2015 season details!

Phew! What a weekend! I spent a lot of time on the computer, organizing and working through details for our 2015 season. Casey and I spent many hours in [often interrupted] conversation last week hammering out how exactly we’re going to do things. Because, as I said last week, change is in the air.

After we figured it out, I took the time this weekend to write you all a letter explaining the changes and organizing it all into a sign-up form! I also began the process of updating the other information on our website to help folks learn more about all these other enterprises on our farm that will now be available to everyone (I have the animal information updated and will work on the crops information this week. I also wrote a new page sharing our story with folks who might not know all of it!) You can download our 2015 season letter and form in a Word document here (click link to download):

2015OakhillCSACommitment

Casey will also have printed versions of the letter and sign-up form for folks at pick-up. We are so excited to share all of our news with everyone and hope you will take time to read it. We welcome 2015 CSA Commitment Forms as soon as this week (if you’re ready, go for it!).

In the meantime, here is the same text from the letter for you to read through easily on our website now if you prefer (I think this counts as my newsletter for this week!):

Dear friends,

Prepare yourself: 2015 (our tenth season!) is going to be an awesome year for our farm. We are unveiling a new improved CSA program that will bring together all the best components of everything we’ve done so far! Much of this experience will be familiar to everyone, with a few tweaks that we believe will put smiles on everyone’s faces and put new delicious farm foods on many tables.

One awesome CSA program ~ Back to multiple share sizes & flexibility

First, of all, we will once again have one CSA program, with one pick-up per week. Everyone involved will have access to our full range of food products. Here’s how it will work:

The base of our program will be our successful and popular 45-week long vegetable CSA. In 2015, we’re going back to offering share sizes and flexibility. When you sign up, you choose your share size based on the number of “items” you want to select each week from our harvest offerings. An “item” would be a standard and useful unit for that veggie: for example, a plentiful bunch of kale, 1.5 lbs carrots, a cabbage, 1.5 lbs tomatoes, 2-3 apples, etc. When you come to pick-up each week, you will assemble your own share based on what we have available and the number of items you have purchased. We plan to bring enough variety each week that folks can find what they are looking for.

Improved pick-up location in downtown Mac!

Our pick-up will be at a new improved location — this is still in the works, but it is most likely going to be a storefront space in downtown McMinnville. We will provide exact details in your confirmation materials. This will be spot that we will be able to tailor for our use and make extra comfy and inviting for you, our members. Pick-up will be Thursday afternoons, from 2 – 7 pm (a longer window to accommodate more people coming through and folks with varying schedules).

Access to other farm products too! Eggs, grains, nuts & extra fruit!

In addition to finding your vegetables, each week at pick-up we will also have other foods available for purchase: eggs, oat and corn flours, walnuts, and extra fruit (for folks who like to buy this in bulk quantities). On your sign-up form, we’ve asked you to estimate your interest in these extra items so that we can plan how much to produce and bring each week.

Opportunity to order bulk veggies and fruit too (or do u-pick)!

You will also have the opportunity to order ahead of time larger quantities of vegetables for putting up or storage — we will include an availability list with our weekly newsletter email each week; place an order and we’ll bring it to pick-up! Or, if you prefer, during the summer we’ll offer some u-pick opportunities on the farm itself (at a reduced price per lb) — a unique opportunity to pick your canning foods in an organic environment.

Meat available for purchase in 2015

We will also have pork, lamb and beef available for you to purchase for your freezer. We will sell the pork and lamb in halves and whole portions, and the beef in quarters, halves, and wholes. We will also have batches of roasting chickens available throughout the season and turkeys for Thanksgiving. All of these animals will require advance notice with a deposit — priority for purchase will be given to CSA members. See the sign-up form for more details and our website for more information about our livestock operation and the meat.

Goat milk possibly too!

Finally, we are still working through the details on this one, but aim to have goat milk available for purchase at pick-up starting in late spring. More information will come as this enterprise develops.

A Full Diet experience for all!

So, in 2015, you will have the unique opportunity to buy the bulk of your food from one Yamhill County farm, selecting the items and quantities that work best for your household and its particular appetites and preferences!

More on-farm opportunities

But there are other fun things in the works for 2015: For the first time ever, we’re planning to organize several work parties here on the farm so that you can come out and more fully connect to the place that feeds you. We’ll follow each work party with a potluck, so we can enjoy each other’s company while savoring the delights of the season. We’ll also host our two annual CSA open houses, including another awesome outdoor concert at our pumpkin patch event in October.

Organic certification again in 2015

Also, 2015 is the year our farm is going to pick back up our organic certification. After taking three years off, we are excited to put our ducks in order and give our healthy growing methods the official “organic” label once again (since that is how he we have always farmed!). The crops will be certified in 2015, and we will consider the process of certifying our livestock in 2016.

And a new cookbook!

And, I’m still working on a farm cookbook to share with you in 2015 (I am still taking submissions, by the way!). This will be a gift to all 2015 members, available probably in the spring.

This food is amazing

Those are the basic details, but before signing off on all this 2015 info, I also wanted to say a word about all these other farm products (eggs, meat, grains, etc.) and where they come from. We grow all of them here on our farm on Grand Island. More details about each food item can be found on our website (I didn’t want to overwhelm this season summary), but suffice to say that every single item has been very carefully selected and grown for absolute peak health for everyone — health for the land, the plants, the animals, the human eaters. Additionally, they are all exceptionally tasty foods, the likes of which simply cannot be purchased elsewhere. The longer our own family consumes these farm fresh seasonal foods as the base of our diet, the more we love them and find them to be an integral part of our household’s daily joys. I cannot emphasize enough: these are fundamentally different foods. They are vibrant with health and flavor and consuming them will change your life. Really. We are excited to share them with our entire CSA community beginning in 2015.

Commit now; pay in 2015

Phew! That’s quite a lot of news regarding next season! Please see the sign-up form for more details re: pricing and season calendar, etc. Take some time to consider what you’d like to purchase in 2015 — some of the items are a commitment, and in other cases we are just asking for your best estimate.

To sign-up, please fill out the form and return it to us this year. You can bring it to pick-up or mail it to us: Oakhill Organics, P.O. Box 1698, McMinnville OR 97128.

No money is necessary now! We will contact you just after the New Year with an official invoice and more details regarding the season (including exact location for pick-up).

Please let us know if you have any questions! We are so excited about this upcoming season. We hope you are too!

That’s the news! Read it over. And, enjoy this week’s vegetables!

Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla

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End of season news! The final CSA pick-up of 2014 is next week (Nov 18 in Mac and Nov 19 in Newberg). The following week, we will offer our annual Thanksgiving “Holiday Harvest,” which is when we take orders for vegetables from you to help you fill your tables with good food for the holiday. Or, you can just use the opportunity to fill your pantry with good local foods! I will include the list of items and prices in next week’s newsletter so that you can place orders for pick-up on Wed, Nov 26 (in the afternoon). More details to come next week! (We will also have a Christmas “Holiday Harvest” in December — we will email you with details and a list as we get closer to that date!)

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Meet this week’s vegetables:

• Brussels sprouts — This will be the last of our “mixed” fall shares, featuring both the hardy and the tender crops of the season. Cold weather is coming. These beautiful Brussels sprouts will survive, but the peppers and summer squash won’t. Hopefully you enjoy savoring the last of these summer crops as you stay warm amidst the freezing rain and whatever else comes our way this week!
• Apples
  
• Peppers — Green and sweet
• Butternut winter squash — I’m sure that I think every kind of winter squash is my “favorite” — or, more accurately, I probably think whichever one I’m preparing and eating is my favorite, because they are all so good. But today, butternut is my favorite. When cooking butternut, I start by peeling. I use a paring knife to do this, since the skin is rather thick. I usually cut off the long part and use that for one meal and save the round part for another. Cutting them apart also gives me a nice flat surface for peeling the squash. I put the cut edge securely on my cutting board and use my knife to peel long strips down. Then I chop it, at which point it could be added to broth to make soup (so simple and satisfying — cook until soft and then puree!), but I almost always roast it. The key to crispy roasted butternut is even sized pieces, not too much fat on the pan (some, but not too much), high heat (425°), and not too many pieces on the pan. A seasoned pan helps too. I check them through cooking and sometimes shake the pan or stir them. These are like candy.
• Collards — Collards can be prepared in all the ways you would cook kale, but they generally require slightly longer cooking time and/or more liquid/fat.
• Parsley — This weekend Casey made a delicious parsley “pesto” that we ate with some delicious wild caught salmon a friend gave us. Casey pureed the pesto in our food processor (stems included! so sweet and tender!) and added salt, garlic, a bit of olive oil and vinegar, and tahini (which added a nice richness to the resulting sauce). You could tinker with this idea, using different ratios or slightly different ingredients (pine nuts, anyone?), but do try it! It’s such a wonderful way to eat loads of parsley (which, by the way, is an herb that winters well here in Oregon and just gets sweeter and sweeter!).
• Carrots
• Beets
  
• Summer squash & zucchini