Dear Country Valley Farm Community,
This is week #14 of the 2023 season. Next week is the half-way point in our 30-week season.
We hope that participation in the CSA farm share program is a positive in your life. It is our intention to expand access to local organic food, and help spread the good word about eating healthy and celebrating the culinary arts. Your membership is a big indicator that you share in the commitment to making changes in our food system and daily menus. Each week we harvest and pack produce for the shares, and then deliver it to your homes. We think of each of you and how you are helping to make this all possible. We are proud to be your farm of choice. Additionally, the farms we source from also greatly appreciate being able to provide produce for the CSA shares and are also part of our wider community.
Thank you for your support and participation. It means a whole lot and makes a big difference.
This week’s shares contain the following, some preparation inspiration is below:
- Lacinato (Dino/Tuscan) Kale – 1 bunch from our farm
- Zephyr Summer Squash – 3 from Cinzori Farm in Ceresco, MI
- Japanese Eggplant – 1 quart from Cinzori Farm
- Bok Choy – 1 head from Cinzori Farm
- Cucumbers (Snacking/Pickling) – 1 heaping quart from Cinzori Farm
- Cherry Tomatoes – 1 pint from Sunnyside Produce
Medium shares contain the above listed items, and:
- Cherry Tomatoes – 1 extra pint
- Eggplant – 1 extra quart
- Bok Choy – 1 extra head
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.
- Lacinato Kale – goes by many names. It is also called Tuscan or Tuscano Kale, also called Dino or Dinosaur Kale, less often by known by some as Black Kale due to it being the darkest green of all kales. It is tender enough to eat as a salad green. You can lightly steam it like spinach. Or you can stew it and slow cook it. It would go real well with the Bok Choy in this week’s shares.
- Zephyr Summer Squash – a tender yellow squash with a green/grey tip. These are fresh and can be eaten raw. They also go great on the grill or in the air fryer. High heat and short cooking time is our recommendation for local tender summer squash.
- Japanese Eggplant – a nice slender and long variety of eggplant. You can use it traditional Italian or American Eggplant dishes, or look up a fun recipe for a Japanese Eggplant recipe.
- Bok Choy – famous in stir fry. It is a versatile and healthy vegetable. We like to mix it with other greens and cook it as part of our weekly greens rotations. You could cut it length wise and throw it on the grill too for a tasty and simple side dish.
- Cucumbers – these small and sweet snacking pickling cucumbers are our favorite. We love regular slicing cucumbers but to us these little treasures are at the top of the list with local tomatoes. A cucumber tomato salad is an easy way to get more cucumbers onto the dinner plates. We like to make our own dressing with olive oil, lemon juice/vinegar, and black pepper. Sometimes we add dried or fresh herbs like dill, oregano, parsley etc. Add some beans for extra protein. Anybody making pickles yet this year?
- Cherry Tomatoes – this cherry tomato mix adds some bright color and sweet flavor to most any dish. Also great for snacking all on their own, of course.
What is going on at the Farm:
Its exciting to walk the fields and see all of the crops coming along and at their own unique stages.
We are still battling the weeds. It seems like they are worse this year than the past few years. It is our not our way to remove all weeds, we know they are often important plants that are part of the ecosystem and need to continue to seed and regrow each year. We do allow spaces at the outside ends of the rows and in some fields to have weeds growing. We also have space allocated to our pollinator garden that includes a great variety of flowering plants throughout the year. But in the beds where the produce is growing, our ideal goal is to have them be 99% weed-free. We don’t use chemicals to control weeds, we pull them by hand and hoe the edges of the rows.
The potatoes are ready and are content to sit in their beds in the ground until we harvest them. We will continue to rotate potatoes in the shares some weeks – their presence increases in the Fall of course.
The onions are also all ready. We will rotate onions and garlic through the shares many weeks and especially in the Fall.
We’ve been trimming the garlic and are happy with the quality. We save the jumbos for planting this Fall for next year’s crop, and we save the tiny ones for planting for green garlic. We like to utilize the mediums first and then will get into the large ones later in the season, for the shares.
A few tomatoes are starting to ripen now. The plants are loaded and we expect a lot to ripen altogether starting soon. We are dry-farming the tomatoes; we have not irrigated them since the young plants got established. This technique is popular on the Central Coast of California as dry-farmed tomatoes are known to taste better and have a concentrated flavor.
The cucumber bed is challenged… This a great example of how working with a few other farms helps ensure we have key items for the shares.
Our summer squash are all producing now. We are growing a french heirloom variety called Ronde De Nice, and are looking forward to including it in the shares soon.
The pepper plants are also loaded and starting to ripen. We will have Shishito Peppers in the shares next week. The snacking peppers will start soon after. The bell peppers are also starting to ripen and are heavy with fruit on them.
We’ve been picking tomatillos for market. It looks like we will have enough all at once to include them in the CSA shares soon. We will include a recipe for Salsa Verde (which can be made very mild for folks that don’t want the heat) when we include the tomatillos.
The lemongrass, which we companion planted on the edge of the tomatillo bed, is thriving. This is a tender annual herb that we will need to harvest completely when there is a fear of frost in the Fall. For now, we want the plants to continue to grow and spread before we start to harvest them.
The rosemary and second planting of dandelion greens that we did about a month or so ago is doing well.
We transplanted another tray of thyme in one of the beds that was garlic, some weeks ago and it is thriving. We like to have fresh herbs available in the late fall for when folks are doing bigger cooking and the summer veggies are gone for the season.
The basil, cilantro, and dill that we direct-seeded some weeks ago, is growing. There seem to be some blank spots in the rows, but we planted (4) beds that are about 133 feet long and 4 ft wide each with these herbs so we expect to have enough. We are watering the tender plants when it isn’t raining to help encourage them to grow for us. After the previous direct seeding of these herbs failed, we really want this crop to come.
The amaranth (callaloo) that we direct-seeded next to the herbs, is slow to germinate. We are hopeful that it will get growing soon.
We will begin to transplant lettuces next week and will do succession plantings for a few weeks, so we have lettuce to carry us through the fall. Did you know that most lettuce can tolerate temperatures down to 20 F?
The blueberries are done for the season. The grower said they were getting soft on the plants and they are harvesting and freezing them. We are considering how to include frozen blueberries in the shares in the Fall, but we don’t currently deliver any frozen items so we are thinking it through.
Local organic pears and apples will start in the shares around the end of August or beginning of September.
You can expect a continued rotating variety of summer veggies in the shares each week!
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-5PM Troy and Hazel Park
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.
Email is the best way to communicate with me. 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