Tag: Agriculture

Delivery #7, Week of July 13, 2025

The News from Windflower Farm

What’s in the vegetable share?

  • Lettuce
  • Tomatoes
  • Basil
  • Kale OR Greens Mix (your choice)
  • Arugula
  • Cucumbers
  • Yellow onions
  • Zucchini/Squash

Everything in this week’s share was grown organically at Windflower Farm

Your fruit share will be a pint of our own organically grown blueberries

News from the farm

On Thursday afternoon of last week, we had an impromptu visit by officials from the US Department of Labor and a significant hailstorm, and we will be feeling the impacts of these for the next couple of weeks.

Lucky us, the DOL inspector told Jan that he intends to do a full 5-year audit of our farm’s labor practices. Many farmers can spend their entire careers without encountering a federal DOL official. He also told Janthat our farm worker housing was the nicest he’d ever seen, which I hope he remembers when he encounters the inevitable shortcomings in my paperwork.

Farm workers and farm raids by ICE have been much in the news lately. Daniel, the young man from Mexico you might have met if you encountered our delivery truck, told me about the worker abuses at a farm in New Jersey that employs many of his neighbors from Guanajuato, the most flagrant of which is that they take so many “payroll deductions” from their paychecks that they effectively get only 55% of what they are entitled to. They are getting just $10/hour when they should be getting nearly $18.00. Why don’t they make a complaint?, I wondered. Because there is no way to earn $700/week in Mexico, was the answer. And they are willing to work the 70 hours a week their New Jersey farmer requires of them to earn it. Make a complaint and the job vanishes. These are the people who grow our food. We cannot allow them to betreated that way.

When it comes to the details of the audit here, I’m not worried about a bad outcome: we work hard to do everything by the book. Still, it will take hours to get together the paperwork they’ve asked for. My goal is to have it done by Monday because I want time to prepare for the Department of Agriculture produce safety inspection that is coming up on Wednesday.

The hailstorm, the other thing that happened on Thursday, caused substantial damage. The wind-driven hailstones came straight out of the north, shredding leaves and blowing the plastic off a greenhouse. Fortunately, we grow most of your tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers in tunnels, and some of your greens under cover. Most of the current crop of summer squashes and zucchinis were ruined, but more will come along soon. The young greens will recover, although this and next week’s greens will no doubt show some of the damage. The potatoes and squash and corn were all flattened, but I am confident that they’ll come back. We’ve experienced worse.

Best wishes, Ted

Windflower Farm opens its barn doors

Save the date for the Annual Open House at Windflower Farm August 23-24!

Central Brooklyn CSA members are invited to a Saturday mid-day tour of Windflower Farm, a wine, beer and cheese hour with local music and homebrews, and a potluck with the farm staff and CSA members from all over New York City.

From Farmer Ted: “You are welcome to camp on the farm (most people do) and to enjoy the campfire and the star-filled sky, or stay at one of the nearby motels or B&Bs. We will make breakfast for you on Sunday morning, after which you might go for a swim in the Battenkill River, tour Victory View Winery, attend the Washington County Fair or the Cambridge Farmers’ Market, go to the horse races at the historic track in Saratoga, head up to the Battenkill Creamery for an ice cream sundae, or visit the new Argyl Brewery store. Bring a tent and sleeping bags, good footwear, and a dish to pass.”

For those Members concerned about Potluck perishables: Farmer Ted says there is refrigerator space, cooler space, and ice to share.

Please RSVP with the number of people in your party to Ted.

 

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Join Jan in the snapdragons, Windflower Farm.


 

Why Join? Because You Can Make A Difference!

CSA’s help you make personal changes that will likely positively affect more than just you. What a way to begin to make a difference.

A lot of the news I read and watch tells me that we all need to try harder to live within our means. Whether that means, sticking to a budget, or making more Earth-aware decisions, or even watching what we eat so that we can enjoy life and avoid costly trips to the doctor.  There is no one thing any of us can do that will improve every aspect of our lives, but for my money, joining a CSA is a great place to start.

Spend Differently

The membership fee in most CSA’s goes directly to the farmer as seed money, and Central Brooklyn CSA is no different. The reasoning is simple: by knowing whom they are planting for and how much they need to harvest, farmers are able to budget better and ultimately save money. CSA memberships can help members apply that same logic to their personal finances. By pre-paying for a season’s worth of produce, members can better plan their grocery budgets, save money week-to-week, and not have to worry about the price of carrots or lettuce going up every time they go shopping.

Buy Differently

Buying food from local farmers is literally investing in your own community. Spending money in your neighborhood keeps business in your neighborhood and encourages those businesses to provide the products and services you like. But buying food from local farmers is also an investment in our global community. Not only does buying from a local farmer reduce the gas used to ship food by as much as 90%, but often, as is the case with our farm MimoMex, CSA farmers refrain from using petroleum-based fertilizers, which also reduces the use of (and  harmful by-products) of fossil-fuels. Did you realize that 1 in every 6 gallons of oil used in America is used for agriculture? By joining a CSA and buying locally-grown foods, you can help change this.

Eat Differently

If making a change can help you live a more healthy and productive life, isn’t that a change worth making?                Sometimes the most important change we can make is within ourselves. For some folks, the hardest part of joining a CSA is committing to eat fresh vegetables and fruit. Cooking at home and eating produce everyday is different if you are not used to it, true enough. Replacing chips, crackers, and sugary snacks with fresh produce can reduce your risk of diabetes, high blood-pressure, obesity, and cancer.  What is more, the Central Brooklyn CSA is committed to helping our members find new, delicious, and healthy ways to prepare their produce!

CSA’s help you make personal changes that will likely positively affect more than just you. What a way to begin to make a difference.

Check out our shout-out on “Not Eating Out In New York”

Our good friend Cathy Erway wrote a great piece on the Central Brooklyn CSA… There is still time to sign up, but hurry!  Shares are moving fast!

Why Join? Because the Food is Amazing!

Our farmers only harvest produce when it is ready to eat, instead of harvesting it weeks early to ship it across the country, or further!

If you are keeping count this is the third installment in our “Why Should I Join?” series. If you want to read the earlier posts here is the introand  part 1!

Delicious Food

My mother used to say “Boy, what you want isn’t always what’s best for you.” Who knew she was talking about vegetables? (Ok, she probably wasn’t but, the idea still fits here!) Although I would love to eat farm fresh tomatoes year-round, I cannot. Because I would rather not eat tomatoes, than eat a bland hot house tomato in early June, I have learned to heed Mom’s words.

The great thing about being a part of a CSA is that I can eat fresh, great tasting food all season, because our farmers only harvest the food when it is ready to eat, instead of harvesting it weeks early to ship it across the country (or further, yikes).  This means that the food is at it’s peak ripeness, and it’s peak nutritional value; you’re getting the vegetables that are the best for you, and the best tasting!

In the late summer, when the tomato harvest comes in, “Look out world, I’m on a natural high!” And in the meantime, I get to try fruits and vegetables that although I may have never tried before new, I know they taste the way they are supposed to.  And, learning to love new food is almost fun as eating a delicious favorite.

Central Brooklyn CSA has vegetable, fruit, and egg shares available. We are currently developing a wicked menu board, and are planning on hosting cooking demonstrations to boot, so if you like the idea of eating perfectly ripened fresh foods, but are not yet a kitchen wizard, fear not!