Category: CSA

What’s in the share?

• Lettuce
• Arugula
• Salad mix
• Kale
• Garlic
• Rosemary
• Yellow onions
• Potatoes
• Sweet potatoes
• Bunched carrots
• Leeks
• Broccoli

This week’s fruit share will be your last of the year and will include Empire apples from Yonder Farm. I hope you have enjoyed the fruit share. Please feel free to send me an email with any thoughts that might make for a better one next year.

What’s new on the farm?

Members of our local staff have begun to announce their plans for the future. It’s something of a tradition here that in the last weeks of the distribution season, Jan and I learn about the changes we can expect in the makeup of our team. Farming is a seasonal activity, and life changes here tend to follow the seasons. Andrea, our membership coordinator, will be back for her 15th season next year. If sign-ups run smoothly, it’s because of her excellent work. Sisters Victoria and Naomi, our distribution and delivery coordinators, respectively, have indicated that they will be with us again next year, too. Victoria has been here for 15 years! She joined us as a newlywed and is now the mother of three boys. We are her mental health day. She is our key to a well-run packing shed. Naomi, now the newlywed, has been with us for 12 years. She makes sure the truck is on time, and that the right packages are delivered to each site. Don, who drives the delivery truck through the narrow and often chaotic streets of New York City, has not announced any changes, but that is different from announcing no changes. My fingers are crossed. Daren, who runs his own small garlic and specialty crop farm and works with us part-time, will also be returning. Working for us, he has said, is his day off. We are his “easy money,” and he’s been collecting it on and off for more than ten years. Angela, who works part-time on the farm and drives the van to Google’s offices in Manhattan on Thursdays, will be behind the wheel again next year. 

TB, the jack of all trades who lives in our little cabin, has already returned to school, but he will be with us for a couple of days next year, which is likely to be his last. When the time comes, his vacancy will be a tough one to fill. Sara, who has worked with Jan on the flower team for the past several years, has been developing a pottery business that is consuming more and more of her energy. She also has two or three other jobs. We are not sure if we’ll see her next year. Julia, our first-ever field coordinator, has announced that she is changing careers and will be moving on. Farming for profit, it turns out, is not for her, and she intends to answer the call of another vocation. We’ll all miss her. Nate, my oldest son and both payroll and soil health coordinator, is also staying on. I am grateful that he loves our little farm every bit as much as Jan and I do. I’m grateful to the whole staff – the best team in the Hudson Valley.    

What’s a winter share?

Winter share signups are underway! The share will start on Saturday, November 23rd, giving you enough time to empty your refrigerators of any summer share debris. The share lasts a total of four months, and come just once a month, on the following four Saturdays – November 23, December 14, January 11, February 8. Each month, the winter share, which comes pre-packaged in a returnable box, will include a big bag of greens (about 2 lb of spinach, kale or mustard greens from our unheated greenhouses), all kinds of storage vegetables (8 lb or so of carrots, beets, red and yellow onions, celeriac, potatoes, winter squashes and more), about 4 lb of apples and pears, and a locally made sweet treat (honey or jelly or apple cider). I hope you’ll decide to join us and keep our farm team gainfully employed during the winter! Follow this link to learn more and to sign up.

Best wishes, Ted

What’s in the share?
Lettuce
Arugula
Salad mix
Garlic
Red onions
Potatoes
Fennel
Peppers
Kale or collards
Bunched beets

Your fruit share will be more of Yonder Farm’s pears and apples.

Last week, we planted nearly all of our winter greens (three kinds of kale, two spinach varieties, tatsoi, Swiss chard and koji), leaving us with just some gaps to fill here and there.

This week, we will plant next year’s garlic and continue the harvest of storage vegetables – the rutabagas, turnips, leeks, beets, carrots, celeriac, fennel, kohlrabi and potatoes that will fill out your final three or four shares and winter boxes. Sweet potatoes, shallots and onions have already been tucked in. Your last shares will be delivered during the week of November 4th. Winter share details are being finalized this week.

The four dates of the season have been established: November 23rd, December 14th, January 11th, and February 8th.

What’s new on the farm?

A group of graduate students in the Products of Design program at SVA visited the farm over the weekend. This is the fourth year that they’ve come as part of their semester on sustainability. We toured the farm, harvested some crops, looked at the dozens of tools and systems we utilize here, enjoyed the view from our high ground, and then wrapped up by standing around our newest homemade electric tractor. I told them that I was thinking about making a few over the winter to sell to my fellow vegetable farmers, and that I know it needs a little finish work – perhaps a cup holder and a USB port and a sun canopy for the operator. I gave them paper and colored pencils and asked them to do what they could to give it some bling, to turn it’s bare chassis into the Ferrari or Maserati of tractors, I said, kidding. “Or perhaps the Tesla,” said one. “You mean you want us to pimp your ride?” asked another. I guess I did. “It needs more than bling,” suggested a third, “it needs body, and curves.” And they proceeded to draw round shapes over my angular little tractor. I collected half a dozen sketches by the time the students broke off into little groups for selfies and frisbee on the back lawn.

Only three or four of the 20 students had ever been to a farm. Most were from the megacities of the world. A woman from Mexico City said she might join us for the summer season next year. She was smitten with the tiny house that Nate and Jan are building and thought she’d like to try tiny living for a couple of months. I can picture her living in the tiny house on the hill above MaryJane’s pond, a totally pimped out (and shapely) electric tractor plugged into her solar panels, decompressing from academic life, enjoying the fresh air of country living.

Have a great week, Ted

Please join us for our 2nd annual kick-off party at King Tai!

Come and meet Farmer Ted Blomgren of Windflower Farm and hang out with your fellow CSA members. Stop by for a cocktail and delicious snacks provided Lewis Waite.

When: Saturday, April 13th, 3:00-6:00pm

Where: King Tai, 1095 Bergen Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216

We hope to see you there!

CSA News from Windflower Farm

Delivery #22, Week of October 29th, 2018

This week marks the final CSA week of the season. We are ready for a break; perhaps you are, too! The farm is cleaned up and cover crops have been sown on all the bare ground. Let the cold come! Everything has been harvested, or will be within a day or two, winter share crops are tucked away, fall planting has been wrapped up, temporary greenhouses have been dismantled and bags are packed for trips south and west.

This week’s share. Sweet potatoes, kale, choy, your choice of spinach or lettuce, red and yellow onions, leeks, potatoes, scallions, celeriac (a bulbous root crop having the flavor of celery, and a flavorful addition to any root medley) and perhaps a little something else. I was once dressed as a celeriac for Halloween, wearing stuffed white leotards for the rootlets and bulb. I tell you this because Jan accompanied me in a chef’s outfit and served celeriac fritters that were the hit of the party. She cut them like fries, dipped them in batter, deep fried them (this may not be the healthiest of snacks) and served them in a light mustard sauce. Delicious!

CSA Survey. You’ll find a link to our annual survey here: https://windflowerfarm.wufoo.com/forms/r1wtll4j1r7po72/. Please take a few minutes to tell us what you think. We want to make sure we are growing the kinds of CSA shares you want.

What’s new at the farm? This week’s share is the last of the season. Before saying good bye, Jan, Nate and I would like to say thank you. Thanks very much to you for being a part of our CSA. We hope that your eating has been a little healthier and that you have enjoyed being more involved in your local community because of it. Your membership in our CSA provides good, meaningful employment for all of us on the farm, and it keeps the landscape in which we reside productive and healthy. Thanks to all of you for giving us the opportunity to pursue the craft we love.

We’d also like to thank the volunteers who make the CSA work – the women and men in your neighborhood who organize the CSA. They work on newsletters and recipes, member recruitment, site management and work-shift coordination. Without the hard work of this core group, our little farm might not be in business. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Finally, we would like to thank our employees. We easily have the best farm team in the Hudson Valley and we couldn’t do what we do without them. Please come back!

You’ll find a link to our winter share signup form below. The first winter share will be arriving on November 17th. We hope you’ll join us.

Warmly,

Ted, Jan, Nate and everyone at Windflower Farm

Our winter share sign-up is underway! Help keep the Windflower Farm team off the streets of Valley Falls – please sign up today for our winter share. The link is here: https://windflowerfarm.wufoo.com/forms/m1xr27rk05nzoa8/

The winter share consists of four monthly deliveries that will include approximately 2 lb. of organically grown greens (including spinach, kales, Swiss chard and other greens) and 8-10 lb. of storage vegetables (including carrots, red and yellow onions, winter squash, a variety of potatoes, beets, leeks, sweet potatoes, popcorn, black beans and more), along with 4-6 lb. of fruits, and either apple cider or homemade jam or local honey – all packed to fit in a returnable box. This year, some of the storage vegetables (including carrots and butternut squashes) will come from neighboring organic farms, but almost everything else will come from Windflower Farm.

What’s new? Less plastic packaging! There are too many plastic bags in the world and we fully intend to reduce the number we use in packaging your vegetables. We’ll pack loose where we can, and use paper bags where we need packaging. Our GOAL will be to use zero plastic bags, but, because we are not yet sure that we can, we’ll promise this: to use no more than one plastic bag per month. And we have found a reusable, recyclable, tape-free box to help reduce waste.

An optional EGG share from neighbors raising free-range hens is also available in the winter, as is a MAPLE share. Our four deliveries are timed to coincide with the deliveries made to your CSA pickup site by Lewis-Waite Farm (of CSA Extras) for one-stop shopping.

Delivery dates: November 17th, December 15th, January 12th and February 9th. Follow this link for pricing and site specific details: https://windflowerfarm.wufoo.com/forms/m1xr27rk05nzoa8/

We hope you’ll join us.

CSA News from Windflower Farm

Delivery #21, Week of October 22nd, 2018

Cold weather is expected this week, along with sunshine. Fall colors are fading, and final harvests are underway.

This week’s share. Sweet potatoes, ginger, spinach, butternut squash, escarole (or kale), Koji (a dark green choy), fennel (bulbs and fronds), yellow onions, the last of our sweet peppers. Next week’s share is the very last of the season and will include a variety of greens and root crops.

What’s new at the farm? Today, Jan, Nate and I are washing and sorting ginger for this week’s delivery and planting elderberries. The Medina clan is harvesting the last four caterpillar tunnels of sweet peppers and the last four beds of sweet potatoes. Collectively, we are wearing every manner of outdoor clothing, none of which is likely to be seen on this year’s fashion runways. Martin is wearing a matching tan Carhartt jacket and balaclava, with green rain pants and duck taped black rubber boots. Daniel, whose appearance is the most sophisticated among us, has on a set of bright orange Healy Hanson fishermen’s bibs over a black Hefty trash bag. He might have just come off an Alaskan trawler. I’m wearing EMS’s flannel lined dungarees, in blue, and a black Prava jacket I found at the second hand shop in town, neither of which, it turns out, is any good in the wet.

Nate and Jan have been testing their new foul weather gear, most of which includes polypropylene and gore-tex and various shells, in part to keep them comfortable today, but also because we are heading off on a hiking trip the day after we make our last delivery, and they would like to know how well the stuff works. Our vacationing happens in the off season. Last year, we went to Acadia in coastal Maine in December and had the hiking trials to ourselves. This year, it will be Sierras and southern Utah in November. When we return, it will be just in time to prepare the first of your winter shares, and we’ll know exactly what to wear. This year’s surprise find is waterproof socks by Seal Skin (not real seal skins, of course).

Our winter share sign-up is underway! Help keep the Windflower Farm team off the streets of Valley Falls – please sign up today for our winter share. The link is here: https://windflowerfarm.wufoo.com/forms/m1xr27rk05nzoa8/

The winter share consists of four monthly deliveries that will include approximately 2 lb. of organically grown greens (including spinach, kales, Swiss chard and other greens) and 8-10 lb. of storage vegetables (including carrots, red and yellow onions, winter squash, a variety of potatoes, beets, leeks, sweet potatoes, popcorn, black beans and more), along with 4-6 lb. of fruits, and either apple cider or homemade jam or local honey – all packed to fit in a returnable box. This year, some of the storage vegetables (including carrots and butternut squashes) will come from neighboring organic farms, but almost everything else will come from Windflower Farm.

What’s new? Less plastic packaging! There are too many plastic bags in the world and we fully intend to reduce the number we use in packaging your vegetables. We’ll pack loose where we can, and use paper bags where we need packaging. Our GOAL will be to use zero plastic bags, but, because we are not yet sure that we can, we’ll promise this: to use no more than one plastic bag per month. And we have found a reusable, recyclable, tape-free box to help reduce waste.

An optional EGG share from neighbors raising free-range hens is also available in the winter, as is a MAPLE share. Our four deliveries are timed to coincide with the deliveries made to your CSA pickup site by Lewis-Waite Farm (of CSA Extras) for one-stop shopping.

Delivery dates: November 17th, December 15th, January 12th and February 9th. Follow this link for pricing and site specific details: https://windflowerfarm.wufoo.com/forms/m1xr27rk05nzoa8/

I hope you’ll join us.

Have a great week, Ted