Distribution #2, Week of June 5

The News from Windflower Farm

Last week was hot and dry. Irrigation went on around the clock, making use of all three wells and one of two ponds. To conserve water, we applied drip irrigation tape to all our sweet corn, onions, leeks, shallots and beets, crops that would ordinarily have been overhead or sprinkler irrigated. Our first beans have germinated well and are ready for their first cultivation. We cultivated (meaning weeded by tractor) the greens, onions and potatoes. The only weedy patches now are where we’ve just pulled covers off our broccoli and cabbage. We directly sowed beds of arugula, spinach, radishes, dill and cilantro. We planted second successions of sweet corn, cucumbers and zucchinis. Sweet potato slips arrived on Friday from North Carolina and planting them along with the young winter squash plants growing in our greenhouse will be a focus of the week ahead. There’s a large, nearly full moon out tonight. I’d call it a Planter’s Moon if it were up to me. The black locusts have begun to bloom and it’s safe to plant your garden.

What you’ll get this week

  • Green Romaine lettuce
  • Red oakleaf lettuce
  • Red radishes, bunched
  • Kohlrabi bulbs
  • Assorted kales, bunched
  • Genovese basil, potted
  • The fruit share will be our own ‘Chandler’ strawberries on Tuesday and either our strawberries or Yonder Farm’s on Thursday.  

News from the farm

A truck farm needs a delivery truck. Our lease with Penske expired in January, and it became time for something new. We decided to purchase rather than to lease, and the truck we selected is a diesel Isuzu NRR. Its box is six feet shorter and its cab, being of the stub nose variety, is perhaps four feet shorter than our last truck, shortening the whole package by a whopping ten feet. This was happy news to Don and Daniel, our drivers, who must navigate the congested streets of New York City twice a week. Every bit as important to the task of ducking around double-parked cars and trucks is that its insulated box is 6” narrower than the old one. Compared to the Penske rig, this truck seems to be the better design for city driving. The more perfect iteration would be electric. They are becoming available now, but their current range is less than half of what we’d need for the round trip from the farm. I expect that the range we need will come in time.

I filled in as the driver during the first CSA distribution last week. The Isuzu is no sports car, but it’s relatively comfortable and quiet. Its airscoop gives it style, its seat is comfortable, its air conditioning works well, and its dashboard is impressive: the large roadmap, the Bluetooth telephone, the audio system. These are features that our 13-year-old Honda doesn’t have. The backup camera hadn’t been installed, so I took it back to the dealer on Friday. By lucky coincidence, they happen to be located near where I keep my ancient sailboat, so I went out to enjoy the day while they looked it over. The mechanic who inspected the truck was very excited for us. He told me that 90percent of Isuzu box trucks make it to the 300,000-mile mark. I hope that it turns out to be reliable for us, but I still purchased an extended warranty. Perhaps by the time this Isuzu’s power train is worn out, we can drop an electric motor and transmission into this one and be part of the low carbon future.

Have a great week, Ted

PS Many of you have asked about Don. I’m happy to report that he had good news from his oncologist and expects to be back in the driver’s seat this week.

Distribution #1, Week of May 29

The News from Windflower Farm

Greetings from all of us at Windflower Farm! Thank you for joining our CSA for the 2023 season. If you have received this email, then you are signed up to get a share. We’ll be making our first deliveries this week. We hope that you enjoy our weekly offerings. 

What you’ll get this week

  • Green Romaine or red oak leaf lettuce
  • Red radishes, bunched
  • Baby onions, bunched
  • Mixed salad greens, bunched
  • Assorted kales, bunched
  • Purple basil, potted

There will be no fruit this week because of the cold weather. The 20-week fruit share will likely start in the third week.

The season has started cold, windy and dry. “Don’t plant it if you can’t irrigate it.” That had not been the mantra of many a farmer in the Northeast ten years ago, or even five, but it is now. There is no rain in the ten-day forecast. Like most springs that we have experienced in our 24 years here – the weather has been highly variable. We had freezing temperatures just last week, and today it is in the middle 80s. The changeability of the weather can be maddening to the market gardener. Row covers on, row covers off, row covers on again. Warm season veggies will be slower to come this year than they were last year, but they’ll come. Patience may be needed. In the meantime, your shares will be comprised of the salad crops that do well in the spring – lettuces, kales, radishes. Soon, kohlrabi, beets and turnips will fill out your shares. Then cucumbers, zucchinis, broccoli and cabbages will come. And, later, tomatoes, corn and peppers.

News from the farm

It is midday Saturday and Nate and I are on the front porch, ostensibly to talk about our afternoon work, which will mostly involve irrigation. But our attention is drawn to the bird calls in the trees and on the telephone wires across the road from us. Three Bluebirds take turns dive bombing little bugs in the grass from their overhead perch. We’ve been pulled into the orbit of Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology, and their app called Merlin has, in just the past two days, helped us to identify some 31 species of birds by the calls they make. Instead of a cacophony of birdsong, we have begun to be able to identify the sounds of individual species. Like learning to tease out the sound of the oboe and the piccolo from the larger orchestra, we can now hear the Warbling Vireo, the Song Sparrow, the Grey Catbird.

Briefly, the birding app believes it has picked up a Common Loon, but it has placed a question mark beside the notation. A wise hedge, I think. It turns out to have been the poolside shouts of our neighbor Charlie, or perhaps his little brother Brady, both of whom will work here during school break. Later, while I investigate the readiness of our strawberries for harvest, the app registers the dreaded Cedar Waxwing, lover of red ripe strawberries. I hope that it is mistaken, kidding even, but I know better. It is time to cover the strawberries. Look for them in fruit shares before long.

Have a great week, Ted

Saturday, January 7th, Winter Distribution #3

The News from Windflower Farm

Happy New Year from Windflower Farm! Your third and final CSA delivery of the winter season will be arriving this Saturday.

If you cannot get to the site during the distribution window, please arrange to have someone pick up your share for you. Pickup times are noted below. All shares left after the pickup time will be donated to neighbors in need. We hope you enjoy your share.

Your pick-up time and location are noted below:

Central Brooklyn (1251 Dean St., 4:30 to 6:00)

What’s in your box?

  • Ruby Frost apples plus either Jonagolds or Empires
  • A jar of organic jelly from the kitchen of our neighbor Deb
  • Butternut squash
  • Celeriac
  • Carrots, kohlrabi and Watermelon radishes
  • French Fingerling potatoes and Covington sweet potatoes
  • Yellow onions and Ed’s Red shallots
  • Spinach and Toscano kale

The carrots and celeriac were grown using organic practices by our friends at Denison Farm.  The apples were grown by the Borden family and are not organic. All of the other vegetables were grown by us and are certified organically grown.  

French fingerling potatoes look very much like small sweet potatoes. Examine them long enough and you’ll see their differences. But if you still can’t, slice them open. The flesh of this potato variety is yellow, and the flesh of the Covington sweet potato is orange.

What’s new on the farm?

Snow has come and gone. The ground has frozen to a depth of three or four inches, but now it has thawed and become muddy. It’s been a strange start to winter. Our cover crops are happy to be out from under the snow and are again green. But our fall-planted garlic, onion, shallot and strawberry crops are not as happy to see the snow go. Their mulch is not enough. Robert Frost’s wish that his apples stay cold – “Better forty below than forty above”- is about the vulnerability of plants in the winter. Alternating warm and cold temperatures, something likely to occur with greater frequency in a warming world. Hope for snow. It protects plants from temperature extremes, it brightens the landscape and, besides, Nate and I bought ski passes for the very first time this year and we’d like to go skiing!

Thank you very much for being with us. We hope you’ve enjoyed your winter boxes, and we wish you and yours a happy and healthy new year!

We look forward to seeing you in June, Ted and Jan

Saturday, December 10, Winter Distribution #2

Greetings from Windflower Farm! Your second CSA delivery of the winter season will be arriving this Saturday. 

If you cannot get to the site during the distribution window, please arrange to have someone pick up your share for you. Pickup times are noted below. All shares left after the pickup time will be donated to neighbors in need. We hope you enjoy your share.

What’s in your box?

  • A bagful of apples from the Borden’s farm, including Empires and Honey Crisps
  • A jar of honey from Derek Woodcock at Harry’s Honey House
  • And from our farm:
  • Butternut squash
  • A bag of sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes
  • A bag of shallots and another of mixed yellow and red onions
  • A bag of kale from our unheated greenhouse
  • And a bag containing Denison Farm carrots, our beets and the last of our ginger

Next month, you’ll get spinach and lacinato kale, celeriac, kohlrabi and watermelon radishes, Ruby Frost and Jonagold apples, a jar of Deb’s homemade organic jam and a host of the usual winter vegetables (onions, potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, shallots, squash and beets).

What’s new on the farm?

December is our month for gathering supplies for the coming farm season. This week, it’s soil mix. On Monday, I travelled to Montpellier, Vermont to pick up the compost-based soil mix we’ve used for more than 20 years. Karl Hammer, who runs Vermont Compost, has been making some of the very best organic soil media for vegetable seed starting anywhere. We’ll post a couple of images on our Instagram page, including a shot of the pretty state capitol building. Next week, we’ll collect the row covers, mulches, organic fertilizers and drip irrigation supplies we’ll need. And later in the month, in what is our most important job of the winter, we’ll order all of our seeds. Which means we will have taken the lessons learned from previous seasons and the input from our shareholders and produced a crop plan that we hope will put us on track for a super 2023 farm season.     

Wishing you and yours a happy holiday season and a healthy new year, Ted and Jan

Pickup time and place for Central Brooklyn is:
1251 Dean St., 4:30 to 6:00

Saturday, November 19, Winter Distribution #1

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: 

  1. 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.
  2. 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. 
  3. 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. 
  4. 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.
  5. 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