CSA Newsletter for Week 1 of the 2023 Season

Farm Update

The potato plants are looking strong
and healthy! It is nice to see them looking
so good after their recent battles with frost
and insect pests!

Hi everyone!  The CSA starts next week, and we are excited to see everyone again!  If you are new to the CSA, and you missed my post a few weeks ago about what to expect at your first drop-off, you can check that out here learn everything you need to know about the first drop-off! This season has been up and down so far, between the late frosts and the drought we've been experiencing for about the last two months, but we finally have enough abundance and variety of vegetables to start the CSA.  We're also supposed to get a good rain in the next few days, which we could really use!  It's looking like we're going to get rained on for most of Sunday and Monday, and while I don't love the idea of getting rained on at the first CSA drop-off of the year, I'll take it.  Once we get a good rain, so many crops that have been held back from growing will take off, and we'll have even more variety for the next few weeks.  Also, we've been experiencing a lot of pressure from insects, which attack our plants even more ferociously in really dry periods.  Because we've been irrigating our plants like crazy with our drip irrigation system, they look a lot better and greener than any other plants that are around in the wild, and naturally, the bugs want to eat the healthiest plants.  So once all the other plants in the ecosystem get the water they need, our plants will be proportionately less attractive to the bugs, and we won't have to fight them as hard.  

The upside to the drier weather is that the weeds really haven't gotten as out of control as they usually do this time of year, because their growth has also been stunted by the drought.  When we irrigate our crops, we use a drip irrigation system, which is basically a series of little flat perforated hoses that run right along the rows of crops and drip water only where it is needed.  This uses a lot less water than overhead irrigation systems, and it also keeps the weeds at bay by watering (mostly) only the plants we want.  Now that we're past those late frosts that damaged so many of our plants in May, and since we've been irrigating so much, there are a lot of things that are looking really good around the farm.  It was pretty discouraging for a while to see everything looking so beaten down after we worked so hard to take care of it, but now things are starting to look really healthy.  The hoophouses are verdant with zucchini and cucumber plants and tomato vines, and our plantings of carrots look really strong and beautiful.  The potato plants are growing large and nice, and we pulled up a potato plant yesterday to see how the potatoes themselves are developing.  They're looking good so far, and Fred and I ate those first delicious little potatoes with our lunch yesterday.  We are so excited that we finally have so much variety coming out of the fields and hoophouses, and we've definitely been enjoying all the abundance in our own kitchen!

Our drip line irrigation on a new planting
of onions, carrots, and spring mix.

We have made it through the first big planting push of the spring, and now there are just a few beds that have yet to be planted.  Since we didn't get any rain over the last few months, there is still so much cover crop in those beds that we can't plant until we get some rain and the winter cover crop starts its normal process of composting.  Once that happens, we're going to plant those beds pretty aggressively with some of the veggies that will be in the shares in late summer.  We always need to have plants that are at the right stage to harvest, so we plant new crops every few weeks.  It's definitely an art and a science, because you need to have open beds to plant, you have to have the right weather conditions for planting, and you have to have the right amount of time before you intend to harvest those plants so that you don't ever have a week where there is too much or too little coming out of the fields.  Too much, and we risk not being able to harvest everything (which is hugely wasteful), and too little, and we feel bad that we don't have as much variety as we'd like for the CSA.  There is a lot to manage, including a lot of factors that are out of our control.  But the best we can do is make an educated guess, control the factors we can can, and be ready to pivot around the ones we can't.  

Fortunately, we have a really great crew this summer, and unreliable labor is not an issue this year as it has sometimes been in the past.  With farming, the work needs to be done when it needs to be done.  There is no such thing as getting to it later, so there were a lot of years where Fred just had to work nonstop in order to keep everything from falling apart.  Having reliable, enthusiastic, capable workers this year has been such a joy and a relief!  A huge shout out to Abby, Ander, and Amy, who have been wonderful to work with!  I am so looking forward to doing this whole season with them!  

And with that said, here we go into the first week of the 2023 CSA season! 

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. 
 

• Spring mix for everyone!
• Carrots for everyone!
• Cucumbers or radishes
• Oyster mushrooms, snap peas, or zucchini
• Kale, Swiss chard, or bok choy
• Kohlrabi, microgreens, or frisee
• Green onions or garlic scapes

There might be some stuff on this list that you're unfamiliar with, so if you want to learn more about what any of these are, just click the link to read more!

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:

• Spring mix
• Carrots
• Oyster mushrooms
• Kale
• Frisee
• Radishes
• Green onions

Share B:

• Spring mix
• Carrots
• Oyster mushrooms
• Swiss chard
• Kohlrabi
• Cucumbers
• Green onions

Share C:

• Spring mix
• Carrots
• Zucchini
• Bok choy
• Microgreens
• Cucumbers
• Garlic scapes

Look at these lovely tomato vines in flower!
They have a bunch of green cherry tomatoes
on them, which will make their way into 
the shares when they ripen in a month
or so.

Recipes

The start of the CSA season is always exciting, and especially if you're new, you may encounter some veggies you've never cooked with before!  Kohlrabi is one I always get questions about, so if you've never tried kohlrabi, you are in for a treat! It's very fresh tasting, and while you can find many kohlrabi recipes on the internet (I'll link to some below), we've been making a really simple and delicious salad with it lately in our kitchen!

Fred's Asian Kohlrabi and Carrot Salad

This salad is really simple, and you can play around with amounts and ingredients as you see fit.  To start, grab a handful of spring mix and put it on a plate.  Then grab a cheese grater, and use the large grating holes to grate some carrots over the spring mix (however much you want!  We generally use a lot!).  Peel the outer skin off the kohlrabi and discard.  Take the peeled kohlrabi and use the large grating holes of your grater to sprinkle some shaved kohlrabi over the salad (again, however much you want!).  Then, grab any Asian inspired sauce, vinaigrette, or dressing you have on hand, and sprinkle liberally over your salad.  We use a mix of sesame vinaigrette, soy sauce, and teriyaki sauce, but you could also use Thai peanut sauce, a soy/hoisin sauce mix, or any other dressing you like.  Enjoy as a small side dish, or you could also add little bits of grilled chicken, venison, or other meat to make it a main dish!

If you just want to check out a whole bunch of kohlrabi recipes to get your creative juices going, here are 10 Fun Kohlrabi Recipes from A Couple Cooks!  And honestly, I also like just cutting them into sticks and munching on them raw with ranch dressing. :-)

Here is the Swiss chard that will
be in the shares this week!

Swiss chard is more mainstream now than it was when we first started the CSA in 2011, but it is another thing that you may never have cooked with before, especially if you haven't ventured much into leafy greens.  (Do it!  Leafy greens are so good for you, and they are also delicious!) Chard is fantastic in omelets!  Here is a great base recipe for a Chard and Onion Omelet from the Food Network, but you could also play around with different cheeses, herbs, and veggies.  The thing I love about omelets is that you can put pretty much whatever you want in them, so have fun with it! 

What to Expect at Your First CSA Drop-Off!

Our little cucumbers are coming along, and there
should be a lot of them ready to harvest in a few weeks!

Hi everyone!  The start of the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is getting closer, and if you haven't been part of the CSA before, you probably have questions about how it works!  So here is a rundown of what you need to know in order to feel prepared for your first CSA drop-off!

The first thing is that we have two pretty different types of drop-offs.  If you are picking up at our Alma, Mt. Pleasant, or Midland drop-offs, those are what we call "market style" drop-offs.  Here's how those ones work:

You'll pull up to the drop-off location between 5 and 6 PM on your drop-off day, and we'll have some long tables set up with all of the produce options for that week!  At the beginning, we'll have a sign-in sheet where you'll initial next to your name, and if you have anything you want me to know about (like that you'll be out of town the following week), you can also write me a note on the sign-in sheet.  Then there will be seven different "stations" at the table, and each one will have a choice and a sign telling you what to do.  The signs will say something like, "Spinach or Spring Mix:  Half Share, Choose 1.  Full Share, Choose 2".  Each sign will tell you what the options are for that station and how many items to choose.  And at the very end, we have our Trading Station.  Before each drop-off, we put a variety of items at the Trading Station so that if there are any stations where you don't want or can't eat those items, you can trade for something you like better.  So if you don't like onions, for example, you can trade your onions for something else at the Trading Station.  

Here are some pro tips for the market style drop-offs:

-The drop-off starts at 5 PM, but people often start lining up before that.  There is usually a pretty long line at the beginning of the drop-off until about 5:15, but after that, you don't generally have to wait in line.  The upside to getting there early is that all of the varieties of veggies are still there.  Because we harvest the right amount of produce for the people we know are coming, sometimes if everyone wants a particular item, that item can be snapped up before the end of the drop-off. If you don't mind standing in line, we always have the maximum variety at the beginning of the drop-off. But if you don't like standing in line and you don't have your heart set on a particular item, getting there after 5:15 is the way to go!

-We can also prepack your share for you at the farm for no extra charge if you are on a tight schedule or if you won't be able to get to the drop-off by 6 PM.  We do prepacked shares for our Lansing, Okemos, St. Johns, and home/workplace delivery folks, and even if you pick up at one of our regular drop-offs, you can have us prepack your share.  In the CSA newsletter each weekend, I'll let you know what the options are for the prepacked shares (Share A, Share B, or Share C), and you can let me know which one you'd like us to pack for you.  Then you can just swing by the drop-off, grab the bag with your name on it, and be on your way without having to wait in line.  Just let me know by noon the day before your drop-off if you want to go with that option!

-We'll have plastic grocery bags available at the drop-off, but it's better if you bring a reusable bag.  It's more environmentally friendly and allows us to go through less plastic, but if you forget your bag, we'll have some there!

-If you're stuck in a meeting or your kid's sporting event, and you realize that there's no way you're going to make it to the drop-off in time, no worries!  Just call or text me at 517-896-6884 and let me know, and I can pack up a share for you and leave it at the drop-off.  Then you can just swing by and pick it up when you get done with what you're doing.  :-)

The cherry tomato vines are starting to get nice and
long, and there are plenty of unripe tomatoes on them!
Pretty soon, they will all ripen into a beautiful yellow color.

And if you're picking up at our Lansing, Okemos, St. Johns, or hospital drop-offs or you have home/workplace delivery, here's how it works for you:

Each weekend, I'll send out a CSA newsletter with farm news, recipes, and most importantly for you, what the veggie choices will be for the upcoming week! It will say something like, "Share A has these seven items, Share B has these seven items, and Share C has these seven items."  If you have a half share, you'll choose one of those options, and if you have a full share, you'll choose two of those options.  I'll have a link to a quick form for you to fill out and let me know which choice you prefer, and then we'll pack up your preferred share in a bag with your name on it and bring it to your drop-off location on your pickup day.  If you forget to fill out the form, no worries!  We'll still bring you a share, and we'll just put in whatever we think you'll like.  If you want to specify a preferred share, just make sure to get that form in to me by noon on the day before your drop-off.  I generally make the harvest list the afternoon/evening before your drop-off day, so I can't guarantee that I'll see any requests that come in after that.  If you do get your request in late, I might still be able to get that on the harvest list for you, but I can't promise it.  So it's best to send in your requests early!

And then, you just arrive at your drop-off location during the pickup time frame, tell the folks at your location your name, and they'll go get your bag for you!  For those of you picking up at Mert's Specialty Meats or the Soup Spoon Café, I always say that you can start picking up your share at 4:30, but I often drop-off the shares before that.  I'm going to set up at text to let you all know when your shares are ready for pickup, but if you'd like to opt out, just send me a quick email at michele@mforganics.com and let me know that you'd prefer not to get those texts.

And if you have home or workplace delivery, you just get to sit back and wait for me to drop-off your share on your doorstep!  You don't have to be there when I deliver the shares, but if it's especially hot or especially sunny, I'd recommend setting out a cooler by your front door for me to put your veggies in so they don't get all wilted in the heat.  

And here is some good information to know, whether you are picking up at one of our market style drop-offs or getting a prepacked share:

-If you know you won't be able to make it to a drop-off because you have an appointment, are out of town, etc, you have a few options.  You can either have a friend pick up your share, you can arrange to pick up your share at a different drop-off that week, or you can just postpone your share that week and get double when you get back.  For example, if you usually pick up in Mt. Pleasant on Tuesdays but you're out of town until Wednesday, you can just let me know by the previous day that you want to pick up in Midland on Thursday.  Then I'll just put you on the list for Thursday instead, and you can still get your veggies that week. Or you can postpone your share and make it up when you get back.  If you have a full share, it is totally fine to split up your makeup share so you don't get totally overrun with veggies!  And if you're having a friend pick up for you, you don't have to let me know ahead of time.  Your friend can just sign for you on the sign-in sheet.

-If your normal drop-off day falls on a bank holiday like Independence Day or Labor Day, the drop-off will still be occurring as usual!  However, if you have plans and can't make it, just let me know by the day before, and we can postpone your share or you can pick up at one of the other drop-offs that week.

-If you realize later in the evening sometime that you totally forgot to go pick up your veggies, never fear!  Just email or text me, and while I can't necessarily put you down for an extra share the following week, chances are good that I can still get you some extra veggies the next week to make up for what you missed.  We generally overharvest a bit, so once the main rush goes through (after about 5:15), I'll have a good idea of how much extra we'll have, and I can probably send you home with an extra share at that point.

-If you need to get in touch with me on the day of your drop-off, texting is the best way to do that! I don't check my email a ton during the day, and I am often packing veggies or doing something else that makes it hard to answer the phone.  But if you text me at 517-896-6884, I'll get back to you as soon as possible.  In fact, go ahead and put my number in your contacts right now!  I bet you'll need it at some point! :-)

So that's it!  Just let me know if you have any questions!  As of right now, we still haven't nailed down an official start date because it all really depends on what the weather does over the next few days, and alas, we can't control Mother Nature.  We're really hoping to start the week of June 19, but based on the drought we've had, we might have to get started the week of June 26. I'll let you know as soon as we know for sure!  Keep your fingers crossed!  

This drought we've been having has been pretty rough 
on our poor plants.  As you can see, some of them are
definitely looking the worse for wear. 

Projected CSA Start Dates for 2023!

Farm Update

The tomato plants are really taking off in the coldframes!

Hi everyone!  Summer is finally here!  As is always the case in June, there is more to do than we can actually stay on top of comfortably, but it is better this year than most because we have a really great crew of one part-time and two full-time employees this year.  So we are keeping our heads above water better than most Junes, but there is still plenty of work to be done!  It has been so dry lately that we have been irrigating non-stop to keep all of our little plants doing well.  One good rain is worth about a month of irrigation though, so we could definitely use some rain!  The upside is that the weeds have not been getting the water they need either, so there are a lot fewer of them than usual.  That means that we are spending less time weeding and more time moving irrigation lines around, so we end up breaking even in the end.  We made our first major planting push over the last month, and while the planting has slowed down, there are still a few things we are getting in the ground.  Our shipment of sweet potato starts arrived the other day, so starting later this morning, we will be planting 3,000 sweet potato plants.  Last week, we got the rest of our seed potatoes into the ground, which, if all goes according to plan, should produce between 13,000 and 18,000 pounds of potatoes for us to give out throughout the season.  

It looks like we are finally past the frosts for the year, which is a relief, because that last frost we had earlier this week did some damage to a few of our crops.  Most of them will pull through, but they are definitely looking worse for wear.  Surprisingly, our kale was the crop that fared the worst.  Over the years, kale is the one crop we can generally count on to take a frost without so much as a shrug, but a frost this hard when the plants were so young seems to have been too much for about half of our kale plants.  Fortunately, we always plant way more than we'll need for the CSA, simply because we know that these things happen.  But we are going to need to form a plan to regroup in the kale department, and that plan will probably involve replanting about half of the plants.  Our broccoli and cabbage have really taken a hit as well.  After those several hard frosts weakened the plants, a bunch of opportunistic insects flocked to the vulnerable plants and did yet more damage.  And since it is so hot and dry (and since we've been irrigating so much), our plants look better to the bugs than anything else they can find around, so they've been really taking a toll on our cabbage-family plants in particular.  

While some of our plants are looking the worse for wear because of the extreme temperatures and lack of water they've experienced lately, many other crops are looking really fantastic!  Our spinach, lettuce, beets, snap peas, and carrots have been looking extra good, so we're really focusing on keeping those crops looking awesome and growing up strong!

The new greenhouse is under construction!  It's going up bit by bit as we can
fit it in around other tasks, but we're making real progress.

Aside from planting, irrigating, and moderate amounts of weeding, we're also constructing the new (old) greenhouse we bought at auction back in November.  We had hoped to get that put up much earlier in the spring, but we ran into a labor snafu in March, and were unable to make that happen.  But now we've got some great employees working for us, so we're getting the greenhouse put up a bit at a time in between the other farm tasks that keep everything running.  We've also been doing deliveries to some of our stores for a few months now.  While we don't have enough variety yet to start the CSA, we have been able to keep GreenTree in Mt. Pleasant, the Argus Farm Stop stores in Ann Arbor, and ELFCO in Lansing supplied with spinach, spring mix, green onions, baby leeks, green garlic, asparagus, and the like.  We also supply some larger multi-farm CSAs that are coordinated through the Allen Neighborhood Center in Lansing and St. Joe's hospital in Ypsilanti with a few items for their CSA boxes.  So we've definitely been keeping busy with the harvesting, washing, packing, and delivering the veggies, but it will get even busier when we start the CSA later in June!

Speaking of which, we don't have official CSA start dates yet, because so much depends on what the weather does between now and then, but our projected start dates are in the third week of June.  I'll let you all know for sure as soon as we know, but in the meantime, you can mark your calendars with the following dates:

Alma:  Monday, June 19th from 5-6 PM out in front of His Place, downtown on Superior St.

Mt. Pleasant:  Tuesday, June 20th from 5-6 PM behind Herbs Etc, downtown on Broadway.

Lansing:  Wednesday, June 21st anytime from 4:30-9 PM at the Soup Spoon Café on Michigan Ave.

Okemos:  Wednesday, June 21st anytime from 4:30- 6 PM at Mert's Specialty Meats on Grand River.

St. Johns:  Wednesday, June 21st anytime after 3:30 PM on the front porch of a CSA member who lives close to downtown.  I'll be sending you St. Johns folks an email separately with the details, so be on the lookout for that in the next week or so!

Midland:  Thursday, June 22nd 1from 5-6 PM in the back parking lot of the Eagle Ridge Church of God on Waldo Ave.

Midland hospital drop-off:  Thursday, June 22nd anytime after 4 PM at the delivery turnaround behind the Center for Women's Health.  This one is only for hospital employees due to hospital regulations.

So if you have any questions about that, just let me know!  Again, these dates are tentative, but I will let you know for sure as soon as we know!  And if you know anyone who is interested in the CSA, we do still have some spots available, so they can still sign up!  They can check out all the details about the CSA on our website, and just fill out this sign-up form to get on the CSA list for this year and start getting delicious organic veggies in just a few weeks! :-)

And stay tuned for next week's CSA newsletter, which will be all about what to expect at your first CSA drop-off! 

Fred has just finished loading up the delivery vehicle for our 
Ann Arbor delivery route last Monday.  The new (old) vehicle looks
pretty wacky, but it can haul a lot of vegetables!

CSA Newsletter for April 2023

 Farm Update

Our first direct planting of lettuce is up in the field!
It's still little, but it is looking strong!

Hi everyone!  Hope you're all doing well and enjoying the rapidly improving weather! Things are definitely in full swing at the farm now, and the name of the game right now is planting, planting, and more planting! We do many different types of planting, from starting seeds in flats in the greenhouse that will eventually be transplanted into the fields, to seeding into the protected soil in the hoophouses, to actually seeding directly into the field. And we're doing all of those things right now! Our first plantings of direct-seeded carrots and lettuce are coming up in the fields, and it is always so exciting to see those first little baby plants of the year emerge from the ground! Last week Fred and our crew spent the day transplanting kohlrabi and green onions that we started as seeds in the greenhouse back at the beginning of March into the field, and they also planted about half of the potatoes this week that will be making it onto our plates in a few months.

Most of the field work we are doing right now is preparatory in nature (seeding, planting, tilling, and spreading compost). But we're actually always preparing for some crops (tilling and preparing beds), planting some other crops (seeding or transplanting), maintaining and monitoring some other crops (weeding, cultivating, and keeping an eye on pests and disease), and harvesting some crops (actually removing the edible part from the plant or the soil, cleaning it it up, and bringing it to the CSA or our local stores and restaurant partners. This part of the season leans heavily toward the preparation and planting, and later in the fall will lean more heavily toward harvest, but there are elements of all of those life stages happening from about the end of February to about the middle of December at the farm.

Right now we're not harvesting as much as we will be in a few months, but we are already harvesting spring mix, cilantro, spinach, green onions, green garlic, and microgreens in pretty significant quantities. We're also fully into the very abundant but very short ramp season, and Fred has been working with our friend Willy to harvest some of the wild ramps in Willy's woods. This time of year, Willy's woods have such an abundance of ramps that we can harvest as many as we can eat or sell, and not even make a dent in what is out there. It is truly incredible. At this point, the crops and ramps we're harvesting are going to a few stores, restaurants, and some multifarm CSAs to which we contribute. These include GreenTree Cooperative Grocery in Mt. Pleasant, the Argus Farm Stop stores in Ann Arbor, the CSA through the Allen Neighborhood Center in Lansing, the Farm at St. Joe's CSA in Ypsilanti, and Spencer restaurant in Ann Arbor. As it is still early in the spring, we don't have enough variety of items to start our own CSA yet, but we are glad to be able to get the first spring veggies onto people's tables in these other ways.

The first little baby carrots are poking out of the ground, and 
I can't wait to actually eat them in a few months!  

And in just a few months, we'll have such an abundance of wonderful veggies coming out of the fields, that it will be time to start the CSA! We don't have an official start date yet, because it depends a lot on what the weather does between now and the start of the CSA season, but we generally get started in mid-June, and this year will likely be the same. I'll let you all know when we have an official start date, but tentatively mark your calendars for the third week of June!

I've had a few people ask if we still have availability for this season, and we do! So if you've been wondering if you can still sign up, or you have a friend who is interested in joining, you still can! Our availability will likely fill up significantly over the next month, so if you know you want to sign up, better go ahead and do it soon, but we likely won't sell out before the end of May. And as always, tell your friends! If you love our fresh, delicious organic vegetables, spread the word! Word of mouth is the way most people find out about us, and we always appreciate it so much. It's $630 for a full share or $340 for a half share at all of our regular CSA drop-off locations, and we also offer home/workplace delivery for an additional $95 (that covers the whole season) if you live/work within a few miles of where we're already driving. Just let me know if you have any questions, and if you are interested in signing up for the 2023 season, you can just fill out this registration form!

As the weather gets nicer and we all start to emerge from hibernation, it's time to start planning for summer! For you all, that might mean planning a vacation, getting your outdoor spaces cleaned up, and locking in your supply of wonderful veggie goodness (hint, hint!). For me, that means figuring out how to manage all of the various responsibilities of a fast-paced, demanding farm where there is very little flexibility and timing is everything, a home that is fortunately pretty forgiving when I get too busy, three very active kids, and my other off-farm job (which is also fortunately pretty flexible when I need it to be). It's really a lot like an advanced game of Tetris, but it's real life, and the stakes are a lot higher. It gets crazy busy for the warm half of the year, but it also means that I get to spend almost all of my hours outside, and you really can't find better food anywhere, which is a very high priority for us. So ready or not, here we go into another farm season! It's always an adventure, and I'm definitely looking forward to finding out what this year will send us, and I'm so glad to have you all along for the journey! Thanks so much, and we'll see you in June!

Recipes

It's finally spinach season! When we first start harvesting the first spinach of the year, it's like the clouds open up and the sun shines upon our dinner table. (That feeling may have to do with the fact that we actually are getting more sunlight around the time we start harvesting spinach, but nonetheless, spinach season feels like a sign that winter is over.) So needless to say, we've been eating a lot of spinach in our house lately! I like to just put some in a tortilla with some salad dressing and just make a quick salad wrap as a snack, or incorporate it into the stir fries that are a staple around our house, and use it in delicious pasta dishes, like this Creamy Lemon Orzo from Rachel Cooks. Rachel was a friend of mine in college, and now she has a really great food blog with accessible, healthy, and totally yummy recipes, and every week when I get her emails, I get a little bit geeked out about them. So enjoy the recipe, and definitely check out some of her other recipes, because I guarantee you'll find a bunch you'll want to try!

Monroe Family Organics CSA Newsletter for February 2023

 

Farm Update

Although the ground is covered with snow, we have some 
beautiful spinach overwintering in our coldframes, just waiting
for more sunlight before it really starts growing again!

Hi everyone!  We hope you're all having a cozy winter!  For us, this time of year is our time to rest and recharge in preparation for another busy farm season.  We usually spend January and February organizing our seed orders, repairing equipment and structures around the farm, and doing our end-of-year business compliance and tax stuff.  Lately, Fred has been taking advantage of the warmer temperatures and sunnier days to make some much-needed repairs to our greenhouses.  He completely redid the electrical and ventilation systems of our old heated greenhouse, so everything will be in good shape when we start heating the greenhouse to start our seeds in a few weeks.  He also replaced the wood framing at the base of some of our older hoophouses (unheated greenhouses).  We now have seven hoophouses, but they have all been acquired at different times and in different condition, and a few of them were definitely in need of a little reinforcement so they can withstand strong winds.  We want to start this season with all of our greenhouses in tip-top condition, so we're giving them all some extra attention before the weather gets nice and our schedule gets crazy.

Speaking of greenhouses, if you've been reading our newsletter for a while, you'll recall that we bought a new (old) greenhouse at an auction back in November.  Fred and our farmhands Callie and Taran spent about a week in December deconstructing it and bringing the pieces back to the farm, and in the next few weeks, they'll take on the monumental task of reconstructing it.  It's by far the largest greenhouse we have, so we expect a construction project of several weeks to get it put up.  My guess is that the process will be cold and exhausting, but once we get the greenhouse up, it will allow us to bring you more and better tomatoes this year!  Our field tomatoes haven't done as well as we had hoped for the last few years, but the hoophouse tomatoes have been consistently excellent, so the inevitable conclusion was that we needed more hoophouse space so we could ensure a better supply of delicious tomatoes for future seasons.

Right now the ground is still frozen and the fields are still empty, but we do have a few crops overwintering under layers of insulating greenhouse plastic in the coldframes!  If you were to walk into one of the hoophouses and pull back the additional layer of greenhouse plastic that acts like a blanket for our little plants, you'd find spinach, spring mix, green onions, cilantro, and green garlic biding their time until there is enough sunlight for them to start growing again.  Getting these coldhardy plants started in the fall gives them a jump start on growing in the spring, which means we can start harvesting them months earlier than we otherwise would.  In about a month, you'll start seeing them pop up at GreenTree Cooperative Grocery in Mt. Pleasant and Argus Farm Stop in Ann Arbor, and I'll definitely let you know when that happens so you can go there and get your hands on the first long-awaited veggies of the season!

We are so glad to have Taran and Callie working with us at the farm again this year!  Since we are a seasonal business and can't offer full-time employment through the winter, we usually start each season with new folks who don't have experience with this type of work.  We are so excited to be able to hit the ground running this spring with two people who already know what they're doing!  We're also looking to hire a third full-time employee for the 2023 season, so if you know anyone who would be interested in a summer job that keeps them outside in the sun and fresh air, send them our way!  This would be ideal for students who are home for the summer, or just anyone who wants a job that keeps them busy, active, and outside for the warm months.  Anyone who is interested can email Fred at fredmonroe7@gmail.com, or call or text him at 517-449-9886.

These green onions overwintering in 
the hoophouses will be some of the first
veggies of the season.  When we start harvesting
green onions, it is one of the first hopeful
signs that spring is here!

If you're wanting to join the CSA for the 2023 season, we still have CSA shares available! Those of you who have been part of the CSA in previous years already know how delicious the veggies are, how high the quality is, and how long they last in your fridge because they've only been out of the field for a matter of hours when you get them. But I would be remiss if I didn't also make a plug for the sustainability of eating local and organic produce. Because I've been in the world of small organic farms so long, I forget that it doesn't actually go without saying. So here I am, remembering to say it! Eating local and organic is more environmentally friendly, both because your food isn't being shipped from thousands of miles away, and because as a small-scale organic farm, we're not using the same huge, gas-guzzling equipment that the large industrial farms are. Eating organic also helps preserve the environment from the synthetic chemicals that make their way into the soil and waterways around conventional farm operations. And eating local supports your local economy. Every food dollar you spend with a local food producer (whether that's us, a grower at the farmer's market, or your local food co-op) continues to circulate around the community, from the initial food producer to other small businesses, friends, and neighbors in the community. When you spend your food dollars at a large grocery chain, that money leaves the community and goes into the pockets of people far away. When you shop local, you are supporting your local economy while also locking in a weekly bounty of delicious, fresh, organic food at a much cheaper price than at the big chains.  You've probably also noticed lately at the grocery store that some food items are really hard to find due to supply chain issues, or that the prices have been fluctuating a lot because of national and  global supply and demand issues.  But with the CSA, there is no supply chain to get disrupted, and since you've already paid ahead of time, there are no price fluctuations.  The produce just gets harvested from our field, washed up in our barn, loaded onto our truck, and makes it into your hands the same day.  Easy-peasy.

So with that said, here's how you can sign up if you want! The cost for a full share for the season (which includes 14 veggie items per week) is $630, and a half share (which includes 7 items) is $340 at all of our regular drop-offs. The season will be 19 weeks long, and we'll start in mid-June and go until the end of October. If you're interested in what we're growing this year for the CSA, here's a list! We have all of the same drop-off locations as last year, including Alma, Mt. Pleasant, Midland, Lansing, St. Johns, and Okemos. If you're interested in having your share dropped off to your home or workplace and you live close to our regular route, just let me know your delivery address, and I'll see if you're within our delivery radius. If you are, the delivery fee for the whole season will be $95, and that's whether you have a full share or a half share. To sign up, just fill out this CSA sign-up form, and I'll get you on our membership list and email you an invoice. Then you can either follow the payment link in the invoice or send us a check in the mail. And if it works better for you, feel free to split up your payments in whatever way makes sense. The final payment will be due by July 1, but however you want to split it up in the meantime works just fine for us!

So here we go into the 2023 season! Before we know it, the snow will be gone, the sun will be out, and we'll have green growing things coming out of the soil again! Michigan winters are long and cold and cloudy, and I personally cannot wait to get back outside to the fields again and grow some food! We look forward to seeing you all again in June when the CSA starts, and in the meantime, we wish you all a happy and healthy spring!

Monroe Family Organics CSA Newsletter for November 2022: Late Fall at the Farm

Farm Update

Hi everyone!  The weather outside is frightful, and the holiday season is upon us!  It's just the type of weather that makes you want to start a nice fire in the fireplace and work indoors, which is exactly what I'm doing.  The farm is officially in the off-season, which has a much different rhythm than the main growing season.  My farm related work takes place mostly indoors these days, and can be compressed into a few hours a week.  It's mainly administrative work like doing payroll, invoicing our few remaining stores who are still getting deliveries, and keeping the books up to date.  Fred still spends a few hours at the farm each day, preparing orders, harvesting the remaining leafy greens we still have in the field (pictured at left), and doing general maintenance stuff, but it's a lot less intense than it was for so many months.  Once the snow starts flying, it's finally time to take a break.

Farm work looks a lot different late November and December than it does during the active farm months.  Fred has been checking the mailbox every day like a kid anticipating birthday cards, hoping that his favorite seed catalog will arrive soon.  Each year when the Johnny's catalog makes its appearance, you can find Fred sitting by the fire with a cup of coffee, poring over all of the new seed varieties, deciding what to try, and preparing our massive seed order that we usually put in in early December. We used to do that in January, but the last few years have taught us that we have to get our order in before anyone else is even thinking about seeds, or we run the risk of not being able to get the quantities or the particular varieties we need.  Choosing our seed varieties and ordering the right amount of everything to keep our 20 acres producing all of the veggies we love, in the right quantities, at the right times, is a big process.  It is a mental feat of strength that results, after a few days, in a massive spreadsheet that represents the growing plan for the following season, a large order of thousands of dollars worth of seeds, and then a few more smaller orders throughout the season.

And once the seeds are chosen and the order has been placed, we've got another big project on the docket for December!  We purchased a pretty large used greenhouse at an auction from a flower nursery in Muskegon that is going out of business.  Fortunately, it was very inexpensive, but the tricky part is that it requires deconstructing it at its current location, loading all the parts up, hauling them to Alma, and reconstructing everything at the farm.  Fred anticipates that it will take him, Callie, Taran, and whatever other friends are crazy enough to help, anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks to take it down, and probably a lot longer to put it back together after the new year.  Obviously, December in Michigan is not the time of year you want to be spending outside deconstructing a greenhouse all day, but it is the time of year we have available, so it kind of is what it is.  In the interest of not having to drive back and forth from Muskegon constantly for a week or more, Fred is considering renting an Airbnb near the deconstruction site for a few days where everyone involved can stay, and just working all-out for a few days to get it done.  We're not exactly sure yet what this project is going to look like, but I'll keep you all posted in the next newsletter and let you know how it went.  I guarantee there will be blood and sweat, but hopefully no tears. Or frostbite.

Once we get the greenhouse torn down, brought to the farm, and reconstructed, the plan is to have all of our tomato production in the greenhouse next year!  This year was a great year for cherry tomatoes, which were all in the hoophouses (unheated greenhouses), and a very underwhelming year for our slicing tomatoes, which were primarily outside in the field.  In order to have our slicing tomatoes earlier, have more of them, and have them all be the quality we expect in order to bring them to you, they really need to be in a hoophouse.  Hence, the new greenhouse, which is about twice as large as any of our current hoophouses.  We're not intending to use any supplemental heat this year, but the greenhouse does come with all the materials and equipment to set it up for heating if we want to in the future.  Because if there's anything we've learned about the farm over the last 12 seasons, it's that we have to be ready to pivot on very short notice!

But for right now, it's time to settle in and enjoy the indoor part of the year.  The busy part of the season, where I can count the number of waking hours spent indoors each week on one hand, will be back before we know it.  As I write this, I'm looking out my window at a harsh winter landscape, all stark white and naked branches.  But in my mind's eye, I can see those same bare trees in all their leafy glory, and our neighbor's horses grazing in the field across the road.  It will all return in its season, and with the summer will come next year's CSA!  If you haven't signed up for next year yet, here is the link to the 2023 Sign-up Form!  As a reminder, the prices will be going up next year (from $330 to $340 for a half share, and from $610 to $630 for a full share at the regular drop-offs).  But if you sign up and put down at least a partial payment before the new year, you'll get your 2023 share at the 2022 price!  And if you're interested in home delivery, just indicate that on the sign-up form, and I'll check your address to make sure it's within our delivery radius.  Just let me know if you have any questions about next year or anything else, and thank you so much for another great farm year!  See you in June! :-)

Recipes

Thanksgiving is coming up, and there is nothing that says "fall harvest abundance" like a table surrounded by loved ones and loaded down with turkey, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberries, and all the rest!  You probably already have your favorite recipes for all of these delicious foods that you or someone you love will be preparing later this week, but just in case you don't, here is what Fred and I will be bringing to family Thanksgiving at my parents' house on Thursday!  Feel free to steal our ideas, especially if you still have some of these long-lasting storage veggies from the CSA!

Spicy-Sweet Roasted Sweet Potatoes.  When I was a kid, I thought I didn't like sweet potatoes because the only time I had them was on Thanksgiving, and they were always mashed and covered with marshmallows.  So now, since we have a farm with a ton of sweet potatoes, I always sign up to bring them to Thanksgiving dinner.  These are savory with a little kick, and no marshmallows in sight!

Apple, Bacon, Kale, and Goat Cheese Salad.  This is the closest recipe I could find on the internet to the recipe Fred created a few years ago, and that we always bring to family Thanksgiving.  I probably won't be adding the pomegranate seeds (because I'm too impatient to get them all out of the pomegranate) or the pepitas (because we already ate all of the ones we had left over from our various pumpkin adventures), but other than that, this is extremely similar to the kale salad that will grace our Thanksgiving table.  The trick is to rub your hands with olive oil and massage the kale in your hands first, so it can break down the toughness and slight bitterness.  If you're not a fan of raw kale, this might be what you've been missing all along! Give it a try!

Monroe Family Organics Newsletter for Week 19

 Farm Update

Hi everyone!  Hope you're doing well!   This is it, the final week of the CSA!  Every year the CSA season is a journey with all sorts of twists and turns and things to work through, but we are about to pull the proverbial train into the station.  And I am so excited about the variety of produce in the shares this week!  We have a lot of the same things we've had for the last few weeks, but we also have fall spinach and leeks, just in time for the final drop-offs of the year!  We were really hoping that our fall planting of spinach would be ready in time, so I am thrilled to be able to bring you some this week!  Also new this week are our honeynut squashes, which were a little on the green side before, but they're ready to eat now.  We had the first one of the year for lunch yesterday, and it was so delicious and sweet!  If you are a squash fan, you are going to love these little honeynut squashes!  

After the upcoming week, the CSA will come to an end, but we'll still have some odds and ends coming out of the fields and hoophouses for a while.  If you are interested in continuing to get our produce after the CSA is over, there are a few stores that carry our veggies!  You can find them at Greentree Co-Op Market in Mt. Pleasant and the Argus Farm Stop stores in Ann Arbor until about Thanksgiving, and maybe even until mid-December, depending on what the weather does.

And if you're interested in joining the CSA again next year, here's the link to the sign-up form!  The cost for a half share at the regular drop-offs will be $330 until January 1st, when it will go up to $340.  And a full share will be $610 until the new year, and then it will go up to $630.  So if you sign up now and put down at least a partial payment before December 31, you'll lock in next year's share at this year's price.  And if you're interested in home or workplace delivery, just check that box on the sign-up form, and I'll make sure your address is within our delivery zone and email you a quote for the delivery fee.  Just let me know if you have any questions about any of that!

Thank you all for a great season!  It has been so fun to get to talk to you all at the drop-offs, hear what you are cooking with your veggies, and get to know everyone!  And while I haven't gotten to meet and chat with all of the Lansing-area CSA folks or people with home delivery each week, I have really enjoyed meeting those of you who I have gotten to see!  Thank you all for joining us for another crazy chapter in the adventure that is the farm, and we hope to see you again next year!  And in the meantime, I'll see you next week for the final 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 Brussels sprouts
• Potatoes, arugula, or a bag of onions
• Butternut squash
• Sweet potatoes, spinach, or leeks
• Cabbage, radishes, or kale
• Honeynut squash, other small squash, or microgreens
• Onion or kohlrabi

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
• Arugula
• Butternut squash
• Leeks
• Radish
• Honeynut squash
• Kohlrabi

Share B:

• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Butternut squash
• Spinach
• Cabbage
• Honeynut squash
• Onion

 

Share C:

• Brussels sprouts
• Potatoes
• Butternut squash
• Sweet potatoes
• Kale
• Delicata squash
• Onion

 

Recipes

One of the big surprises this year was how well the squash did!  We have had way more squash this year than pretty much any other year, and our butternuts were especially prolific.  We have butternut squash in the shares again this week, so I wanted to share with you all something I learned this year, and it has been a game changer for us!  Did you know that you can puree your butternut squash and use it as a substitution in any recipe that calls for pumpkin puree?  So if you have a recipe for pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pie, or pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, you can substitute pureed butternut squash!  And in my opinion, that is even easier than making pumpkin puree!  So here's a tutorial for how to do make your own butternut squash puree, and you can make all of your all-pumpkin-everything dreams come true, but with our prolific old friend, the butternut squash!