Theholiday weekend was a work weekend for us here on the farm as usual. The difference from past years was that instead of planting, we were weeding and harvesting, and getting irrigation going because most of our transplants are in the ground already. Not bad for a 4 person crew! And of course, we all celebrated our youngest daughter, Freyja's birthday in the midst of the rush and heat wave.

 If you are a member and missed the email last week, please be advised that all our Southern route drop sites will be delivered Tuesdays this year instead of Thursdays.  Oswego and On farm will remain Thursdays, and Watertown deliveries on Wednesday. Syracuse Regional Market; Saturdays,  All other drop sites will now be Tuesdays. 

If you've never been part of a CSA before, welcome to the start of seasonal eating this summer. If you're a returning member, welcome back. 

As stated in our member agreement we will strive to get newsletters out at the start of each week to let folks know what they'll be getting in shares and recipe links. Please bear in mind that while we try our best to get these out to you in a timely matter, sometimes share contents will differ, and there may come a week here or there that we simply don't get to writing it. Again, we are a 4 person crew here at the farm, with Travis and I doing the bulk of the work and all of the customer service, planning, deliveries etc. So  if we miss a week, or don't get them out until after shares have been delivered, please bear with us.  As some of you may know, our farm is 3 years young, and has grown a little every year. We love what we do, and we love sharing the bounty with our customers.  There will be new foods to try, and tried and true staples.

 As an organic farm, we are committed to not only growing healthy food for our family and yours but also to growing healthy soils, and offering refuge for beneficial insects. In not spraying pesticides you may find some crops to have bug holes here and there. They are perfectly ok to eat (otherwise we wouldn't be sending them to you). We do find however, the more we build the the soil, and practice good crop rotations and companion planting the less pest damage and losses we see. And this is a process that takes time and stewardship. 

Some of our members last year may recall that we were in a constant battle with the deer and the woodchucks. It was maddening to have two 300 ft beds of kale and not be able to provide for our CSA. This season we have moved most of our production to our property, and have thankfully seen no sign of animal pests (just flea beetles so far) We have however have been having some interesting weather so far this season. Some of our first field plantings were covered to keep the bugs and frosts off and are finally catching up to where they should have been two weeks ago. Add very little precipitation and high temps the last week and we're off to a challenging start. But drip lines have been ran and new plantings are taking turns getting drinks. 

Please take a moment  to read some details pertaining to pickup and of your CSA share. If you are a market pick up person I will explain the system to you when I see you this week. 

Shares will be in grey totes with your name on a label. It is very important that members pay attention to this and only grab shares from their totes. We offer several share options, and some folks will have double boxes due to vacation holds, and add-ons as we have items available for special order from our online store. If everyone is cognizant of this it will help things run smoothly for everyone and ensure that you all get the correct items you paid for.
Please bring a reusable shopping bag(s), or basket to bring your produce home in. We ask that you leave your totes stacked nestled together to be picked up the following week.
Please remove all produce from your box. If it's something you don't like or want, someone else is likely to. We strive to reduce food waste, and when folks leave food in their share box it goes to waste and is inconsiderate of our drop site hosts, as it usually goes unnoticed until it starts to smell or leaks. We also do not enjoy cleaning totes out of produce that has been left to sit all week. Also it is food you paid for! 
Here are some useful links for recipes, nutritional information, and storage tips, that we hope can be helpful to you this season. We also find that storing the leafy greens in a plastic bag in the crisper greatly holds their shelf life in the refrigerator, and also that a salad spinner is a useful kitchen tool to have on hand. You might also want to be prepared to preserve; pickle, freeze or can some of the season's veggies for a taste of summer in the cold CNY winters. We also have information on some of the crops we grow on our website. It's an ongoing project, so you won't find all our crops, but enough to get you started.
You will find our weekly CSA newsletter  throughout the CSA season in the farm news section of our website. We will also be emailing the link to members, and posting on facebook. The newsletter will keep you informed on the happenings around the farm, events, u-picks, share contents, recipes, any important changes to drop site info, etc; and offerings of extra add ons and bulk items. 
You can log in to your account   at any time to switch a drop site, schedule a vacation, order from our online store, to view your account information, or make a payment through paypal.
Please keep in mind that the CSA is seasonal produce from our farm. We do not buy in out of season crops, and most CNY farms don't really start harvesting in earnest until July. A few of our earliest field plantings were set back with the last cold weather in April and had to be replanted. So some of the crops we'd hoped to have the first couple of weeks will be a bit later than anticipated. So if shares seem on the small side in the beginning rest assured that they will bulk up as the season progresses. We have a lot of great food planned for the season and are looking forward to sharing the bounty with you.  
Also, a reminder that egg shares will be coming through our friends at Grindstone Farm's egg suppliers.  After intense cost analysis we realized we were loosing money on producing the eggs and decided to focus all our efforts on the produce production. All eggs are from free range operations supplemented with non GMO feed from our neighboring farms in the Pulaski area.

And now to the good part.

This weeks shares are as follows:

Small Shares: Asparagus, lettuce, shallot greens(scallions) cherry belle radishes(loose) and garlic greens

Regular Shares: all the contents of the small shares plus: swiss chard, red russian kale, red pac choi and  mixed herb bunches. 

I know we shared this recipe for spring shares, but it's one of our family's favorites, so I will share it again for new members. Grilled asparagus is an easy way to enjoy your fresh asparagus without having to heat up your kitchen turning the oven on. I also find that a toaster oven works just fine to prepare roasted asparagus. Our asparagus planting can only be harvested for a few weeks as a new planting. Most of the asparagus you'll find in your shares will be coming from Grindstone Farm.

Another simple recipe which works for any of our greens with so many variations is sauteed greens. Kale, Swiss chard, spinach pac choi.... any cooking green become savory when prepared this simple way. 
In a cast iron skillet, heat up 2 tsp butter, olive oil, bacon grease, our your fat of choice. Add a handful of chopped garlic greens (or scapes or cloves as they come in) and a handful of scallions (or onions)  Saute stirring often to avoid burning at low heat. When the garlic and onion are just a bit golden and tender, add your washed chopped green of choice and cover. Turn once or twice and remove from heat when greens are just wilted. We like to serve this over pasta with some good pasture raised sausage. You can also add a cup of vegetable or chicken broth and cook that down for a bit more flavor. You can also add hot peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms....I like my greens sprinkled with Ume plum vinegar and Parmesan cheese. There are so many variations on this recipe idea that you can eat your greens all summer and not get bored in the kitchen or the dinner table. 

We thank you for joining us for our third season growing. Now to put some aloe on the sunburn, tuck in the kids, and hit the hay so we can be bright eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow to kick off the start of another CSA season providing healthy fresh organic produce to our CNY community.

      Our experimental strawberries in the greenhouse can be called a success. We started picking the first berries this week and will be rotating them through regular shares by drop sites, and then small shares. While it is a small planting, and we aren't sure if we'll be able to get them to everyone at once, we will send pints to our CSA members as they become available. This week there will only be a few pints, but there are more ripening and many more to come from the field in June. 


      Travis has been busy prepping beds in the field for all our plantings,  and winter squash transplants were seeded this week. We'll be harvesting lettuce to make room for tomatoes in the high tunnel the next two weeks. 

     Both the Oswego and Watertown Farmer's Markets start next week, so CSA members in both places please keep in mind your drop site will switch. Watertown members will be picking up Wednesdays either at Sherman Street or the market (depending on your drop site choice) and Owego members will be picking up from our booth at the market across from Pathfinder Bank. 


     This week's shares are as follows:

Small Shares: Aparagus, lettuce, garlic greens, cherry bell red radishes, green swiss chard.

Regular Shares: All the contents of the small shares plus: Arugula, broccoli raab, watercress, and strawberries for select drop sites (we won't know until we pick them again in the morning how many we'll have) 

    Asparagus is the veggie of the season. One of the first of the spring crops, and a perennial plant that's nutrient dense. High in vitamin k, folate and b vitamins, as well as others,  it makes a great spring treat (as it's only harvested generally May through July in this region)      

   One of our family's favorite ways of enjoying fresh asparagus is to roast it in the oven, or on the grill wrapped in aluminum foil with a splash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.       

     Its been a busy week with many more to come. But for now that's the news from the farm. We'll keep it short so we can go close up the greenhouses and turn in for the night.
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There's been a lot of work getting done around here this week, as is that time of year. All of our onions have been planted, so that's one less crop to water in the greenhouse. When it starts getting hotter, watering all the seedlings can take up to an hour to water in really good. We also transplanted the first broccoli planting and another run of kale (red russian and green curly) parsley, and lettuce. The high tunnel crops are looking beautiful and some will be going into this week's shares. We will be harvesting to make room for some of our tomatoes in the high tunnel. The first seedings of carrots are in the ground as well as field seedings of arugula, mizuna, snow and snap peas, mustard greens, three varieties of radishes, and beets. We will be planting our potatoes in the next week or so as well. 

This is one our busiest times of the year, getting everything seeded and in the ground as well as havest and two more markets starting at the end of the month. It is also one of the most money guzzling times of year when we're putting money into production before we have much rolling from harvest. It is also the last few weeks before our Summer season CSA starts and folks can still sign up. 

This week's shares include some fun crops new to us, as we've never grown them before. One is watercress. Watercress gives kale a run for it's money as a super food. One of the first  crops cultivated by humans and one of the most nutrient dense foods you'll find. They grow wild locally (we find the cultivated varieties are milder in flavor) and love wet areas, so spring is the perfect time to grow them. Another is broccoli raab; while it heads like tiny broccolis, it is more closely related to turnips, and has a slight bitterness to them. They are generally prepared like other cruciferous greens.

We hope you enjoy these new greens we're trying this spring, along with the old tried and true spring crops. Our greenhouse strawberries are starting to get color, so it looks like within the next week or two we'll be able to offer them in spring shares. Our asparagus is starting to pop up as well, however the last two cold nights brought a mild frost which set them back some. We'll be up there looking for more to be poking out of the ground in the coming days with the heat awakening them them to growth. 

The garlic green bed has almost been wiped out, enabling us to work up those beds for cucumbers.  Garlic greens look like scallions and can be used in place of garlic in any recipe. 

This week's shares are as follows:

Small Shares: lettuce, red russian kale, garlic greens, broccoli raab, french breakfast radishes, and watercress.

​Regular shares: All the contents of the small shares plus one head of lettuce, braising mix (a mix of brassicas for salads and braising) green swiss chard and scallions.

I would give a recipe, but this week's shares lends to gently sauteed greens or salads, so enjoy and get creative!
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      It seems the old adage  or "April showers" has changed over the past few years. We had May flowers in March, winter snow in April and our showers in May. But showers are what we needed for our spring field plantings.
    
​     Travis has been working on working up more field space on our property, while I've been diligently planting and transplanting seedlings to fill that new space. We are just about doubling our growing space using land that we've kept cover cropped, mowed and pastured for the past two seasons awaiting organic certification this spring. 

    We have ordered sweet potato slips to grow out this year. They are a crop we've never grown before, but are excited to try. Asparagus is starting to pop up, so with the rain and increased temps, we hope to be harvesting within the next couple weeks. Tenacious rhubarb plants are coming back to life after their winter's rest. Our greenhouse strawberries are getting bigger, and setting more fruit, while the field berries are just starting to come back to life. 

   We will be back in our summer spot outside Shed E starting this week at the Regional Market and are looking for ward to the start of the Oswego and Watertown markets at the end of the month. 

    Spring shares start this week, so on top of all the spring plantings and field prep will be spring harvests and deliveries. Spring CSA members should check their emails this evening with pickup site and time details.

    This week's harvest will include the following, of which some or all will be in this week's shares:
Red russian kale, baby lettuces, watercress, garlic greens, french breakfast radishes, swiss chard, broccoli raab, spinach,  herbs (chives, sage, thyme, or rosemary) and jerusalem artichokes from our friends at Grindstone Farm. Sorry we don not have a more precise list for members this week, but with the early greenhouse harvest we are still working out harvest numbers.

     A CSA member referred us  to this helpful article on utilizing your CSA produce, that we thought we'd pass on to you. If you click the links on the veggies above, it will redirect you to some recipe ideas for this week's harvest.

    We're headed out from the office to harvest for tomorrow's deliveries. Cheers!