Dear Country Valley Farm Community,
This is week #1 of the 2023 season! We are very excited to start the season off and share the bounty from the farm. The newsletter will be sent every Friday going forward.
My phone number is (831) 706-1237. You can call or text if it is the day of or day before delivery if you have anything urgent to communicate. I don’t usually check emails much over the weekend but I do have my phone on me if you need to touch base.
This week’s shares contain the following, some preparation inspiration is below:
- Green Garlic – 1 bunch from our farm
- Mullein – 1 bag from our farm
- Evercrisp Apples – 1 quart from Almar Orchards
- Pea Shoots – 1 pkg from Gardenworks
- Asparagus – 2 bunches from Cinzori Farm
- Sweet Petite Onions – 1 quart from Cinzori Farm
Medium shares contain the above listed items, and:
- Asparagus – 1 extra bunch
- Apples – 1extra quart
- Green Garlic – 1 extra bunch
A bit about the farms we partner with to make the CSA boxes:
We only source from certified organic farms that are other local small family farms in the community that we know well. We never include any produce that is not certified organic and we don’t source outside of the local area.
The reason we partner with other farms is to help ensure that each week’s CSA shares as diverse, bountiful, and reflect seasonal organic produce availability in this area. The farms we source from do not offer CSAs, so while they are helping us by providing fresh produce, we are helping them distribute their food to the community.
- Almar Orchards is a certified organic apple orchard in Flushing, MI. They are pioneers and leaders in the production of organic fruit in Michigan and grow legendary apples that are tasty and crunchy.
- Gardenworks is a certified organic sprout/microgreen grower in Ann Arbor, MI. They have been providing certified organic sprouts and microgreens to the community for decades and consistently offer healthy and fresh produce. We are proud to include their sprouts or microgreens most weeks that we don’t have many other greens or lettuces in the shares.
- Cinzori Farm is a certified organic mixed vegetable farm in Ceresco, MI. They have been certified organic since the 80s, they have a great variety of crops that they grow every year, and they are the best organic farmers we know overall. Don and Anthony have been mentors of mine for almost 25 years now.
Some preparation inspiration:
- Green garlic is an item with a very short season of availability. It tastes like garlic, with a mild and buttery flavor. You can eat it raw or cooked. It can be used anywhere you would use garlic, onions, green garlic, leeks etc. You literally can use it in almost any savory dish. We love it chopped and roasted with asparagus.
- Mullein is a culinary as well as medicinal herb. It is known to support the lungs when brewed into a tea – simply boil water, wash the mullein and place into a teapot or mug, pour boiling water over it, cover and let steep for 10 minutes or so, sweeten to taste if you like. It also has quite a delicious flavor when used in a soup or stew, very herbaceous and slightly lemony – just wash it, chop it, and add it toward the end of cooking your soup or stew.
- Evercrisp apples are great apples to eat this time of year. The flavor is known to actually improve with storage and has such a nice firm and crunchy texture that it is an ideal storage apple. Did you know that all apples in North America are harvested between late summer and into the fall? Then the apples are carefully kept in cold storage. About this time of year you will see many supermarkets offering apples from the southern hemisphere, as well as continuing to offer North American grown apples year round.
- Pea shoots are a mild and sweet microgreen. They can be used as a base for a salad, a salad topper, a sandwich toppers, can add freshness and contrast when served atop savory entrees etc. You can eat them a little at a time or eat the whole package as a healthy snack even.
- Asparagus is a great spring vegetable and Michigan is a perfect climate for it. These are hand-harvested and are usually spears/tips with very little to no woody bottoms. While we can get asparagus year-round at the supermarket, it is only available from Michigan for 4-8 weeks per year (every season may be different for it as it is sensitive to extreme cold or heat. Organic asparagus is grown without the use of herbicides and is quite a special item.
- Sweet Petite Onions are small yellow onions that can add texture and presentation to everyday dishes, they can also be cut up and used like larger onions. These onions are also from storage from last fall’s crop and should be kept in the refrigerator to slow sprouting.
What is going on at the Farm:
We have been getting some nice sunshine and warmer weather. We are still behind on rain, but we have irrigation in all beds. We have sandy loam soil so when it is dry we need to make sure to water and keep the soil and plants happy.
The greens and lettuce plants that were transplanted last month are starting to grow and are looking good for this time of year.
The herbs, greens, radishes, and carrots that we direct-seeded are moving slowly and some beds aren’t showing much emergence yet. This can happen with early seeded crops. We will keep an eye on them and will replant those beds soon if we don’t see the crop moving.
The garlic crop is looking amazing, very happy and strong. We are starting to see a fair amount of weeds in those beds. Even though these are well-established beds that are heavily mulched with woods chips last spring and then covered with hay last fall. We’ve found that most beds on our farm need to be weeded thoroughly 4 or 5 times per year. The focus we have put on use of mulch, hand cultivation and weed-pulling, succession planting and bed utilization, has helped continue to reduce the quantity of weeds we remove each time compared to when we first started farming this land.
The onions are doing well. We expect to have green onions from our farm starting in a few weeks or so. We also plan to have plenty of spring/knob onions and bulb onions for storage.
The potatoes have not emerged yet. We covered them a bit deeper this year than last year, because last year we learned that we should have covered them deeper initially. We expect to see potato plants thick in the beds soon enough now that the weather is warmer consistently.
We completed preparing the main field where the warm weather crops will be planted. We are also creating space in other areas of the farm where we see an opportunity to fit in more crops. For example, our asparagus beds (which are not producing much asparagus still) have too wide of walk ways between them – so we are going to add some rows in those spaces.
We will begin planting warm weather crops the week of May 22nd. This will include tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, summer squash, cucumbers, basils, amaranth greens, okra, beans, etc.
Overall, the outlook is very positive and we are working with Mother Nature to make for a year filled with abundant, healthy, and delicious crops.
Here is the plan for deliveries:
We will try to stay on schedule. As such, we won’t be stopping and chatting when making deliveries. Our plan is to put the CSA boxes on folks’ front porches and ring the bell once and leave.
A bit more about deliveries:
Maintaining the cold chain integrity is key to extending shelf life and maximizing enjoyment of the produce – please have a cooler on the porch with icepacks/frozen water bottles, or bring the shares in and put away in your refrigerator immediately when it is delivered.
We also understand that there may be weeks that folks want to skip their share. That is okay so long as you confirm with us at least 7 days in advance of the skip week. In those cases, you can let us know if you want to add a share to the end of your season, or receive double shares some weeks etc. We encourage members to find a friend, family member, or neighbor to pick up your share from your porch and share the bounty of the harvest, instead of skipping weeks – if that is a viable option for you. Some members opt to notify us of skip weeks and ask that we donate the shares – we are happy to do that. We don’t donate to a food bank in those instances, we give the food directly to our neighbors or folks in the community that would benefit from it.
Asparagus Garlic
There is lots of good info on our website www.countryvalleyfarm.com
Feel free to reach out if you have any questions at all.
Thank you for sharing this message and our contact info with anyone who you know who may be interested. We appreciate the community support.
Kind regards,
Adam Mitchel
Country Valley Farm
Follow us on Instagram @ countryvalleyfarm