Week 17 CSA Newsletter (October 9-15, 2022)
CSA Newsletter Week 17
October 9-15, 2022 | “A” Week
Early Bird CSA renewal signup opens this coming Saturday, October 15, at 7 AM. Put it on your calendar!!
CSA Week 17 Box Contents:
CARROTS (no tops) ~ (from Wayward Seed Farm) Our carrots still aren’t ready, but we wanted you to have some carrots before we end things. Store these in a plastic bag in your crisper drawer for up to 5 weeks. If they get a little limp, you can soak them in cold water to crisp them back up.
JALAPENO PEPPERS (6) ~ Store in the fridge in a green bag. These have some heat, so use caution when chopping. The seeds and the membranes are what contain the spiciness. You can remove those for a milder heat. You may want to wear gloves to cut these, or at least wash your hands after handling. Great for freezing or stuffing. Also good in salsas or making spicy sauce.
ONIONS (3) ~ To store: Yellow storage onions may be kept in any cool, dark, dry place with adequate air circulation for several months if they are cured. Do not store them next to potatoes. Fresh onion will need to be stored in a plastic bag in the fridge and use within 2 weeks. To prep: Peel the onion’s skin and cut off the roots and top. Save your papery onion skins in a bag in your freezer reserved for making vegetable stock. If you encounter a little rot in your onion, just cut away the bad sections. If there are a few black spots, rinse the whole onion in cool water and rub the spots off with your thumbs. To freeze: Cut or slice onions to desired size and place in freezer Ziplock bag. Remove all the air and seal. It helps to freeze them in 2-3 cup increments.
Autumn Frost winter squash
AUTUMN FROST WINTER SQUASH (1) ~ This looks like an acorn squash, but it has a light tan colored skin. Store on the counter or in a cool, dark place. Bake, steam, or boil. The yellow flesh on the inside is creamy and sweet. Remove seeds.
BUTTER BABY WINTER SQUASH (2) ~ These are little baby butternuts — perfect for single size portions. Store on the counter or in a cool, dark place. Cut in half and scrape out seeds. Bake, steam, microwave, or boil. The orange flesh on the inside is creamy and sweet.
POTATOES (quart) from MILE CREEK FARM ~ Store your potatoes away from onions and out of the light. Use within 4 weeks.
TOKYO BEKANA ~ We had this green a couple weeks ago! It’s a lime-colored, very tall lettuce in the Asian greens family. Use it like lettuce. To store: Store unwashed lettuce in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. To store lettuce that you have already washed and dried with a spinner, place back in a plastic bag with a dry paper towel in the bag, and place the package in the vegetable crisper bin. Use within 4 days. To prep: Slice the head at its base with a knife and let the leaves fall open. Discard any damaged or leathery outer leaves and tear large leaves into bite-size pieces. Wash leaves in a basin of cold water. Dry in a salad spinner.
KALETTE GREENS ~ Kalettes grow on the stalk as little mini-bunches of kale. They didn’t quite develop the way we imagined, but they’ll end up looking a lot like kale! To store: Place kale unwashed, wrapped in a sealed plastic bag in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator. Best used very fresh, but may last for a week. To prep: Wash leaves in basin of lukewarm water to remove grit. If your greens have thick stems, you must remove them. Fold each leaf in half and slice out the stem. Then stack the leaves up and slice them diagonally into 1-inch-wide strips. To use: Saute in olive oil. Use in soups, spaghetti sauce, pesto, quiche, or kale chips. You can also eat the stems. To freeze: Blanch washed greens for 2-3 minutes. Rinse in cold ice water to stop the cooking process, drain, and pack into airtight containers. Stems can also be frozen.
GREEN CABBAGE (1) ~ Crisp green heads. Store these in the back of your fridge in a Green bag. They’ll last for a month or more. Remove the outer limp leaves. Cut out the core. Shred for cole slaw or cut into “steaks” and roast.
Our Wednesday pack crew took this picture last week. We’ll be featuring all our crew members over the last 2 weeks — so grateful for the MANY hands that make this CSA run!
It’s “A” Week. This is the final week for bi-weekly “A” share types!
FRUIT SHARE: No fruit share this week. You will have a chance to order a “fruit bag” in our online store though!!
MADDIE & BELLA COFFEE SHARE: Espresso
KNUEVEN ICE CREAM: Toffee Crunch
CHEESE SHARE: (Final Week for Cheese!): Pumpkin chevre (Mackenzie Creamery); Black Swamp & Charloe (Canal Junction Farmstead)
If you ordered a bulk order of goat cheese, I’ll have that order waiting for you at your pickup this coming week.
Early Bird sign up for next year’s CSA is open to current members, starting this coming Saturday, October 15 at 7 AM.
HOW TO SIGN UP FOR NEXT YEAR’S CSA
So many of you have been asking, “How do we sign up for next year?! When does this happen?…”
Well… it’s time! Registration opens NEXT Saturday, October 15, at 7 AM.
Every fall, we try to get as many of our members as possible to make their CSA commitment early. This helps us plan for the future and provides us with needed cash flow for the first 6 months. It also helps us see how many new members from our wait list we can invite into our CSA.
For SEVEN DAYS (beginning next Saturday, October 15th through October 22nd), we’ll give our current members (and Sampler members) FIRST DIBS on the 18-week spots for next year at our early bird price. After that, we open our remaining spots to our wait list. Then we open it to the public.
The Early Bird offer is the BEST offer we make of the year. It includes a discount as well as an early signing bonus gift. It’s only around for 7 days. So if you know you want to renew, THIS is the time to do it.
There are some changes to next year’s offer. So let’s walk through the details…
Q: When does the early bird offer/sign-up officially open?
We open the doors to sign up on Saturday, October 15, at 7 AM sharp. And we close the early bird offer on Saturday, October 22, at 10 PM.
Some of our share types (aka eggs and flowers) are limited and will likely sell out early, so if you really want to grab one of those, I recommend you be ready to place your order on Saturday for best selection.
This year’s crew has been AMAZING. Here they are coming in from harvesting a wholesale order.
Q: How do I sign up? What’s the link I’ll use?
You’ll go to a SPECIAL online store link. This link will be emailed to you several times over the next 7 days as we share information over email. (I don’t want to post it here, so the public can’t find it). Be sure to choose the correct pickup site during checkout. It will list a date in June, 2023, as your pickup date.
Q: Are there any major changes for next year?
Yes, quite a few. Let’s do a quick overview. Details will be in the later sections below.
- Our membership enrollment numbers will increase by 20 shares to 390.
- You won’t see any of Knueven’s milk or ice cream in the store. Don’t freak out! Starting this year, you will order your CSA milk or ice cream share directly from their website at a separate time. This will make it easier for them (and us) to directly communicate to their customers about logistics — instead of always having to work through us. Sign-up for those shares will occur sometime in February.
- We have raised the price of the standard size vegetable share by $3/week to $510. Like every other business, our expenses have shot up for everything — fuel and labor especially. Our labor costs increased by about $25,000 due to moving to the H2A worker-visa program, and we really need to keep this labor system in place for the future.
- We have increased the number of egg shares from 80 to 100.
- There is a limit of ONE egg share per order. If you order a weekly share, you can only order 1 share. If you order a biweekly, you can only order ONE biweekly. No weekly + biweekly combos are allowed. We hope that by doing this, more people can get a chance at having some eggs.
- When you place your order, you will be going to a DIFFERENT online store link — not the usual one.
What if I’m a Sampler member? Can I sign up?
Yes. You have an equal chance to get one of our 390 spots for next year. Early bird gets the worm! If you don’t want to upgrade, and you want to remain a Sampler member, we won’t offer that product until all the CSA shares are sold out. We encourage you to become an online store client each week instead — so that we can keep our limited Sampler spots open for people who are “testing” the CSA concept.
2023 Early Bird Veggie Share Prices:
Order early and receive a $10 discount for your veggie share. You’ll get the early bird discount of $10 off automatically when you order in the store between Oct 15-22, 2022. No coupon code needed.
Standard Box: Early Bird Price: $510 ($28/week)
Large Box: Early Bird Price: $960
NOTE: There are 390 spots available for next year — that’s 15 more than last year.
Egg shares typically sell out in the first 2 hours. SO if you want an egg share, be sure to renew your membership on Saturday!
ADD-ON SHARE PRICING:
You can also add on other types of shares. The eggs and flowers have limited quantities, so be sure you snag one of those on the first day.
1. Egg share (Free Range) ~ THESE WILL SELL OUT!
Weekly Dozen $90; Bi-Weekly Dozen $45 | LIMIT: ONE PER ORDER
ONLY 100 AVAILABLE – THESE SELL OUT FAST! — These eggs will be sourced from Knueven Creamery.
2. Fruit Bag (not organic) ~
Weekly $400 or Bi-Weekly $200 – 16 weeks
Includes: melons, table grapes, peaches, strawberries, blueberries, pears, cider, apples, plums, and blackberries.
One of our most popular share types — ordered by about 60% of our CSA veggie members!
3. Cheese Share Combo –
Bi-weekly (9 deliveries): $240
We’ve partnered with MacKenzie Creamery, Knueven Creamery, Blue Jacket Creamery, Black Radish Creamery, Urban Stead Creamery, and Canal Junction Farmstead Cheese to bring you a mix of locally sourced cheese every other week. I’m hoping to find one more new cheese vendor next year!
With each bi-weekly disbursement, you will receive three cheeses: two (1/3-1/2 pound) “hard” cheeses and one 4 oz. variety of soft goat’s cheese. Many of the hard cheeses and the goat cheese will freeze for longer-term storage. Varieties include: multiple Cheddars, Abondance, Cheese curds, Gouda, Gretna Grillin, Mozzarella, Charloe, Gruyere, Garlic chevre, Apricot-ginger chevre, Cognac-Fig chevre, and more.
4. Maddie & Bella Coffee Share:
Weekly $262 or Bi-weekly $131 – 18 weeks
Bag of roasted, whole-bean coffee, different variety each week.
5. Flower Bouquet Share
Weekly: $270 + sales tax or Biweekly: $135 + sales tax ~ 18 weeks
This comes to $15/bouquet
100 AVAILABLE ~ LIMITED QUANTITY. A large bouquet of seasonal, freshly cut flowers from Clay Hill Organic Farm.
Kristy Buskirk of Clayhill Farms drops off the flower shares. These have been very popular this year. There is a limited quantity available next year, so be sure to order these on the first day too.
Early Bird Signing Bonus
60 mL Bottle of Infused Olive Oil from The Olive Scene
This year, you’ll receive this 60 mL bottle of infused olive oil as our thank you if you renew your share by October 22nd
Renew a CSA membership by October 22nd, and you’ll receive a 60 mL bottle of infused olive oil from the Olive Scene in Vermillion, OH. I’ll have 4-5 different varieties — it’s luck of the draw to see which fun flavor you’ll get!
If you order before your last pickup site date (October 18 and 20), I’ll even be able to hand you your bottle at your final CSA pickup. Otherwise, we’ll label one with your name and hold it here at the farm.
Three cheers for the Perrysburg site crew! I appreciate being able to just “show up” and let them take it from there! I have a great team!
CSA Pick-Up Site Times: (No changes)
- Elmore, Tuesday evening 5:30-6:30 PM
- Sylvania, Tuesday 5:30-6:30 PM
- Perrysburg Grace UMC, Thursday 5-6:30 PM
- Port Clinton, Thursday 6-6:30 PM — no milk share available
How do I pay? (Post-dated check or bank check, please!)
All CSA share orders will be “invoice only” for the week of October 15-22. That means no payment will be charged online when you place your order. You’ll receive a confirmation invoice sent to your email inbox, and you must mail your payment at that time via check.
If you can, we ask that your deposit payment represent 50% of your total balance. If that’s too much in these economic times, we get it. Then you can make a good-faith investment and send us monthly payments, as long as the full amount is paid by June 1, 2023. Our family lives off of these deposits for the first 6 months of the year, so as long as we collectively get enough deposits in to cover our payments, we’re pretty flexible!
We ask you to mail your deposit (or full payment) VIA PERSONAL CHECK to our farm address within 2 weeks of your order, or bring it to your final CSA pickup.
IMPORTANT: YOU MUST POST-DATE YOUR CHECK FOR JANUARY 2, 2023. WE CANNOT CASH ANY MORE CSA CHECKS DATED FOR THIS YEAR. Since we deposited all our 2022 CSA income for last season last January, we would show a doubling in gross income if we deposited everyone’s 2023 payments this fall, and that would seriously impact our farm’s income taxes. So please help us out and write your check for January 2nd, 2023. We won’t cash it until then.
Can I pay with a credit card of Venmo?
No. Sorry. We do not offer credit card or Venmo or Paypal options for CSA share payments. The fees end up coming to over $5000 if everyone used it! And we don’t want to raise the price of the shares any more.
What if I could use a little financial help?
We have a Pay It Forward scholarship fund for this. Reach out to us and let us know you could use some help. We will still ask you to put down some kind of deposit to show your good faith investment, as we believe that having some skin in the game is important to getting a good experience out of the CSA.
The fruit share is our most popular add-on share after eggs!
How and When Do I Sign Up? Where’s the link?!
We’ll open up the CSA store on Saturday, Oct. 15 at 7 AM sharp. The link is NOT the same link as our online store. It’s a special “hidden” store that you can only access in your email. (GO LOOK FOR THAT EMAIL STARTING OCTOBER 9th). I’m not posting it here on the website. You must look for this link in the emails that we will be sending you this week. (You’ll be getting about 5 of them).
Our eggs are REALLY popular. This year, I’m limiting the number of egg shares you can get to ONE so more people have a chance at getting one. Still… you should definitely renew on Saturday morning early if you want one of these egg shares.
YOUR HOMEWORK:
- Be prepared. Figure out what type of shares and add-on’s you want to order for next year, and be ready to order on Saturday, October 15, at 7 AM , especially if you want eggs!!
- Bookmark the new online store link. Go look for it in your email we’ll send you. It’s a pretty easy one to remember once you see it.
- Don’t forget to write out that post-dated check and get it to us within 4 weeks.… we live on those checks the first 6 months of the year! You can bring it with you to next week’s pickup site!
We harvested sweet potatoes this week!
FARMER KURT’S FIELD NOTES
This week the guys started tearing out the tomato stakes and cutting the tomato twine. Tomatoes are officially done for the year. I think next year I’ll be planting fewer of them. There came a point in the season where I couldn’t keep up with the plants anymore. I realized I wasn’t going to keep picking everything just to pick them — especially since I didn’t have an outlet for all of it. Since I’m also growing the produce for my mom’s roadside stand, I now have a better idea of how much I actually need to produce for next year.
Tomato twine was cut down this week, and the stakes are being removed.
The sweet potatoes were harvested this week. The yield was incredible! I had a little over one bed-row of potatoes, and I couldn’t believe how much we got. My guys got it all out in about 3 hours — man, are they fast!! It filled up one bulk bin, plus an entire trailer of black crates. (See picture). These are now curing for the next 10 days, and will end up in your last week’s box.
We had a big load of sweet potatoes this year. Now they head to the greenhouse to cure.
I’ve been chopping down a lot of the summer crops. Green beans, eggplant, a few of the peppers, kale, basil. I’ll be chopping the tomatoes down next week. As a result, the fields are starting to empty out. I still have a lot of jalapenos and orange sweet baby peppers. We’ll see how things fare over the next few weeks, as we head into frost advisories. I’m hoping to put a Tokyo Bekana in your box this week, if it survives the frost warnings.
Beth Deakins holds up the purple broccoli from last week’s share during pack night. This is in the online store this week if you want more! The last of it!
The local farmers are planting their rye seed. I’ve seen the crop-duster airplane at work — seeding rye seed from the air onto the fields. He likes to dive-bomb our house on the way to his assigned fields, just to say hi. Speaking of flying, the boys have been flying their RC airplanes again. They recently got some new kits, and I’ll hear the buzzing sound of their engines as I’m working outside.
Josiah made his own corn bread from the Black Aztec corn he ground down from our experimental garden.
Josiah has been harvesting my personal garden plot — specifically the heirloom field corn. I grew some fun varieties my buddy Jake brought back from Peru. One of them is called “Bloody Reaper” (great name) and is bright red. Josiah shucked the seed corn off by hand from all the ears (!!!) and put some away for seed. The rest he ground up in a coffee grinder and made some really good corn bread out of it.
Josiah picks pears from our tree up front. Both he and his brother Jed were very into this!!
The boys picked pears from our front property last weekend, too. This is an unknown variety — really big and crisp, almost like the texture of an Asian pear. We call them “storage pears” because they last for so long. They’ll need to ripen still since we picked them so green. But they were up on ladders – my eager beavers – pulling down every one they could find. I love how my farm gives them these kind of childhood memories.
Adam spreads manure onto the cover crop fields. This will break down over the winter and add nutrients to my soil.
My neighbor Adam spread some manure on my cover crop fields this week. I always know he’s been here, because of the tell-tale stink. This is such a cool partnership. He needs to get rid of the animal waste, and I need some fuel for my fields. It’s a win-win! This organic matter does great things for my soil.
Some of the cauliflower is bolting in the field. This is what happens to it! It starts to flower. Isn’t it beautiful?!!
Sign up for next year’s CSA starts NEXT Saturday, October 15th, at 7 AM sharp. Are you ready?!! Corinna is going to be talking ALL week about Early Registration for next year. She’s been working on her communication plan for the last 5 days to make sure the sign-up process is clear to you all. So for the next 7 days, you’ll be seeing more posts and emails than usual about different features and elements of the early bird registration offer. You have until the final day of our season (Oct. 22), to renew at the special early bird rate. After that, there will probably still be spots — although we do have a wait list of people standing by. So if you want in again next year, I encourage you NOT to wait until April to decide, but rather to lock it in on October 15th.
As always, I’m so grateful for you all. You recharge my batteries! I was born to be a CSA farmer. I’ll see you at the pickup!
~Your Farmer, Kurt
Meet Cindy Butler. She’s one of our Store Packers who comes every Tuesday to pack the fruit shares and pack up the store orders. She’s very detail-oriented. Go, Cindy!!
WEEK 17 ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Early Registration for next season’s CSA begins NEXT Saturday, October 15, at 7 AM sharp. Be sure to read the section in this newsletter that spells out all the details. I will be emailing and posting in the facebook group all week long, breaking down the important details you need to know.
- The Pumpkin Hunt is Saturday, October 8, from 7:30-9 PM at the farm. Bring camp chairs, a flashlight, and dress warmly. We’ll have a fire for you and some donuts and cider.
- If you ordered bulk goat cheese from Corinna, it will be ready for you this week at your pickup. Look for her email to you on Sunday/Monday with your balance. Please pay with cash or check.
- Shop the online store this week. We have purple broccoli, 4 lb. Apple Medley fruit bag, Bosc pears, potato medley, Salsa packs, golden beets, candy stripe beets, Mizpuna greens, Oak Leaf Head lettuce, dinosaur kale, All Star kale, Kohlrabi, Tokyo Bekhana greens, spaghetti squash, Acorn squash, Delicata squash, Honey Nut squash, Heart of Gold squash, celeriac, Roma tomatoes, red snacking peppers (pint), red Italian fry peppers (sweet), cutting celery, maple syrup, honey, watermelons, small garlic (pint). Be sure to place your order before Monday or Wednesday morning (depending on your pickup site).
WEEK 17 CSA RECIPES
Members: You can download this week’s recipes here. Here is what Coach Cadie Jardin has prepared for you…
Roasted Autumn Frost Squash
Chunky Curried Autumn Frost Squash Dip
Spicy Peanut Cabbage and Kale Salad
Balsamic, Onion and Thyme Carrots
Carrots with Shallots, Sage, and Thyme
Pasta with Kalette Greens and Onions
Winter Squash and Savory Cabbage Gratin with Garlic
Crispy Jalapeno Garlic Potatoes
Kale, Potato and Carrot Curry
Tuscan White Bean and Kalette Soup
Crispy Breakfast Hash with Bacon and Potatoes