(CSA Newsletter: Main Season Week 18)
Meet this week’s vegetables:
Happy fall! If you didn’t notice the autumnal equinox on your calendar, you’ve probably at least noticed the seasonal shift in weather recently.
We welcomed the official turning of the season by beginning our ‘fall cleaning.’ We started in our house last weekend, beginning the longer task of cleaning every nook and cranny of our living space to prepare for spending more time inside this winter. Today (Monday), we branched out to the ‘farm’ spaces and prepared our downstairs work area to hold the storage onions and winter squash.
In keeping with the recent trend of reflecting on 2008 and preparing for next year (CSA surveys, our reflection on 2009, fall cleaning), we decided to begin providing official information about next year’s CSA season. Although we still have many weeks of delicious vegetables to harvest this year, 2009 is sneaking up on us!
We wanted you to have this information sooner than later so that you have plenty of time to ask us questions and then make a decision about whether to participate in 2009. We hope you will all join us again for our fourth delicious growing season as a CSA!
2009 details: much the same + simplicity
As with this year and last, we’re planning to keep the basic CSA program the same and simply continue improving upon what we’re doing here at the farm and increasing the overall quality of produce delivered to you each week.
However, we do have a few big changes planned for 2009. The first, and most significant for our farm, is that we will be focusing exclusively on the CSA aspect of our farm and will no longer be a vendor at the McMinnville Farmers Market (see last week’s newsletter for more details on this decision).
Even though we will no longer be directly affected by the farmers’ market season, we will keep the current season divisions (aligned to market’s opening and closing dates) in order to provide some seasonal structure within the long 45-week CSA season. We will continue to begin the year meeting inside at the YCAP food bank warehouse, then move outside to the First Baptist Church parking lot for the warm summer months, and close the year inside again at the food bank during the dark fall season. (Pick-up will continue to be on Tuesdays, 3:30 – 6:30.)
Although we will seasonally move our CSA pick-up location, we are no longer dividing the longer year into separate purchasable seasons. The vast majority of CSA members participated in all three seasons in 2008, and the ‘options’ ended up adding unnecessary complexity, paperwork, and confusion to an otherwise simple system.
As we’ve grown the farm each year, our vision for the CSA has evolved and clarified. We picture the CSA as providing your main vegetables almost year-round every year that you choose to participate. Your supply of vegetables will simply begin on February 3 and end December 15 (with one week off on February 23 so that we can attend a farming retreat). We appreciate the continuity and security a single 45 week long season will offer both to you eaters and to us farmers.
(However, if this simplification of season options presents a problem for your household, please contact us and we will work out a solution. Please do not let it keep you from participating in the CSA.)
Other than that, we hope that 2009 echoes and builds upon this year’s successes, including a balanced, diverse selection of seasonal vegetables; lively newsletters; and fun on-farm events.
A tour of 2009
Some of you participated in our first-ever winter season this year, but the experience of eating locally in February will be new to many of you in 2009. As a reminder to the returning members and inspiration to the new, here is a quick tour of the 45-week CSA season. (This tour represents an estimated projection based on prior years harvests, but every year presents its own vagaries, challenges, and joys.)
After a brief break from mid-December through January, the CSA will begin again Tuesday, February 3. We will begin the year picking up inside, at the YCAP food bank warehouse. The early shares will include veggies pulled from storage (onions, shallots, garlic, winter squash, pumpkins) and the hardiest vegetables harvested fresh from the fields. We will balance our winter diet with cooking greens (cabbage, kale, collard greens, mustards), winter salad greens (tatsoi, radicchio, arugula), root crops (potatoes, beets, turnips, carrots, rutabaga, parsnips, celery root), and other delicious cold weather vegetables (leeks, Brussels sprouts). We plan and plant carefully to ensure an abundance during February and March, but these still represent some of the ‘riskiest’ CSA months due to unpredictable winter weather.
As the weather warms in early spring, we will see more greens added to the shares. Many of these greens may be new to you, including the sweet flower shoots and buds that our cole crops produce. We will also enjoy a diverse assortment of Asian greens for cooking and fresh eating, the chard will grow beautiful new leaves, and our over-wintering cauliflower will begin to head in April. We will begin harvesting from our newly planted perennial field, providing for the first time: rhubarb, asparagus, and artichokes.
As we approach the end of May, spring planted crops will become ready for harvest. The earliest will be fresh, mild radishes and more tender salad greens: arugula, lettuce, and spinach. We will delight in fresh greens for several weeks. By then, we will be approaching the end of our stored onions and garlic and will begin feasting on shallots, spring sweet onions, and green garlic. We will also move the CSA pick-up outside to the First Baptist Church parking lot, beginning on May 28, to celebrate the return of dry, sunny weather.
June will bring more spring-planted crops, including tender white turnips, Asian greens (bok choy, tatsoi), arugula, spinach, kohlrabi, broccoli, kale, mustard greens, chard, and cauliflower. As warm weather arrives in earnest, we’ll enjoy an abundance of sugar snap peas, which will last many weeks until it’s time for the shelling peas and fava beans. The spring carrots and beets will be ready by late June, followed closely by the first real ‘summer’ vegetables: basil, summer squash, zucchini and cucumbers.
We will continue to enjoy these and other standard summer favorites (broccoli, lettuce, cabbage, carrots, beets, chard, onions, fennel bulb) as we wait for the arrival of green beans, melons, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. Shelling beans and edamame will replace green beans towards the end of summer, and we will feast on summer vegetables for many weeks until cool weather begins to return …
At which point in time, we will begin eating distinctly fall foods: sweet potatoes, garlic, broccoli, and cauliflower. The pick-up will go back inside to the YCAP food bank warehouse, starting on October 13. We will warm our bellies through mid-December with a diverse selection of cold season crops: kale, beets, carrots, celery root, parsnips, onions, winter squash, pumpkins, cabbage, and potatoes.
Between the many types and varieties of vegetables we’ll be growing in 2009, you’ll see and eat more differing shapes, sizes, colors, textures, and flavors of vegetables than are available in any grocery store. Yes, 2009 should be another delicious year.
Commit now; pay later
Hungry yet? Click here for a copy of the official 2009 commitment form. Please fill out all the requested information and mail or hand-deliver to us by November 1, 2008. (If you do not plan to participate again, let us know — we have a waiting list of folks who we will invite to join if there’s room.)
The price for the full 2009 season will be $900 ($20/week for 45 weeks). Does this represent a price increase? Not really: in 2008, we offered a price break for signing up for all three seasons at once. Since we no longer offer anything other than the one full season we’ve simply let the price accurately reflect the value of the share. The slight increase in funds we receive will help us pay the increase in fuel costs, etc. in 2009. We will continue to fill each week’s share with $20 – 24 worth of high quality vegetables — providing you with the best value in town!
So that we can keep our finances and income records as simple as possible, please send no money with your commitment form at this time. We will be sending you an invoice, along with more details and payment reminder, at the New Year — at that time, we will ask for a first payment, which will be due by January 20. On your form, you will be able to choose between three payment options: to pay in a single installment ($900), quarterly (four payments of $225), or monthly (12 payments of $75).
(Just so there’s no confusion, at this time, we are only taking commitment forms from current CSA members. Once we’ve compiled the final numbers, we’ll begin contacting people on the waiting list. If you have friends who are interested in joining, have them email us to be added to the list: farm(at)oakhillorganics.org.)
If you have any feedback for next year that you didn’t share on your evaluation, please get in touch with us: 503-474-7661 or farm(at)oakhillorganics.org. Also, call or talk to us if you have any questions about 2009 details.
We hope that 2008 has been a wonderful CSA year for you so far and that you will gladly commit to joining us again for 2009’s eating adventures! In the meantime, enjoy this week’s delicious lingering summer vegetables.
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
P.S. We have two remaining weeks of the 2008 ‘Main Season,’ after which we will move back inside to the YCAP food bank warehouse, beginning on October 14! Mark the move on your calendar!
