If you'll visit our crops pages, you'll find descriptions of most of the things we grow and when they might be expected to turn up in your share. They are arranged both by type and alphabetically at this point. 

All of the greens listed (both leafy greens and cabbage types) are in the ground and coming along except cauliflower. Leafy greens particularly (lettuce, kale, spinach, beet and turnip greens, Swiss chard, mustard greens, and more) are cool season crops so can be expected to be a heavy part of the share in the spring/early summer and in the fall. Greens from the cabbage family (cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower) are growing but they take longer to "make" than the leafy greens so expect those a bit later. If you're not sure what to do with them, check out our recipe pages and our preservation pages. 

There are several species of vining crops, some earlier, some later crops. We are starting to see a few blossoms on some of the summer squashes (yellow squash, zucchini, patty-pan) so we're hopeful they'll make a nice showing to keep all those leafy greens company in the early shares. Melons (cantaloupe and watermelon varieties) are in the ground but it will be quite some time before you see them. They are mid-late summer crops. Winter squashes aren't planted yet - they generally go in the ground some time in June to make squash and pumpkins for fall and winter shares.

Like vining crops, root crops appear throughout the season. We should see some green onions soon, as well as radishes. Then the beets and carrots should appear sometime in early-mid summer, followed by the kohlrabi, turnips, onions, potatoes, and so forth toward the end of the summer and into the fall. If the potatoes do well enough (they hate wet ground) we may be able to pull some new potatoes in a few weeks.

The last early season crop we have coming on are peas, both garden and snow. We also have planted green beans, both bush and pole, and yellow wax beans, along with sweet corn, eggplant, okra, peppers (hot, sweet, and bell), and tomatoes. Those are all mid-late summer crops. 

HERBS

Some of our herbs are doing nicely - so far we have strong stands of sage and oregano but we're hoping some of the others will catch up sooner or later. I'll speak to fruit below. 

If you didn't see something you've been looking forward to, drop me a line.  It's entirely possible I've simply overlooked it.

FRUIT

As you know, Jim planted many strawberry plants early in the spring. They're coming along, but the nature of strawberries is that they don't produce much the first year. So next year we have yumminess to look forward to. We have also made great strides in re-creating an orchard here on the farm and have planted a variety of apple, cherry, peach, pear, and other fruit trees. However, fruit trees can take 4 or 5 years before they start to produce. Berries, on the other hand, we should have some of those for you, if the weather is nice to us. I can see mulberries starting to appear on the mulberry trees and, if we're lucky, you may get some in one of the first shares. They are an incredibly fragile fruit, though, which is why you don't ever see them in the store. The blackberry bushes are also loaded with blossoms. 

SHARE PICK-UP

The Owensboro pick-up this year will be at the Owensboro Farmers Market at Community Christian Church on Saturday mornings. Farm pick-up will be, well, here at the farm. We don't as yet have a set day or time so if you have input on that, please drop a line.

We've had a presence at the Farmers Market every Saturday for the past few weeks with honey and eggs. Sadly, Kentucky regulations prohibit our selling anything else there since it comes from Indiana. However, if you need jelly or would like to pre-order pork, poultry, beef, or whatever else we may have, give a call or drop a line. Or show up at the Farmers Market and grab a brochure or ask questions.

Speaking of meat, we have a couple specials going so don't miss those. I try to keep them updated on the Front Porch (AKA home page) but if you have questions, just give a holler. 

Just another friendly reminder :) to those of you who haven't decided about a share this year. We'll open shares up to the public on Feb 15th, that's in just 11 days, and our farmer has a limited number of
openings. If you have already decided not to return and don't want to receive emails from me, just let me know and I'll take you off the list.

I imagine the changes have been a bit confusing so let me try to de-confuse. As you all know, Glenn's on permanent disability due to his back injury so he's limited as to what he can do. Last summer we arrived at the decision that he / we couldn't continue carrying the level of CSA load we'd been doing and that trying to do it all was hurting the whole operation. So we decided to cut back a bit, concentrate on the things Glenn can actually manage, and try to find help in other areas. Jim Daniel, a local guy from Lewisport, KY and owner of 5 Gallon Farm (you can find him on Facebook), has been working with us since last Fall in taking over the garden operation but I'm continuing to manage the paperwork, website, and so forth. The vegetable crops will continue to be grown here on the same farm and we will be involved, but Jim will be the main guy. He'll grow many of the same crops and select some of his own varieties, too. He'll also be
using sustainable practices, just like we've done.

Jim is planning on handling the Owensboro pickup and is looking into coordinating it with the Farmers Market there, a benefit to everyone involved. Glenn and I will continue to be the main faces on the Indiana side for pick-up. We have put out some feelers around coordinating a pick-up with the Newburgh Farmer's Market, but they're going through some leadership changes and I'm not sure whether that will end up working out. We should know well before shares actually begin, though.

We're hoping for a better year, climate wise, than last - we're still amazed that we were able to scrape by all season through that drought (the worst one in a LONG time). We're continuing to work on ways to reduce the impact of a bad weather year but as with everything else on the farm, it will take a while.

On POULTRY, one of the reason Glenn and I chose to step back from as much gardening is to concentrate on our animals. Those of you who have been to the farm know the state of the buildings and fencing and we're hoping to make some real headway in keeping the poultry alive long enough to eat (add to the issues a growing population of bobcats) and keep them from laying their eggs in the woods! We have a small herd of new Delaware chicks growing (a new breed for us but a nice dual purpose heritage breed that meets our standards) and we'll be adding to them. We also have a nice flock of Cayuga ducklings going. If you like quail, let me know. We have a number ready to butcher.

Have you noticed the relatively on-going pork sale? We're in the process of drastically reducing our hog herd and our freezers only hold so much. Check out the current specials on the website.

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to get something posted on the blog at least once a month. So far  I've barely made it, but the year is young ;) Hold me to it - if you visit the website and it's boring because it hasn't changed since the last time you were there, hold my feet to the fire! Ask a question or share a story - our members in Ohio really got into one-upping each other with getting a question of the month posted, or sharing creative recipes, or telling stories about their visit to the farm or encounter with some new (for them) veggie. If you've got something great to say, send it along and give me permission to post it. If you have something rotten to say, send it along, too. We do appreciate the feedback.

In the meantime, stay warm and dream of fresh lettuce and home-grown tomatoes!

When Glenn and I first got married, I had the pleasure of looking through his mother's recipe cards with him one afternoon. It was a delightful journey down memory lane for him and a glimpse at the mother-in-law I never knew for me. There were lots of yummy recipes in the card file bringing moans and yearnings from my dear husband (I never have gotten brave enough to try those fruit-cocktail cookies). 

And then I came across the recipe for Woodchuck. I have it memorized. "Soak in salt water 24 hours. Par-boil. Cook like squirrel."

Cook like squirrel?!? Seriously? Glenn said, "Well, everyone knows how to cook squirrel." News flash: I don't have a clue. Don't want one, come to that.

That story comes to mind just a few days from Groundhog Day as I sit here rapidly approaching the demise of my New Year's Resolution to make at least one blog post every month this year.

I started writing this particular story early last summer when the greens were still abundant and we were beginning to receive weekly requests for "what do I do with it?" and complaints of "I don't eat greens." How does this relate? Precisely to my attitude on cooking woodchuck. Or squirrel. A lot of CSA newcomers simply don't know what to do with many of the items they receive in their shares. Some of them aren't interested in finding out. Which is kind of missing the point of a CSA, but whatever.

So this is a not really very well veiled attempt at jotting down a few thoughts on the Art of Eating Seasonally. 

In case you surfed your way into this blog (no doubt captured by the clever and witty title of this article) you need to know that we are a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) providing fresh garden vegetables to our members throughout the summer garden season. Our members are attracted to us for a variety of reasons, fresh and local being two of the words we hear most often repeated, and even heirloom from time to time  Lots of people are on the "Eat Local" bandwagon (so are we). One word we rarely hear, however, on the lips of our members or prospective members is Seasonal.

One of the first rules of eating locally is eating seasonally. For us who are accustomed to getting whatever we want whenever we want it from the ginormous produce section of our favorite large chain grocery store, it takes some getting used to. It's a bit of a shock to some to learn that the watermelon they're bringing to the Superbowl party originated in another country or that their vine-ripened organic tomatoes were actually severed from their California hothouse plant while they were still green and then ripened in a boxcar during a long cross-country journey. (They "ripened" on the vine. There it is, still attached to the tomatoes. See any dirt? Of course not. But I digress.)

It's great to have summer vegetables in January. It's marvelous to have strawberries with Thanksgiving dinner and sweet corn for Easter. A little weird, perhaps, but marvelous nonetheless. But it's not eating locally. Unless you know a local farmer who has the wherewithal to run a year-round climate controlled greenhouse. There are some, to be sure, and not knocking them. That's something we'd like to add here since I do adore a fresh green salad and that wimpy stuff that comes in bags at the grocery store just doesn't cut it.

So where am I going with this? Well, if you're still with me, here's my point. Perhaps you read a book or saw a film or talked to a neighbor and were convinced that you need to eat food grown locally. You've heard of CSAs and think, "Wow! What an awesome idea!" So now you're shopping around for a CSA. Here's the big secret you may have missed: eating locally means eating seasonally. Eating seasonally means eating whatever's growing right here, right now, not what grew in Peru or California last week. It means finding lots of creative ways to prepare the wide variety of greens that thrive in spring and early summer and late fall. It means waiting until July at least for that first ear of sweet corn or homegrown tomato. It means dealing with all those zucchini and summer squash in late summer. And it means learning to live with canned and frozen vegetables and stored root crops all winter. It may even mean learning how to can and freeze vegetables. They're still local. I put tomatoes and peppers from our garden on the pizza I made for supper last Friday - peppers are easy peasy to freeze and tomatoes are a cinch to dry. You can even learn how to can your own tomato sauce - it's not hard. Spend an afternoon or two with your tomatoes this summer and the proceeds will feed you all winter. It's on my to-do list to get recipes and links to recipes on our recipes page - maybe I'll get there by tomato season.

Eating Locally = Eating Seasonally

What's in season on the farm this week? Woodchuck. What else?