community – Central Brooklyn CSA

Delivery #2, Week of June 2, 2025

The News from Windflower Farm

Hello from all of us at a still-wet Windflower Farm!

What’s in the vegetable share?

‘Tropicana’ lettuce (green leaf) or red leaf lettuce
‘Red Russian’ kale
‘Prize’ bok choy
‘Crunchy King’ radishes
Baby bunched red or yellow onions
Potted ‘Prospera Red’ basil
News from the farm

On Friday of last week, in one spectacular day, three of our staff planted ‘Panisse’ and ‘Tropicana’ lettuce, ‘Red Russian’ kale, ‘Giant of Italy’ parsley and ‘Prospera’ basil, some 15,000 plants in all. And two more stellar employees, along with my son Nate, planted sweet potatoes, another 8,000 plants, or slips as they are called, making for a Windflower Farm one-day planting record. And then it rained, with nearly 3” falling before it was over.

There is much to be said for farming on high ground, and it is more than just the view. Our fields are usually quick to dry out. Still, runoff from a neighbor’s fields, which are even higher than ours, flowed between newly mulched beds of eggplants and chiles, producing nearly enough whitewater to kayak. Friends of ours who farm on both sides of the Tomhannock Creek had over 3” of rain and now cannot cross the ford to tend their crops on the far side of the creek. Weather, that fickle managing partner of our farm, has been particularly out of step with the plans we lesser partners have made for this season.

Next week, we expect to send purple kohlrabi, arugula, lettuce, kale, a mustard mix, radishes, and onions. Next to come from our fields will be cucumbers, squashes, garlic scapes and broccolini, but not until the weather becomes more of a team player.

Best wishes, Ted

CBCSA 2nd Annual Harvest Picnic

Join us for a fall picnic with your fellow CSA members!

Please bring a dish or beverage to share and let us know what you plan on bringing on this form. Family, friends and dogs welcome!

When: Sunday, October 14th, 2018, 3 to 6 PM
Where: Brower Park (Meet at the SE corner, near the intersection of Park Place and Kingston Ave)

Meet our Member, Molly

To say our CSA member Molly puts a lot on her plate might be the under-statement of this season.

Molly’s to-do list this autumn included, among others, celebrating her Vermont barn wedding with husband River; training for and completing the New York City Marathon; and registering for the Law School Admission Test. That’s in addition to her full-time work for a civil rights non-profit, where she learned about CBCSA from her colleague and fellow CBCSA member Elizabeth.

“I thought it was such a cool concept,” says Molly, citing the appeal of becoming a member of an organization that enables access to organic, local vegetables for Brooklynites, no matter their income. “We should all eat our veggies.”The collective “we” hints at Molly’s social justice sensibility from which her CSA commitment stems. She later refers to the Martin Luther King, Jr. thesis that injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere.

Molly has expanded her CSA enthusiasm beyond that basic of eating veggies. At the beginning of the season, Molly shared her and her mother’s scrumptious recipe for Summer Squash with Montreal Seasoning, published in the newsletter. In September, she arranged a pick-up swap so as not to risk spoiling veggies while she was away for the wedding, and shortly afterwards she carved out time for the conversation that informs this piece. Last week, Molly contributed her cheerfulness and solid work ethic during her distribution shift.

Once at home, in Crown Heights where Molly and River have lived for two and a half years, Molly appreciates the challenge of cooking with an abundance of seasonal vegetables. “It’s been an adventure for sure,” says Molly with a smile, identifying her go-to as tomato-onion-garlic. “I had never cooked chard before, for example. The CSA has caused me to branch out a lot.”

Branching out not only in her recipe repertoire, but to meet more neighbors was another factor that motivated Molly to sign up for CBCSA. She said she looks forward to making the acquaintance of fellow members during the remainder of this season — and hopefully next season, too.

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.

Join Jan in the snapdragons, Windflower Farm.

New Recipes in This Week’s Recipe Roundup

There are a whole lot of great places to find recipes here, just as there are a great many ways to prepare our amazing CSA produce.

Did you realize there are three places to find great tasting recipes on the Central Brooklyn CSA blog?

Every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday our blog turns into a “Weekend Cooking Blog” as our Food Education Team posts tested recipes (and tasty-looking photos) on the home page.
Every Wednesday we post a Recipe Roundup (which you can access by clicking the “Recipe” tab on the top of this page), which is an aggregation of scrumptious ideas from cooks we trust, using the vegetables we expect to get in that respective week’s share.
Every day our community members post and comment on new recipes of their own in our CSA Forum/ Recipe section (which can alwaysbe found by clicking the “CSA Forum” tab on this page).

There are a whole lot of great places to find recipes here, just as there are a great many ways to prepare our amazing CSA produce.

Eat well.