Volume 22, Week 3

Full share & 🐸 green 🐸 half shares

218 Gates Avenue between Classon and Franklin
(IMPACCT Brooklyn at the Gibbs Mansion)
5:00 to 7:30 pm

We’ll have some special visitors today!

Jess Turner of Olamina Botanicals will be at distribution this Thursday to share some samples of her herbal goodies and answer any questions you might have! Olamina offers an herbal medicine add-on share featuring seasonal teas, tinctures, salves, and more all grown and made locally. Make sure to say hi!

Louie from Fort Greene Granola will also be sharing samples and selling full and half pound bags of their small-batch, superfood granola! Fort Greene Granola are a new, artisan granola company based in Fort Greene that bakes fresh, healthy homemade granola using locally-sourced organic oats, maple syrup, pumpkin seeds, and hemp hearts.

And a few more reminders :)

  • Box and container returns: There are a few items you can bring back to distribution for us to return to the farm! Please don't use the farm as a way to recycle damaged and dirty cartons and boxes. Also, please don't return used rubber bands and plastic bags. 

    Items we can accept:

    • clean egg cartons

    • clean maple bottle returns

    • pint and quart box returns, if they are clean and not stained with fruit juices.

  • Going out of town? Email the google group CHCSAHalfShare2023@clintonhillcsa.org. You may find someone who can swap pickup weeks with you!

  • Please bring bags! some items may be bunched or packed in plastic, but you will need tote bags to bring your share home! We’ll have a limited number of Clinton Hill CSA totes available for sale for $10.

  • The first maple, grain and medicinal herbs will be delivered next week!

  • A note about payment: We thank everyone who has made payments early and helped to support Windflower Farm and all our other suppliers of wonderful produce. We encourage you to check your inboxes and make sure you're up-to-date with payments. Remember that with some extra shares, like bread, mushrooms, or medicinal herbs, your invoices may not all come from Windflower Farm, so be sure you're opening the emails that tell you how to pay for your share. And on behalf of Windflower Farm and our other CSA suppliers, thank you!

This week’s share

  • Yellow onions

  • Green oakleaf lettuce

  • Bok Choy

  • Red radishes

  • Garlic scapes

  • Mixed kales

  • Chard

  • Fruit: probably strawberries from Yonder Farm (see note)

  • Extras: eggs and bread

A note about share contents: While our farmers do their best to predict what they're sending each week, last-minute changes do happen. Sometimes a crop that they thought would be ready needs a little more time to grow, or another crop is facing challenges due to weather or pests. And sometimes we get a surprise in the form of a fruit or vegetable we weren't expecting. That's part of what CSA is all about!

News from Windflower Farm

Distribution #3 , Week of June 12

Last week, we were asked how we deal with waste. Like most businesses, we generate too much of it. It’s a big topic, but plastics clearly top the list. Here are a few things we’ve been doing to address waste on our farm. We use the three Rs, of course. In the Reduce category, we have been working to eliminate our use of black plastic mulch – a standard in vegetable farming. We have eliminated mulch in all but our first Cucurbits, our few field-grown Nightshades, and our sweet potatoes. Next year, we’ll focus on alternatives to plastics in sweet potatoes. In our return to tubs at most of our sites, we’ve significantly reduced our use of boxes and plastic inserts. When we’ve purchased compost, we’ve transitioned from small plastic compost bags to durable supersacks (1 sack equals 40 bags). Beyond plastics, it was a pleasant surprise to find that our new delivery truck uses perhaps 20 percent less diesel than our old one. And in our transition to more and more drip irrigation, we’ve significantly reduced our water consumption (but we’ve used more drip tape).

 

In the Reuse category, we have been using much of last year’s drip tape again this year, thanks to a small retrieval tool made by Nate. We’ve also reused most of last year’s row cover, and all of last year’s tubs. And we’ve reused the plastic on many of our greenhouses for so long that there is a risk of some of it blowing off in the next wind. We Recycle, too, of course. Spent boxes, for example, go to the transfer station (although I have no idea what becomes of them afterwards). Spent pallets become the fuel that heats our winter workshop. And vegetable waste is recycled by composting it first, and then spreading it on the farm. We still have work to do, but we’re working on it!

 

Have a great week, Ted

 
Veronica