I hope you got a chance to enjoy the sunshine yesterday - what a treat! We've got another week of Farm Stand home delivery coming up, and hope it is helping you and others to stay home and stay healthy while still having access to great local products.
We're planning to continue this weekly spring Farm Stand delivery until the summer CSA season begins the first week of June, so please be in touch if there are specific products you are looking for and not seeing (sorry, we don't grow toilet paper haha!) that we might be able to grow/produce and add as options for these spring Farm Stand boxes! Specific cuts of meat, certain bakery items, etc. We're all on new turf these days, but I am confident that through working together we can get through these challenging times. Let us know what we can do to make these spring Farm Stand boxes better for you.
Thanks to the winter CSA members who completed the winter season survey - your responses are incredibly helpful, and we really appreciate your time in filling surveys out! Many of you responded how getting CSA boxes helped your household eat more locally grown, healthy meals. We all know we should eat more veggies - the CDC says only 1 in 10 Americans eat the minimum recommended servings of fruits and veggies - but getting healthy choices into the fridge at home is 90% of the battle. I thought this picture was a pretty good illustration - here in the midwest, we have some of the best soil in the nation, but (on average) our diets are some of the worst in the nation. Nothing against the fine tradition of Friday fish fry and old fashioneds, but clearly that side of coleslaw and fries at the end of the week just isn't cutting it! We need to eat more fresh fruits and veggies, and CSA can be a great way to make that happen.
There were a few comments in the winter survey asking for more winter squash variety, and I am happy to say I've got several more varieties to plant for this season. Last year, we were only able to offer limited butternut squash as much of the crop was damaged in a late summer hail storm. The vast majority of the butternut fruits were all "dinged" with little hailstone pockmarks, which turned into little rotten spots later in the fall as we neared harvest time. The delicata and acorn squash, with a little thicker skin, managed to survive with very little damage, so that was mostly what we had available for this past winter. This season, we've got an assortment of butternuts (we're trialing out some mighty cute baby butternuts, so keep your eyes out for those this coming fall and winter!) as well as several types of kobacha squash. Kobacha's are dry and meaty inside, harder skin outside for protection against hailstorms, with nice sweet smooth flesh that store well into the winter (and get sweeter with time) so we're excited to add them to our fields this summer. We'll also be growing a few different varieties of delicata squash, including one that got rave reviews last year called "Honeyboat" - we'll have to see if it tastes as good as it sounds.
Here on the farm, the first round of carrots seeded in a hoophouse last month is germinating (you can see the teenie tiny carrots by my finger) so our first crop is officially up! The second planting of carrots is seeded and should be germinating in another 10 days or so. We've got a few more beets in the root cellar still, and the spinach we planted last fall is continuing to regrow, so we'll continue to offer those in the spring Farm Stand boxes for several more weeks. Soon however, we'll have to dig up those spinach beds and get our early transplants there instead - spring scallions, beets, collards and chard, as well as many hundreds of tomato plants, sweet peppers, and cucumber seedlings. The tomatoes are looking particularly great this year, and are growing quickly thanks to some warm sunny days.
It's encouraging to see the snow piles fading away and the fields emerging to light again this last week. Spring is on the way, there is no doubt now. With the kids home from school now for the foreseeable future, I've got a few extra hands around to help weed and transplant this spring, so we're rarin' to go! Plus, we're working on a few "special" variety trials this spring, and we'll keep ya posted on how those are growing in a few weeks ;)
Take care of each other, and hang in there.
Yours in community,
Chris Duke
Farmer, Great Oak Farm
CSA Manager, Bayfield Foods
