The News from Windflower Farm
Thank you for joining us for the winter CSA season. We hope you enjoy the healthy farm fresh goodies that come your way during each of the next three months. We’ve closed our winter share signup site and tallied the numbers. We’ll be packing 430 boxes this winter, exceeding expectations. Thank you for your support of our work. Your first winter share will be delivered this Saturday, November 19th.
Your pick-up time and location is noted below:
Central Brooklyn CSA (1251 Dean St., 4:30 to 6:00)
The next winter share distributions will be on Saturday December 10th and January 7th.
Please note:
- A friend, family member or neighbor can pick up your share for you if you are not able to make it to distribution. Please ask this person to sign-in under your name.
- Site hosts are not obliged to save shares for members who miss the distribution window. Any shares leftover after distribution will be donated to community fridges or food pantries and will help other community members in need.
- The farm is not able to send you a make-up share if you miss a distribution. The farm will send your shares on the distribution dates only.
- The farm will send you a newsletter a day or two before distribution. Please save these two emails to your preferred contacts list: windflowercsa@gmail.com and tedblomgren@gmail.com and check your SPAM folder if our newsletter does not make it into your inbox.
- Watch for updates from site hosts on social media. Many sites post updates about the share on Instagram and Facebook.
What’s in your box?
- Red Russian kale, Lacinato kale and bok choy all packed in a plastic bag
- Potatoes and sweet potatoes packed in paper
- Carrots, orange beets and ginger in a plastic bag
- Yellow onions, shallots and the last of our garlic in a net bag
- Borden Farm ‘Jonagold’ and ‘Empire’ apples packed in paper
- Rosemary and butternut squash packed loose
- Borden Farm apple cider packed separately
News from the farm
Jan and Nate made a fantastic soup from Soups On! called “Vietnamese Pho Real Bowl” using the ginger, bok choy, shallots and carrots in this month’s share. You’ll also need cilantro, mushrooms, rice or rice noodles and vegetable stock. Several variations can be found online.
A hard frost and our first snowstorm of the year arrived this week. Last week, temperatures were in the 60s, and I thought we might be harvesting spinach and ‘Premo’ kale from the field. Instead, we’ll be harvesting ‘Lacinato’ and ‘Red Russian’ kale and bok choy from our small “caterpillar” greenhouses. After a week’s break from the summer CSA schedule, we’ve reconvened this week to harvest Rosemary and greens and to sort and bag your storage vegetables. While everything in your share (apart from the fruit) is organically grown, and most is grown here, it is not all grown by us. The carrots in this month’s share were grown by friends Brian and Justine Denison. More will be in next month’s share along with some of their gorgeous celeriac.
Our cover crops have filled in, carpeting the farm in green ahead of the snow. Our winter greens have been covered against the cold, and our storage vegetables have been tucked away. The row covers we use to protect crops from the cold and winds and pest insects have been sorted – the good, the bad and the good enough – and tucked by the barn. Plastic mulches have been picked up, drip tape has been rolled up for re-use, farm equipment has been put away and broken gadgets placed by the workshop for repair. We are prepared for the cold season ahead. Our work is done. And now it’s time to kick back a little and to enjoy family and friends around the holiday table.
Wishing you a happy Thanksgiving, Ted and Jan
Central Brooklyn CSA 