Meet this week’s Mac veggies:
(Photo coming soon!)
- Strawberries — Ta da! We’ve been talking about growing berries literally for years now, and our long-time CSA members have patiently waited for this day to arrive. We have strawberries. And, they are ORGANIC! (No synthetic fertilizers or pesticide sprays at all!) Oh, and, they taste awesome too! Hopefully, this is just the beginning. We have plans to plant more as the years go on, with the hope that strawberries will become a regular and reliable (and abundant) component of our late spring / early summer CSA shares.
- Head lettuce — These heads of lettuce (red leaf and green butter) were picked from this year’s main field — we are finally harvesting outdoor spring planted crops (rather than just from our hoop house and the over-wintered crops)! They’re beautiful too.
- Salad mix — Late spring is salad season, no doubt about it!
- Bok choy — To make your bok choy “go farther” in a meal, try cooking it with your chard. Or, quickly stir-fry chopped bok choy on its own. Not surprisingly, bok choy goes well with Asian flavors and ingredients: garlic, ginger, sesame, soy, rice.
- Chard
- Carrots — We received rave reviews of the first carrots of the season (including requests for MORE MORE MORE!). Here are more, with the hope that the next planting hurries up!
- Garlic ‘scapes’ — These beautiful green shoots pop out of the top of hard-neck garlic plants in early summer. If we left them in place, they would eventually flower and produce garlic ‘seeds’ (which would produce a new garlic bulb in two more seasons). Instead, we pick them to eat. Think of them as garlic ‘rapini’ in a way — a tender green shoot that has all the savory goodness of garlic but with a smooth, tender green vegetable flavor as well. Chop the entire shoot up to the bud and cook and add to dishes as you would garlic or onions. Or, brush with oil and roast or grill whole!
- Green garlic
- Onion tops
Casey and my life has changed dramatically in the last two years — we had a baby, remodeled our house, were joined on the farm by my parents, and bought more land. (And, of course, it changed dramatically in the years before that as well, as we moved to Oregon, started farming, bought land, built a house …)
Given the changes involved in farming the new land, I don’t anticipate that the pace of change will slow down much. Every now and then I pause and try to catch up mentally and emotionally with where we are today in our life, and it’s mind boggling to me how quickly each new thing in our life actually feels normal. We have this amazing eighteen month-old child, whom we didn’t know two years ago and yet now we can’t imagine our life without him! It’s simultaneously so mundane and yet so mind blowing.
And, other times, I also pause to think about the larger changes around us. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but the last few years have led to a fairly significant change in how many of us socialize. Yes, I mean the internet and social networking: Facebook, blogs, and the rest.
I’m not the most connected person around. I feel almost caveman-like in my slow texting as I punch out each letter on my non-smart phone. But as a rural dweller, farmer, and now a mama, I have found myself lured into the internet social world for new knowledge, entertainment, and connection.
Of course, we started the farm connected — before we had physically planted a seed, we had our blog up and running. But at the time, I still thought of our blog as one-way communication, like a printed newsletter, just accessible for more places. I also didn’t realize how many people would end up reading the blog outside of our immediate circle of friends, family and CSA members.
But then I started hearing from people. Comments on the blog. Emails from starting farmers in other states who had questions. I’d meet young people at conferences who would reveal in initial conversations that they knew a lot more about Casey and me than I would guess because (they would sometimes sheepishly admit) they read the blog.
I’ve even had reporters find the blog and then call and email me to ask — What are my thoughts on certification? What are my thoughts on Joel Salatin? How do we prepare and eat our chicories?
Then, I started seeing content from our blog used without our permission on other sites — most often photos of Casey and me. So weird! A friend recently alerted me to another one on a beauty blog about how to eat well on a budget. It was a nice blog post actually, so I didn’t really mind them using our photo (especially not since the caption called Casey and me “a beautiful couple” — ha!)
As someone who has a Master’s degree in writing, I have to admit that I’ve enjoyed knowing that people actually read what I write (including of course all of you actual CSA members, my intended audience). But there are also surreal whiplash-like moments, when I stop to think about how connected we all are and how many people know somewhat intimate details of our business and family life — and then I just don’t know how I feel. I suppose it’s just another one of this paradigm-shifts that happened quickly but without much fanfare (well, I suppose two movies about Facebook could be called fanfare).
There are moments when I love this change (especially those days when I’m stuck home with a sick toddler and Facebook becomes my only social outlet!), and then there are moments when it is all definitely overwhelming and distracting from “real” life at hand (dinner to be made, laundry to be folded, gardens to be weeded, books to be read).
But, for better and for worse, life has changed. There is now even Facebook-specific “etiquette” (things like don’t reveal a friend’s pregnancy on her wall unless she has announced it there first!).
Interestingly, this world allows things to exist and grow on the internet without me even watching. Namely, a couple years ago I made a Facebook “group” called Oakhill Organics CSA. A few folks joined at the time, and I was never sure what to do with it, so it languished. I just checked on it and found that many of you have since joined!
So, I propose that we embrace the positive elements of these changes in our social existence, and make this Facebook group something useful. If you are on Facebook you can join the group called “Oakhill Organics CSA” (or you can “like” our Oakhill Organics business page). Perhaps folks can exchange recipes, or find people to share pick-up duties with, or just connect with new friends? We’ll see!
I gotta say — it’s a wacky fast-changing world. Really. Casey and I are just young enough to have grown up with computers as part of our world, but just old enough to actually remember a time when the internet and cell phones didn’t keep us all constantly connected to each other. We didn’t have a cell phone until after graduating college, and then one year later I returned to teach English 101 as a graduate student and was astonished to learn that every single one of my freshman students carried a cell phone at all times. How quickly things change!
Someday we will bore our children with such anecdotes, but for now I focus on using these useful technologies in a beneficial way (without letting them suck all my time!). Perhaps the Facebook Oakhill Organics pages will be one of those ways!
But let’s not forget what it’s all about … Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
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CSA Open House coming up!
June 26, 3-5 pm ~ CSA open house at the farm! Farmer Casey will give guided tours of the farm just pass the hour (so starting at 3:10ish pm and 4:10ish pm), and we’ll have refreshments at the farmstead. We’ve been tidying up the farm, in preparation for your arrival, so we hope you will join us and come visit your food!
Directions to the farm: From McMinnville, take HWY-18 to Dayton. From Newberg, take 99W to HWY-18 to Dayton. Take the Dayton exit, and head SOUTH, straight through town on Wallace Rd/HWY-221. Drive for about seven miles, until you see blue signs for Heiser Pumpkin Patch and the road sign for Grand Island Rd. Turn LEFT onto Grand Island Rd. Stay on this road as it goes over a bridge and drops down onto the island. At the first 4-way intersection, turn RIGHT onto SE Upper Island Rd. Our driveway is almost immediately on your LEFT. (Look for a big white farmhouse and a red pole barn at the road.) You can park anywhere safe along the driveway or in front of the long white pole barn in the back. Our farm is to the RIGHT side of the driveway and we will be gathering on our yard by our two-story cedar house (toward the end of the driveway). See you here! (I will share these directions again in next week’s newsletter.)
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CSA payment due soon!
A reminder for those of you on the CSA payment plan. The next payment is due by July 1. Mac folks, you can bring a check to pick-up or mail it. Newberg folks, please mail your payment to us. Mail checks made out to “Oakhill Organics” to P.O. Box 1698, McMinnville, OR 97128. Here are reminders of the amounts:
- Mac Medium share payment ~ $157
- Mac Large share payment ~ $243
- Mac Double Medium share payment ~ $304
- Newberg share payment ~ $180
Also, some of you have differently prorated share prices, so your payments might be different — check your invoice or email if you have any questions about what you owe!
