CSA Week 1 Newsletter Update on the Farm, June 7, 2021
CSA Newsletter Week 1
June 7-12, 2021 | “A” Week
What’s in the Box this Week? (Storage Guide)
SPINACH ~ We call this “Everlasting spinach” for a reason! This green has some legs! Store it in a Debbie Meyer Green bag or Tupperware FridgeSmart container right away and leave it in the fridge. You could probably wait to eat this until later in the week if needed. Add to a salad, or wilt it down and add to lasagna, pasta, stir fry…
HEAD LETTUCE ~ Store this in a Debbie Meyer Green bag or Tupperware FridgeSmart container right away and leave it in the fridge. I wouldn’t wash this until you’re ready to use it. Use within a week.
BOK CHOY ~ Store this popular Asian vegetable in a Debbie Meyer Green bag or Tupperware FridgeSmart container right away and leave it in the fridge. I wouldn’t wash this until you’re ready to use it. Try to use this within a week. The leaves will begin to yellow after then. To use, trim off the very tip of the root. Cut the stems from the leaves and chop the stems for stir fry (like celery). Cook the leaves separately. You could also try grilling the bok choy if it’s on the smaller side. And if all else fails, strip off the leaves and blanch them, add them to our Green Cubes recipe — we call this our #1 greens exit strategy.
CARROTS ~ Avoid this common rookie CSA storage mistake — take the tops off your carrots before you store them in your fridge. (If you don’t your roots will get soft). Don’t throw the greens away. Use them to make carrot top pesto! Or dry them on your counter and add them as a parsley-type herb to future dishes. The roots should be stored separately in the crisper in a plastic bag. If they get soft, just put them in some water to crisp them up again. Eat within 2-3 weeks.
SCALLIONS ~ Place your scallions into a glass filled with an inch of cold water and place it in your fridge (or leave on the counter). I like to place a baggie over the tops of the greens, if it’s going in my fridge to keep them from drying out. Refresh the water every 3 days. These will last a long time stored this way. You can trim the green tops of the scallion and use them to garnish tacos or salads or meat dishes. You can also chop them up and freeze them for later use! The whites of the onions are often used in salad dressing vinaigrettes, on salads, or enjoyed grilled with a little olive oil and s/p.
RADISHES (WITH GREENS) ~ Remove radish leaves if they are still attached. Store the unwashed greens in a loosely wrapped Debbie Meyer plastic green bag in the crisper bin of your refrigerator and eat them ASAP. (Add them to scrambled eggs or try making our CSA’s popular frozen “Green Cubes” and add them to stews/sauces for later). Store the red radish roots dry and unwashed in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for 1 week. I like to slice and sprinkle them with a little salt and just eat them raw! They’re also amazing when pickled. Or try them roasted on a sheet pan with potatoes and carrots. (They taste almost like potatoes).
This is the garlic! We will be harvesting scapes from these next week!
THIS WEEK’S ADD-ON SHARES:
Goat Cheese variety: garlic chevre (TurkeyFootCreek Creamery)
Hard Cheese varieties: Wabash Erie Canal, mmBossie Cheddar (Canal Junction Farmstead)
Knueven Ice Cream Club: Chocolate
Fruit: The Fruit Share will begin on week 3.
Maddie & Bella’s Coffee : In Bloom –seasonal light to medium roasted blend of Ethiopian coffees with a hints of fruit, especially blueberry. It has a floral, silky and a little caramel finish.
This week: CAR SIGN CONTEST
It’s that time again! We’re holding the second annual CSA CAR NAME SIGN contest! Time to bling up and decorate your CSA name sign. We’re picking our favorite sign from EACH site, and giving them a free pint of Knueven Creamery ice cream the next week. Make sure your sign has your last name written in large letters, so we can see it from 2 car lengths away. We’ll choose our winner on week 2 of the CSA.
Hold up your car sign when you get close to the front of the line.
HOW TO PICK UP YOUR SHARE
All pickups will be drive-thru style. To help us keep things moving, do not get out of your cars.
- Follow the flow of traffic until you get to the site staff host at the tent/truck. For Perrysburg and Sylvania, you will be able to form TWO identical lines on either side of the tent. Do not leave your vehicle. Hold up a sign in your car window with your customer name on it. Pop your trunk (or roll down your window and tell us where you want us to put your bin). Make sure your veggie bin from the last week is in the trunk (starting week 2).
- Staff host will remove your bin from the prior week from your vehicle. Please return all egg cartons and veggie totes each week.
- The staff host will give you your share(s) using their checklist – this could include vegetable, fruit, flowers, coffee, cheese, or an egg share. (Cheese is delivered every other week on the odd weeks of the season).
- Staff will add any additional online store orders you may have purchased in advance from Shared Legacy Farms store.
- Perrysburg and Sylvania: Drive to the Knueven Creamery station and pick up your milk share order or any store order you placed the week prior at www.KnuevenCreamy.com. (Elmore customers will get their milk share and /or dairy store orders from Corinna and her team.)
Elmore Pickup (Tuesdays, 5:30-6:30 PM) – Cell phone: 419-344-7092
Sylvania Pickup (Tuesdays, 5:30-6:30 PM) – Cell phone: 419-345-5659
Perrysburg Pickup (Thursdays, 5-6:30 PM) – Cell phone: 419-345-5659
Port Clinton Pickup (Thursdays, 6-6:30 PM) – Cell phone: 419-344-7092
Farmer Kurt tediously cuts spinach in the low tunnel. Where is his greens cutter??!
FARMER KURT’S FIELD NOTES
Well howdy everyone! And welcome to WEEK 1!!!
So did we surprise you by starting this early?
For the record, we were surprised too. In fact, when I first brought up the idea to Corinna a few days ago, she said, “No way! I have so much to get ready yet!” But as I did my field walk last weekend, I noticed that my bok choy and radishes were ready to come out of the ground. And if I waited any longer, I’d have to disk them under. When I realized that I actually had enough product to put together a mighty fine box for you for the first two weeks, I knew it was time to go.
I’d like to start out this first week by introducing my crew. We have an entirely new group this year. First: The Morin Family who drove up from San Antonio… Tony (Isaiah), Nellie, and daughter Keren (17). Their son Saulo (13) helps wash our CSA bins every week. They live in our private labor camp house about 2 miles away. (More on that later). I also hired some local folks — several of them are from Owens Community College in the Horticulture program: Shalese, Amanda, Noah, and Zach. I also heard that Catalina will be coming back on Monday from Florida. She will be a key link in my team, since she is the only person from last year, who knows how my systems work. I’ll rely on her to help train the crew when I can’t be there.
Some of the projects we’ve been working on the last 3 weeks.
This crew has a strong synergy. I hear them laughing a lot; I see them becoming good friends and sometimes eating lunch together in our new break room. One of our primary goals this year is to create a staff culture of unity and fun. This coming Friday, we’ll be hosting our first weekly community lunch for the whole crew. One of our CSA members is actually helping out by bringing the food too! (Thanks, Christina Yaniga!) This will be a new ritual we put in place to help us be real people together.
We took a quick weekend off last week to go down south near Canton, to a place called FliteTest. Jed is a whiz at RC airplane building and flying. And he learned everything from these YouTubers at Flitetest. They had a flying event over Memorial Day weekend, and we watched him hold his own with 40-year old hobbyists. We are hoping to try and get him into the Toledo Aviation School in 9th grade. We are so proud of him.
Our awesome crew!
There’s been a LOT of planting going on the last 7 days. As a farmer, you’re always trying to time your planting and weeding with the rain. I need the rain to come, but I also need it to hold off so the ground can dry enough for me to plant the NEXT batch of plants. Last week, we had a LOAD of peppers, tomatoes, fennel, celery, kohlrabi, and melons to get in, but I had only 2 days. I didn’t make my goal — but then again, my goals are pretty ambitious!! This weekend will be another busy planting session, along with our staff training, and a birthday party for Josiah (who turns 10)
Shalese says: “I’m riding my motorcycle.”
We had a bin washing bonanza this weekend. With the season starting, that means everything gets a deep clean. One of the almost daily chores on the farm is washing the harvest totes and CSA bins. And it can be a two hour process. Please make this job easier for our boys by rinsing out your CSA tote with water. That way we can skip the deep scrub station. Jed will thank you for it.
The vacuum seeder. Kinda looks like Frankenstein.
I’ve had a number of equipment upgrades that have really helped out this season. This is the part of farming I geek out about. For starters, I now have a vacuum seeder. This tool looks like a bit of a Frankenstein, with all its hoses sticking out of everywhere, but it’s able to help me plant a more consistent seed depth and spacing in three rows at a time. No more walking up and down the beds with a push seeder three times to seed spinach or carrots. I’m also seeing better germination rates as a result.
Here’s the greens cutter in action.
Finally, I invested in a Greens Harvester. Actually, my wife bought it for me as a Christmas present. This little invention is pretty pricey, so I’ve never splurged. But I’m so glad I have it now. It’s a way for me to cut my greens really fast. I attach a cordless drill to the basket, and it turns a mechanism that spins the product through a cutter blade and into a catching net. I caught it on video and you can watch it here,
The melons are in. Tomatoes went in. So did the peppers last week. They were pretty big plants. (And they’re beautiful). It took a bit longer to plant them, because the plants were almost too big for my transplanter. When that happens, they don’t place into the soil bed properly, so the person walking behind the planter is doing a lot of bending over and “fixing” the placement. Noah was a trooper. I think I exhausted him that day. We’ve been doing quite a bit of planting into the late night hours just to beat the rain – a couple times til 10 PM. When it gets that dark, I turn on the tractor lights and use bright light sticks to help my boys see what they’re doing.
Well, that’s a big update for this week. There was a lot of talk about! I can’t wait to see all of you at the pickup. Remember, you’ll see Corinna if you go to Elmore or Port Clinton. I’m the point guard at Perrysburg and Sylvania. We appreciate you standing behind our farm through thick and thin. Knowing you have our backs makes us feel incredibly strong, no matter what may happen. Not every farmer can say that.
~Your Farmer, Kurt
WEEK 1 ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Don’t forget to bring back your plastic veggie tote on week 2. We’ll sub it out with a fresh one. Simply leave it in your car wherever you want the next bin to be placed by our team. Do not use your veggie box for anything else besides storing our food — don’t let your pets or your kids play in them. Please return all egg cartons the following week. We can re-use them.
- Watch our weekly Live Unboxing video this Tuesday around 8 PM inside the private Facebook group. Cadie Jardin, our CSA coach and dietitian, will show you what’s in the box, share storage tips and ideas for how to use your product. You can find the Facebook group at this link.
- Put your farmer’s cell phone numbers in your cell. If you miss your box pickup, call one of us as soon as you can. Please review our “Missed Box” policy in our CSA handbook. If you fail to pick up your box, we reserve the right to donate it. We usually bring back up to 3-5 boxes to the farm in case a customer wants to drive out to the farm to pick it up. But we only hold these for 2 days.
Did you get the Bonus coupon for renewing your membership early last year? It’s time to use it!
Do you still have the Knueven Bonus coupon from last fall for a free pint of ice cream? To redeem the coupon, go to www.Knuevercreamery.com/market to place your online store order. Use the coupon codes we shared in the email to get it for free. If you don’t remember the coupon codes, email me at slfarms2@gmail.com. Enter the CSA pickup site for your location. Pick it up the next week at the Knueven station at your site. This coupon can be used ONE time, and you must turn in the coupon you when you redeem it, or you don’t get the discount. Feel free to order dairy items all summer long from their online store. You can order this bonus anytime before October 31 — even Port Clinton customers.
- Beginning this week, you can order additional items from the Shared Legacy Farms online store. Our store link is super easy to remember: www.sharedlegacyfarms.com/store. Just be sure to select the right pickup site that coincides with your pickup location. If the pickup option is greyed out or not available, it means you missed the window to order. You need to place your order 2 days before your site. We harvest the product on Monday and Wednesday mornings — early.
ONE OF YOUR PERKS OF CSA MEMBERSHIP:
How to Access to the CSA Membership Academy
This is a library of digital resources to help you master CSA membership. It includes videos and guides and handouts to support you as you grow into a CSA foodie member. Membership for you is FREE as a CSA member. To access the Academy, please go to www.sharedlegacyfarms.com/academy and login. If you don’t remember your login credentials, reach out to me at sharedlegacyfarms@gmail.com and I will reinstate you.
In this video, I show you the different modules inside the Academy, how it’s organized, and where you can find things. There’s a new module this year called RECIPES & RESOURCES, which is where we will be storing the Facebook live video unboxing, recipes, and newsletter link by week.
WEEK 1 CSA RECIPES
Members: You can download these recipes as a PDF here. These recipes are designed to inspire you to use your box this week! Please check inside our private Facebook group to find your fellow members sharing ideas for what to make with their box! Share a photo and you might be featured in next week’s newsletter!
- Garlic Bok Choy with shallots
- Boy Choy Salad with Sesame Soy Sauce
- Simple Roasted Carrots & Radishes
- Roasted Radishes with Brown Butter, Lemon and Radish Tops
- Scallion Vinaigrette
- Roasted Carrots with Carrot Top Pesto
- Parmesan Roasted Carrots
- Spinach Turkey Meatballs
- Easy Spinach Frittata
- Scallion Pancakes