Central Brooklyn CSA

The News from Windflower Farm

What’s in your share?

• Fordhook Swiss chard
• Romaine lettuce
• Purple Ruffles kale
• Crunchy King radishes
• Purple bunching onions
• Garlic scapes
• Red Rubin Basil in pots

We send basil in pots because there are some folks in our membership who garden and others who have a spot on a windowsill. If transplanted into good garden soil, and watered regularly, the plant can last all summer. Or at least until Downy Mildew comes along. If you keep clipping the topmost leaf clusters, keeping ahead of the blossoms, new shoots will continue to develop. If this doesn’t interest you, use your basil soon, just as you would a bunch of basil bought at the market. Your container is fully compostable. Water your pot and it will keep for a few days. This week’s basil variety is Red Rubin and it has a fairly traditional taste. Last week’s, by the way, was Thai basil, and you may have noted a hint of anise. Genovese is coming next week. Our squash and zucchini planting has an abundance of flowers and small fruits, and I think you’ll get something from it next week. Your fruit will be a quart of strawberries from Yonder Farm.

What’s new on the farm?

Francis Lam on the podcast The Splendid Table asked today, “What does your June look like?”  Ours, so far, has been relatively dry, cool and windy, but the warmer than normal month of May has us ahead in growing degree days according to a neighbor, a grape grower, who tracks such things. More than anything, our June looks green – every possible color of green. And it tastes of the fresh things that our gardens are beginning once again to provide – tender lettuces, spicy radishes and arugula. Sauteed kale and onions with our eggs in the morning.

I spent much of the day yesterday on a cultivating tractor weeding onions, winter squashes, lettuces, Swiss chard, rutabagas, celeriac, scallions and sweet corn, a variety of crops that took me to every corner of the farm. It rained a couple of days ago and the young plants had become well anchored to the earth. I could be aggressive in terms of how I addressed the weeds without worrying about harming crops. We overplant slightly in order to have a few plants to sacrifice to effective weed control. If I can be aggressive early in the life of a planting, then we as a team will face fewer hand-weeding chores later. It rained again last night, helping to set right those plants I did dislodge.

The tractor I used was the latest iteration of our electric tractor design, and it may be our best yet. It’s certainly our most versatile. Nate, who runs our Instagram page, and is the chief electrical engineer on the project, has been collecting some photos and will post them soon. He’s made a logo for the tractor consisting of a “W” for Windflower, of course, and a lightning bolt. Farm fun. The latest model has a 3-phase AC motor, a German controller and a very efficient Italian transaxle. It’s no Ferarri or Lamborghini, but on the more practical side it runs all day. Our previous model had, at best, a four-hour run time. Thankfully, the seat is comfortable and the motor is whisper quiet. The clunking of metal cultivating parts against the rocks in our soil is all that I hear, at times like a punk rocker with a new drum kit, but most often like wood chimes in a good breeze.

Have a great week, Ted

Dear friends

This spring, treat yourself to a share of Windflower Farm’s certified organic vegetables. As a CSA member, you’ll get 22 weeks of fresh veggies, including sweet corn, tomatoes, bell peppers and greens of every kind, the makings for fresh salads every week.

Every year we modify the crop plan based on the feedback we get from our CSA customers and our own farm trials. This year, in addition to producing the garden favorites, we’ll double down on broccoli, cucumbers, shallots and new salad greens.

“In like a lion, out like a lamb” …and just like that spring has arrived. After a month and a half of steady work, three greenhouses are bursting at the seams. Our tractors and transplanters have been readied and it’s time to head to the field! We couldn’t be more excited to get started.

In addition to veggies, we offer shares of fruit, eggs, maple products and grains. 

Signups for the 2022 season are now closed. Thank you! 

Spring news from the farm

We pulled the transplanter out from behind the barn yesterday afternoon. It’s time to plant, and the machine needed a once over. Last year, it was given a canopy and new seats – important creature comforts for the planting team – but now it’s in need of maintenance to its carousel, the part of the machine that delivers individual plants from the planter’s hands to a specific row and at a prescribed distance from the previous plant. The springs, gears and levers that accomplish this had become worn and needed to be retired. Nate spent a day replacing parts and making small adjustments and tells me it’s ready for another season. By Thursday or Friday of this week, we should be planting your first shares – kale, Swiss chard, lettuce, kohlrabi and more. And by next week we’ll be seeding radishes, arugula, beets and broccoli raab.

Mid-April is usually cold and wet, and this year has been no different. Nevertheless, we found a brief window on Saturday during which the soil had become dry enough to work. And so, I climbed on our old John Deere 5425 and ran the Perfecta harrow across six acres of land slated for early June plantings of sweet potatoes, winter squashes and various fall greens. There is just enough time to grow a cover crop before planting these vegetables if it’s sown by mid-April. Immediately behind me, Nate was in the cab of the bigger John Deere 5100, spreading a blend of spring oats and winter pea seeds (and a brew of bacteria that will aid in nitrogen fixation) – 150 lb. per acre, 900 lb. in all. These crops will be knee high when we turn them into the soil in June. Once Nate finished seeding, I climbed aboard our tiny John Deere 4044 and attached the cultipacker, an implement that buries the seeds and firms the soil around them, greatly improving germination. It was raining steadily by the time I finished my work, and I was soaked through. But I was also exhilarated – our first field planting was a success.

Last week, we removed the mulch from the garlic and overwintered onions, and we put compost and wood chips around the blueberries and elderberries. We found a few surprises as we uncovered the garlic – first, happily, the garlic looks wonderful. Some beds were weed-free, some were inundated with Chickweed, a winter annual, and others were loaded with the mustard family weeds, Yellow Rocket and Shepherd’s Purse. We had to hand weed the Chickweed, but our small electric cultivating tractor took care of most of the mustards. It’s always best to start the season with weed-free beds and it felt good to get out of the greenhouse and into the field. This week, we’ll spin on some compost to ensure a healthy start to the crop.

Wishing you a happy spring, Ted and Jan

The News from Windflower Farm

Winter greetings from all of us at Windflower Farm! Your fourth and final share of the winter season will arrive on Saturday, February 5th.

What’s in the share?

• An Allium bag (yellow onions and red shallots)
• A bagful of carrots, beets, red and purple turnips
• A spinach bag
• A fruit bag containing Ruby Frost and Empire apples
• Sweet potatoes and potatoes in a bag
• Celeriac loose in the box
• And a jar of jam from our neighbor Deb’s Country Kitchen

To fill out this last box of the winter season, we reached out to organic farmers in our neighborhood. These are some of the people who will be a part of our more collaborative CSA in the future. Our friends Brian and Justine at Denison Farm provided the celeriac in this month’s share. Andrew Knafle at Clearbrook Farm helped with potatoes. Adam Hainer at Juniper Hill Farm helped with beets and carrots. And the Bordens provided the tree fruit. Everything else came from Windflower. Our friend Deb has a yard that contains berries of virtually every kind, including blueberries, Concord grapes, elderberries, red raspberries and blackberries, and makes hundreds of jars of jam each summer. She has made the jam in this month’s box. 

We know that turnips are not much in fashion these days, but you should know that they make for excellent soup stock. Most of their off-putting flavors are eliminated during the simmering, and they add a good deal to any broth, giving it a creamy texture. Here’s a link to a spinach-turnip-carrot-onion soup: https://www.eatingwell.com/recipe/252800/creamy-turnip-soup/. 

Celeriac should be part of every roasted root vegetable medley, adding color, texture and a delicious celery flavor. For something more interesting, try celeriac fritters. Peel the celeriac, cut into strips, deep fry, then serve with a little Dijon and mayonnaise. Numerous recipes exist; here’s one: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/celeriac-comte-fritters.

For several hours yesterday we harvested greenhouse spinach in full sunshine in temperatures in the upper 60s. A few hours in the sun does wonders for the spirit. During the nights this week, this space will have been well below freezing. Winter greens production is always risky in unheated greenhouses, and this has been a particularly cold winter. Twenty-one days in January were significantly colder than normal. But spinach is a hardy green, and you’ll get a bag of it this month. Soon we’ll be turning the heat on these very greenhouses. It will be time to sow the seeds that will become next year’s produce, starting with tomatoes, peppers and onions. 

We’d like to thank you for being with us this winter. We hope you’ve enjoyed your share. Please drop us a line if you have an idea that will help us improve future winter shares. You’ll hear from us about summer shares later this winter or in early spring. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the rest of winter.

Best wishes, Ted and Jan

PS: Here is a note from Kristoffer Ross about your final grain share. 

Hello folks,

Your final winter Grain Share Item is a 1 pound bag of Oat Groats. They can easily be cooked into an excellent oatmeal or porridge, for which you can find directions on the ‘Grain Recipes’ page of our Website. Our sincere thanks for supporting our continued efforts to sustainably diversify our farm, and to the Blomgren Family for allowing us to partner with them. If you would like to order more products before the next CSA season, you can do so directly via hickorywindfarm.net, and they will be shipped to you affordably via USPS. Kristoffer Ross

PPS: Your pick-up time and location is noted below.

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

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.