Greetings Country Valley Farm Members,
This is week 15 of the season This is the midpoint in our season for 30 week members, and is ¾ of the way through the season for 20 week members. If you signed up for a 20 week share and want to extend your season to a 30 week share, we have plenty of room – just let Adam know you want to extend and we can do the math. Some 20 week members skipped some weeks with advance notice and are having weeks added to the end. Some 30 week members have skipped weeks and will receive double shares toward the end of the season. Also, if there are items that you want extra of – we can arrange that in place of double shares. For example, if you want to make a huge batch of pesto, or pickles, or like lots of garlic, or want to make a hot sauce, kale chips etc. – just let me know. Thanks to all who replied to the hot pepper question – the majority of folks would rather not receive hot peppers so we will not be including them in the shares.
We appreciate your membership in our farm share program. Thank you for choosing to support our farm with your CSA membership. It means a lot to us and makes a big difference in our world! We hope everyone is enjoying the shares.
There were a lot of power outages in SE Michigan this week – we also lost power for a few days. We hope that anyone impacted by has power restored now and wasn’t inconvenienced too much.
A bit about what is going on the farm:
Things are going really well. Many crops are happy and really hitting a nice stride. The warm weather and sunshine is continuing to support great plant growth. We planted quite a bit of lettuce transplants this week and will continue to plant more. We got the rest of our fall roots veggie seeds planted and have been watering them daily to get them going. The turnips are looking amazing, we will include tender turnip greens in the shares next week. We will include a more detailed farm update next week.
This week’s small shares contain the following items:
- Sage – 1 small bag from our farm
- Mixed fingerling potatoes – 1 pint from our farm
- Garlic – 3 bulbs from our farm
- Cucumbers – 2 slicers from Cinzori Farm
- Pattypan squash – 1 quart from Cinzori Farm
- Mixed heirloom cherry tomatoes – 1 pint from Cinzori Farm
- Medium shares will receive extra potatoes, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes
- Large shares will packed as 2 small shares.
Some preparation and cooking tips:
- Sage is a versatile seasoning and goes well with most veggies as well as meat, beans etc. We love it with potatoes. Simply wash and mince and add to potatoes 5-10 minutes before they are done cooking
- Mixed fingerling potatoes – these include purple fingerlings, all-red fingerlings, gold fingerlings, and french fingerlings – wash them real well and cook whole with the peels on.
- Garlic – this is our pride and joy hardneck garlic. It has a great flavor raw or cooked and also stores well if you like to use only a little bit of garlic.
- Cucumbers – we have received a lot of great feedback on the cucumbers and are trying to include them in the shares each week that we can. These are not wace
- Pattypan squash – our favorite of the summer squash varieties. It is nice to cut them into large pieces so the shape and color can stand out on the plate more. Try pairing them with the fingerling potatoes for a colorful and tasty seasonal dish.
- Mixed heirloom cherry tomatoes – while our tomatoes are still producing very nicely, we wanted to include some other varieties and colors of tomatoes to keep the shares exciting. They are great as a snack on their own, in a salad with cucumbers etc, they also can be cooked and add a nice color to your dish.
Check out our website and peruse old newsletters for additional cooking tips and recipe ideas: https://countryvalleyfarm.com/newsletter/
That’s all for now. Looking forward to seeing everyone soon.
Adam Mitchel
Country Valley Farm