Week 2, 2023

Dear Country Valley Farm Community,

This is week #2 of the 2023 season! We had a couple hard frosts this week again, so the season is creeping along. It looks like those may be the last of the frosts for this spring and that warmer weather is here to stay. The drought continues. We are getting some nice slow and steady rains today though and the plants are singing!

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:

1. Green Garlic – 1 bunch from our farm
2. Oregano – 1 bag from our farm
3. Evercrisp Apples – 1 quart from Almar Orchards
4. Pea Shoots – 1 pkg from Gardenworks
5. Asparagus – 2 bunches from Cinzori Farm
6. Sweet Petite Onions – 1 quart from Cinzori Farm

Medium shares contain the above listed items, and:

1. Asparagus – 1 extra bunch
2. Sweet Petite Onions – 1extra quart
3. Wintered-over Cilantro – 1 bunch

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. The entirety of the green garlic is edible and delectable.
• Oregano is an herb that most of us are used to in many recipes. It is very versatile and can be a great aromatic in almost any cooked dish. It can be strong if eaten raw and is generally used by washing, chopping, and adding to sauces or soups early in the cooking, or can be added toward the end to veggie dishes or garlic bread etc. Oregano also makes a wonderful tea, simply wash the herb, add to a tea pot/vessel, pour boiling water over it, cover and let steep for about 10 minutes, sweeten to taste.
• 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:

Much of the early greens and lettuces that we transplanted in April did not make it. We planted quite a bit so we will still have plenty for the shares.

We will likely begin to have salad mix in the shares starting in week #3.

Cooking greens from our farm will begin about week #4 or so.

Many of the direct-seeded beds got some nice growth over the last week, but got a bit of frost burn on some leaves. We expect this will not have a significant impact on those crops and they will be flourishing with the warmer nights and mornings now.

We have good emergence in the potato beds. Much of the early growth also looks like it was frost-burned. The potato plants should be fine and sending out lots of new growth soon.

The onion beds are looking real nice. We should have green onions in the shares starting in week #3.

The dill seed has germinated and that first bed has a nice stand of baby dill plants. Dill was a great crop for our farm last year, and we hope for similar results this year.

We will begin planting warm weather crops this coming week. 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. 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.

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

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