The News from Windflower Farm
Happy winter from the Windflower Farm team!
We write to remind you that your February share, the last of the season, will arrive this Saturday, February 6th, and to relay some information about pickup times and protocol.
See below for a list of distribution times and locations. If you pick up at West Harlem, please note the earlier pick up window.
Please plan to arrive within the time allotted for the distribution or send an alternate to pick up your share. Your share will come pre-packaged in a box that you may take home. We are happy to take boxes back and to recycle them when we next return to the city. Check in with your site coordinator to find out how this can be done at your site.
If you’ve ordered eggs or a maple share, please remember to seek them out – they will not be packaged in your box. Check in with the site coordinator.
Note that we cannot help you if you have failed to pick up your share on time. We will be in a box truck making our way back home, and we won’t get there until late evening. Please make a plan to pick up your share or to have someone come in your place.
Your February share:
- Yellow frying/roasting potatoes (Yukon Gem, soft but still delicious)
- Sweet potatoes (Covington, unwashed)
- Carrots (Bolero) and beets (Chioggia if they are red skinned and have red and white flesh and Red Ace if they are dark red throughout)
- Spinach (Space) fresh from the greenhouse
- Yellow and red onions plus a small garlic bulb and a few shallots (various varieties)
- Popcorn (Robust 97) and
- some oddballs, including either a celeriac (Mars) bulb, a rutabaga (Helenor) or a turnip (Gilfeather), depending on supply
- Apples (Honey Crisp) from the Borden Farm and jam (assorted flavors) from Deb’s Kitchen
All of the vegetables in your share are certified organically grown. Deb’s jam is made from her own backyard berries, which are also grown without pesticides. But the fruit from Borden Farm is not organic. Your sweet potatoes and spinach will not have been washed. Please wash all of your fruits and vegetables before eating.
We had some help filling out this month’s share. The potatoes came from Williams Farm, the Chioggia beets and carrots came from Denison Farm, and the Red Ace beets came from Clearwater Farm. All were grown organically.
What’s new at the farm?
Today, we harvested your spinach where it has been growing since early October in two of our greenhouses. Outside, it was a lovely 40 degrees and sunny; inside, it was nearly 60 degrees and Mark O’Connor and Yo-Yo Ma’s Appalachian Journey was playing over our speakers. The team and I concluded that farming in winter is pretty good work.
On the Monday after our NYC delivery, we’ll clean out the places on our farm where we store vegetables and send the final few pallets of onions, potatoes, spinach and other odd ends to our local food pantry. This marks the end of one farm year for us, and the beginning of the next.
In December, we placed orders for the things we’ll need for the next season. Beginning a couple of weeks ago, boxes of seeds, growing supplies and tractor parts began to arrive almost daily. We’ll fire up the greenhouse on the first day of March, which gives us just a few more weeks to prepare our taxes, finalize the crop plan, hire some new staff and make repairs to the equipment we managed to break last year.
For the next four weeks, we won’t have greenhouses to tend or coolers to mind, which is a relief. We’ll use this time to organize next year’s CSA. For those of you wanting to join us for the 2021 summer CSA season (and we hope that’s all of you!), please stay tuned. Details are being finalized now and sign up information will be sent out in just a few weeks. We’ll save a spot for you!
We hope that you have enjoyed your winter boxes. Please feel free to share your feedback with us by return email. Thank you very much for being with us.
Our very best wishes, Ted, Jan and the Windflower Farm Team
Central Brooklyn CSA 