Dear Country Valley Farm Community,
This is week #12 of the 2023 season – we are 40% of the way into our 30 week season! Some folks’ membership will end after this week; some ended last week and the week prior. If you haven’t confirmed whether you are extending or not, and your membership is ending, please reach out to Adam either way.
If anyone wants to extend their membership and add weeks or if you’d like to increase the size of your share, please reach out. If a payment plan would be helpful, just let me know – we are happy to make it work for everyone in a good way. If you know other folks who would like to join, we are still accepting new members and we appreciate any referrals.
We hope everyone is safe and sound after the big storm this week. We know many folks lost power, and that can be very impactful on a household. We had extreme winds and quite a bit of rain in a short time, but we did not lose power here at the farm.
Thank you for your support and participation. It means a whole lot to us.
This week’s shares contain the following, some preparation inspiration is below:
- Blueberries – 1pint from Mitchell Blueberries in Grand Junction, MI
- Green Curly Kale – 1 bunch from our farm
- Tulsi Holy Basil – 1 big bunch from our farm
- Cabbage – 1 nice head from Sunnyside Produce in Homer, MI
- Cucumbers – 2 slicer cucumbers from Cinzori Farm in Ceresco, MI
- Bunched Cippolini Onions – 1 bunch from Cinzori Farm
- Amish Slicer Tomatoes – 2 nice tomatoes from Sunny Side Farm
- Bell Peppers – 1 each of ivory, lime green, and purple
Medium shares contain the above listed items, and:
- Blueberries – 1 extra pint
- Greens – 1 extra bunch
- Cucumbers – 2 extra
A note about the other farms that we source from for our CSA shares:
We only partner with certified organic farms that are local and are run by small families. We do not include any produce in our CSA shares that is not certified organic and we do not source product from large corporate farms. We are a small family farm and we are certified organic. It is our intention to continue to grow our farm in a manner that is aligned with our intentions and goals; which includes community connections and sharing the bounty of the land with other folks in our area. By partnering with other farms the way we do, we not only help make our shares as great as they can be each week for our members, we also help those families that we are sourcing from by getting their produce to consumers in the area. This also can alleviate stress if there is a crop failure at our farm or if we get bogged down with certain farm chores, because no matter what we want the CSA shares to be awesome and exceed expectations. 
Some preparation inspiration: Remember to wash all produce thoroughly.
- Blueberries – we were not so happy with the blueberries we sourced from Adams Blueberries last week, they were soft. Thankfully, we found another organic blueberry farm in Michigan (Mitchell Blueberries) and the quality and condition is exceptional. These are blueberries that we can proud of. We will continue to include blueberries from this family farm as long as their season lasts. Mitchell Blueberries has been growing blueberries on their farm since 1955, and are one of few remaining African-American owned and operated blueberry farms. They take great care to grow and pack the highest quality fruit and we are grateful for their work and our ability to access their fruit.
- Green Curly Kale – this is the standard that is often just called kale. The leaves have a very nice curly texture to them. You can cook them as you would any greens, they are also excellent for making kale chips.
- Tulsi Holy Basil – is somewhat popular for teas, and is great hot or cold. Simple wash the basil, stems and flowers and all, and place in a vessel (tea pot or large container) and pour boiling water over it, cover and steep for at least 10 minutes. Sweeten to taste. But did you know how delicious Tulsi is as a culinary herb? We use it to make pesto, and pasta, we also like to chop it up and add to veggie dishes in the last few minutes of cooking. It pairs really nicely with curries and can be used anywhere you would use thai basil.
- Cabbage – this time of year we use cabbage as a salad green often. Have some fun and experiment with old favorite slaw recipes, or try something new. A tulsi basil and cabbage slaw is delicious – add some rice vinegar and a little tamari/shoyu (soy sauce) and a bit of honey and let it sit covered for at least 30 minutes and serve. Leftovers of this slaw will taste even better as the dressing macerates the cabbage a bit and the flavors all marry together.
- Cucumbers – these slicing cucumbers are a great addition to a salad or are wonderful cut up and served alone as a healthy snack.
- Bunched Cippolini Onions – a great sweet onion that is known for its small size and flat disc like shape. The onions and the greens are all usable and very versatile raw or cooked.
- Amish Slicer Tomatoes – the first tomatoes in the shares so far this year. These are an item we anticipate greatly each summer. We love slicing a tomato and eating it plain as is, or making tomato salads, or tomato sandwiches, etc. We will include a variety of tomatoes as we progress through the season, and some weeks will include more tomatoes than others.
- Bell Peppers – this is still just the start of the pepper season. We plan to include many varieties of sweet peppers as the season progresses.
What is going on at the Farm:
The garlic is curing after harvest. We plan to begin to include bulbs in the shares starting next week.
We didn’t finish the onion harvest yet, but are mostly done. Then the onions will cure for a little bit and begin to be included in shares in a few weeks or so.
Our potatoes are harvestable but could go a bit longer and size up some more. We will include potatoes from Cinzori Farm in next week’s shares.
The turnips are really sizing up well after the rain. We will include turnips in next week’s shares. We love to make a turnip garlic potato mash and are hoping folks give that recipe a try with next week’s shares.
Many of the recently seeded herbs are up and growing, the rains are very helpful for direct-seeded crops as the ground stays soaked and the seedlings get going in a good way.
We’ve been staying on top of weeding the bunching greens and they are catching a nice stride for mid summer. We will continue to include bunching greens and rotate through the varieties for a bit, and then will take a break and feature other items, with bunching greens returning to the shares later in the fall.
We will begin to transplant lettuces and radicchios for fall in a couple weeks or so.
The tomato plants are loaded with green fruit. We love fried green tomatoes and are thinking of including green tomatoes in the shares next week for all to enjoy.
The pepper plants are also loaded with fruit and we are just waiting for them to color up a bit before we begin harvest.
The tomatillos are setting lots of fruit also. The husks are not fully filled in yet so we are waiting to harvest those.
The lemongrass we transplanted some weeks ago is growing well. We look forward to including that in shares in the early part of the fall.
The dandelion greens and rosemary we transplanted a few weeks ago is settling in and happy with the rains also.
We will continue to plant crops for fall once we harvest the potato beds.
Here is the plan for deliveries:
Route:
8-10AM Ypsilanti and Milan
9AM-1PM Ann Arbor
12PM-2PM Canton, Plymouth, Northville, and Novi
1PM-3PM Farmington, Farmington Hills and Bloomfield Hills
2PM-4PM Troy, Hazel Park, Ferndale
We 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.
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.
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