sense to you. :-)

Chop zucchini into bite size pieces.  Put olive oil into a medium size pan over medium heat.  Sautee zucchini in olive oil until it is cooked through but not mushy.  Pour zucchini and remaining oil from pan into a large bowl and let it cool for a few minutes.  While you're waiting, cut your cherry tomatoes in half, and chop up your basil.  Once the zucchini is cooled down a little bit, add the basil and cherry tomatoes to the bowl.  Add salt and shaved parmesan cheese to taste, and stir it all up.  If you feel like you need to add a little more oil to get a nice salad dressing-y texture, go ahead and do so.  Serve as a side dish and enjoy! You could also switch it up a little bit by stirring in some goat cheese, or adding grilled chicken to make it more of a main dish.  This is a salad you can enjoy all summer long in different variations!