Hi Everyone,
First news from Windflower Farm below with important details about fruit shares. Read this section carefully if you’ve purchased a full or half fruit share, as you will need to let CBCSA and Windflower Farm know right away if you want to continue your fruit share or receive a full refund.
We’re looking forward to seeing all FULL and A WEEK members at the first CBCSA distribution this Thursday.
Best,
CBCSA Core Group
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News from Windflower Farm
1st Distribution, Week of June 6, 2016
Greetings from all of us at 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!
This week’s share:
Leaf Lettuce
Dinosaur or Red Russian Kale
French Breakfast Radishes
Scallions
Happy Rich
Bok Choy
Arugula
Potted Basil
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 send us an email this week (windflowercsa AND centralbrooklyncsa). Fruit shares should begin next week.
The fruit share I envision will look something like this:
1. Strawberries and rhubarb
2. Strawberries and rhubarb
3. Blueberries
4. Blueberries
Midseason break (6 to 10 weeks)
5. Cantaloupes/watermelons
6. Cantaloupes/watermelons
7. Pears and husk cherries or grapes
8. Pears and husk cherries or grapes
9. Apples and cider
10. Apples and cider
Best wishes, Ted
Central Brooklyn CSA 