(CSA Newsletter: Week 16)
Meet this week’s vegetables:
This week is an important one for our CSA. After 15 weeks of meeting inside, we’ve moved outside for the next 20 weeks, thus marking the beginning of the (more or less) warm sunny season. We’ve already been feeling the benefits of the gorgeous May sunshine here at the farm: crops are growing quickly, and we’re busy planting. (Last week’s plantings: potatoes, leeks, melons, cucumbers, celery root, and parsnips. This week’s plantings: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, winter squash, summer squash, corn, beans, and more!)
But, this is also an important week because we’re welcoming 39 new members to the CSA! Our number of participating households now exceeds 126! We are very excited about this new, larger CSA size.
For those of you who are new, this first week will give you a good taste of what the CSA is all about: fresh, abundant vegetables; friendly community interactions at the pick-up; and a newsletter filled with farm news, recipes, serving suggestions, and other interesting tidbits.
But, one week is still just one week, representing a moment in time out of an entire season. Right now we are in the season of late spring, which is typically (and surprisingly to many) one of the “leanest” times for the farm. Each week, we provide the minimum promised $20 worth of vegetables, but what that looks like will vary dramatically over the next 30 weeks. Early in the warm season, the share usually consists of many more high value greens, often resulting in slightly fewer overall items even though you are getting your monetary value. As we walk through the year, more green vegetables and fruits will arrive, the number of items will increase (topping out usually around nine or ten items), and the abundance of the season will become evident.
Check out the rest of the newsletter for more tips, news and information. Please let us know if you have any questions at any point — the CSA pick-up is a great opportunity for us to chat briefly about recipes, serving suggestions, likes and dislikes, etc. We look forward to getting to know our new members and are happy to be continuing the season with our old members!
Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
More important pick-up details: **PLEASE READ**
First of all, a big huge thank you to the First Baptist Church for letting us share their parking lot for the third summer in a row! We appreciate the shady, safe, convenient outdoor location for our warm season pick-ups.
Secondly, I wanted to ask for your help in keeping the pick-up safe, friendly, and manageable. Because many children and adults are present in the parking lot during pick-up, please drive slowly and carefully as you come and go.
Also, there’s no need for everyone to show up exactly at 3:30 or soon thereafter to pick up your veggies. We portion out the vegetables intentionally throughout the pick-up period to insure that folks arriving at 6:20 take home the same share contents as those who arrive at opening. Generally speaking, fewer people arrive during the last hour (5:30 – 6:30), so if you have some flexibility in your schedule that might be a saner, quieter time for you to come by.
We’ve worked hard to fine tune our pick-up system over the years and hope that this summer continues to be smooth running, easy, and efficient even with our increased share numbers. However, if you run into any snags in the routine, please communicate with us so that we can make any necessary adjustments or changes. Thank you!
Veggie storage tips
Keeping your veggies fresh is crucial to enjoying their full nutritional & taste potential. Since we harvest all of our CSA vegetables less than 36 hours before pick-up, they should keep longer than their grocery equivalent—if stored properly immediately.
We recommend storing all green vegetables (leafy greens, lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, peas and beans) in the fridge, stored loosely (not packed tight) in a sealed plastic bag. Fresh root crops—such as radishes, beets and turnips—also keep best in a sealed bag in the fridge.
Colored fruits—such as summer squash, tomatoes, & eggplant—prefer a cool room temperature, out of direct sunlight. Dry storage veggies—winter squash, potatoes, dry onions—also like a dry, cool place with good air circulation, such as an open paper bag or box in a cool pantry.
If you ever have any questions about veggie storage or problems keeping your produce looking good, please check in with us at CSA pick-up and we can brainstorm solutions.
