THE BEET: Volume 15, Issue 1
Welcome to the 2016 CHCSA Season!
FULL SHARE AND GREEN HALF SHARE PICK UP TONIGHT
FRUIT SHARE PICK UP STARTS TONIGHT
Yellow Half Shares :: Please Pick up Fruit Share tonight
Pick up today: 5pm - 7:30pm at PS 56 on the corner of Gates and Downing
In This Week's Beet:
- This Week's Share
- Letter from Ted & Windflower Farms
- Information on the fruit share
- Lewis Waite order form
- Storage information
- Job opening at Just Food
This week’s share:
- Leaf Lettuce
- Dinosaur or Red Russian Kale
- French Breakfast Radishes
- Scallions
- Happy Rich
- Bok Choy
- Arugula
- Potted Basil
- Fruit Share: Strawberries & Rhubarb
Greetings from Ted & Windflower Farm!
A welcome all-day rain is falling as I write. Until today, we hadn’t had any rain for nearly three weeks and had been irrigating around the clock. This morning you’d have found our farm to be parched and our ponds being drained. And it’s only June! On occasions like these, when it rains after a dry spell, I like to go through the list of crops currently growing in our fields and picture each getting all the water it needs. It’s a gratifying exercise. Garlic and onion bulbs swelling, kale and lettuce greens leafing out, sweet corn spiraling upwards, carrots and beets sending their roots deep into moist soil. It’s a huge weight off. So, after a very cold, windy start to the farm season, and a warm, dry early June, our vegetable crops are now getting much of what they need to catch up – heat and rainfall.
This week you’ll receive your first of 22 weeks of vegetables. If you are new to CSA in the Northeast, you should know that early harvests are light. Your weekly share will fill out as the season progresses. For the first few weeks you’ll be getting cool weather salad crops. In the fourth or fifth week, you’ll start to see warm weather crops like cucumbers and squashes in your shares. By the 8th week you should see beans, corn and tomatoes. For now, enjoy some salads!
An important note regarding FRUIT Shares.
It appears I underestimated the extent of damage the unusual winter has done to fruit crops throughout the Hudson Valley. Strawberries and blueberries are OK, as are melons, pears, and most apples, but cherries and the other stone fruits (plums, apricots, peaches and nectarines) were particularly hard hit. I have been told to expect no stone fruit this year. Although there are some other interesting items with which to supplement fruit shares (including rhubarb, husk cherries, table grapes, currants, elderberries, gooseberries, etc.), a third of the fruits that have made up fruit shares in season’s past will be unavailable this year. I’m sorry to be so late with this news.
Until lately, I thought we could come up with a good, 20-week fruit share, but after reflection I am convinced that the better, fairer course would be to provide a half share of fruit and to return to you half of what you paid for your fruit share. So, we will be delivering a ten-week share this year instead of a 20-week share. We will provide fruits for four weeks when good, early season berries and other goodies are available (strawberries, rhubarb and blueberries), then take a break when we would ordinarily have cherries and stone fruits, and resume fruit shares for six weeks later in the season, once melons, husk cherries, table grapes, pears, apples and cider are available.
Andrea, our farm’s membership coordinator, will take charge of sending refunds. If you have signed up for a fruit share and would rather cancel it completely, please email your core coordinators at treasurer@clintonhillcsa.org and information@clintonhillcsa.org.
The 10 WEEK fruit share I envision will look something like this:
- Strawberries and rhubarb
- Strawberries and rhubarb
- Blueberries
- Blueberries
Midseason break (6 to 10 weeks)
- Cantaloupes/watermelons
- Cantaloupes/watermelons
- Pears and husk cherries or grapes
- Pears and husk cherries or grapes
- Apples and cider
- Apples and cider
A note from the Clinton Hill CSA core about the fruit share:
We would like to thank all of you for your understanding and graciousness about the fruit share. We were very sorry to hear that the share would have to be scaled back, but it makes Ted's job much easier to know that our membership is supportive and that so many of you are willing to go forward with the reduced fruit share that he can offer. Thanks especially to those of you who are donating the refund to those farmers who have been hit so badly by the spring freezes. We know they will appreciate it enormously. If you have a fruit share and have not yet registered your preference for continuing with it, please let us know by this evening at the latest as we need to send a revised count of the fruit shares to Ted. Thanks again, and here's to a bountiful season!
Lewis-Waite Farm Add-On's
Lewis-Waite is another Farm collective that's part of the Clinton Hill CSA. They offer many items such as cheese, bread, yogurt, meat and grains a-la-carte style. Sign up with them and place an order by Monday, and your items will be delivered with the vegetables from Windflower farm on Thursday. Payment for their good is separate, and easily done via paypal. Here's the link to their farm, and sign-up form.
Storage Tips
Not sure what to do with all your new veggies?
If you and plastic have broken up, this website has the ultimate guide to plastic free storage.
And for any other additional storage tips, Vegetarian Times has a great article on the basics of Produce storage. They list which produce to store on the counter vs. the refrigerator, and which vegetables to eat first, and the ones that will last longer.
Job Opening at JUST FOOD
For those of you who aren't familiar with them; Just Food is a grass-roots organization that advocates for local and sustainable food options here in New York City, especially in underserved neighborhoods. They offer support to many CSA's around the 5 boroughs (including us) and they offer education to train leaders who want to open new CSA's. If you're looking to get involved in the NYC food movement, they're a great place to start- and now they have a job opening! JUST FOOD is looking for a new Farm-to-Pantry Manager. Click here for more info.