Farm Happenings for October 6, 2021

New this Week in Your Shares:

Honey nut butternut squashes are new this week! Arugula and romaine head lettuce are back!

Featured from Our Farm Partners:

Best-Selling Products from Tait Farm Foods - Blackberry Jam, Strawberry Jam, Cranberry Chutney, and Lemon Vinaigrette

Last week, we made a last minute switch to Woolf Farm's concord grapes in the fruit share. We hope you all enjoyed them! This week, we will be back to Woolf Farm Apples...

Customer Appreciation Event - Final Week!

It's officially lip balm season! As a small gesture of our appreciation to our customers, we are having a customer appreciate giveaway event! Just one week left! We'll be gifting each of our members with one of our brand new VEGAN lip balms in Unscented, Cool Mint and Citrus flavors. If you haven't received yours yet, look for your lip balm in your bag this week! Enjoy!

Updates from the Farm:

Fall Festival Season is upon us, and we have lots of special selling events in the coming weeks! This weekend, we are selling at the Sewickley Farmers Market (as usual) as well as the Squirrel Hill I Made It Night Market. Next weekend, we'll be at the Pittsburgh Fall Home and Garden Show and Fort Ligonier Days. It's going to be a busy stretch through the holidays!

This time of year also means that we are making and packaging lots of value-added products from the farm, including herb-infused vinegars, culinary herbs, soaps, lip balms, salves, bath salts, and some new items like bath bombs (spoiler alert!). All of these products are hand-made by us at our Farm Market & Cafe in Burgettstown. Products made by Farmers. :-)

On the farm, we are working quickly through the first part of October here to get the rest of the herbs harvested and dried from the field. We'll need to do this in advance of the first fall frosts, and it looks like we might have a few more weeks in the clear. We also will be cutting and drying as many cut flowers as possible as that season comes to a close in a few short weeks. Get bouquets while you can!

Although a little later than we planned, this week we'll be wrapping up the rest of the head lettuce planting and final greens seedings of the season. Then, we will switch gears to field clean-up and putting the farm to bed for the winter. The summer season always seems to fly by!

Have a great week everyone, and thank you again for being a farm share member this season!!

Jodi, Emily, Vanessa, and Jared

The CVO Farm Share Team

If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to vanessa@cherryvalleyorganics.com or to support@harvie.farm at any time.

Cherry Valley Organics began in 2001 as a USDA certified organic farm, producing a high diversity of agricultural products, including vegetables, herbs, cut flowers, and potted plants. Since those early years, we have grown into an organic lifestyle company, producing a wide diversity of products that support a clean, organic lifestyle, including our herbal teas and herbal body care products, all of which are grown or hand-made at our farm.

At Cherry Valley Organics, we believe in…

*Living the healthiest life possible (full of organics!)
*Fair, livable wages for our team members
*USDA certified organic growing and production practices
*Minimizing our carbon footprint and ecological impact
*Supporting our local community

Cherry Valley Organics is a collaboration. Unlike traditional family farms, we come from diverse geographical, family, and professional backgrounds. We are growers, scientists, food & health enthusiasts, teachers, caretakers, chefs, and nutritionists. We are all farmers. And, all of us here at Cherry Valley Organics are committed to growing and producing high quality certified organic products for our community. We would never compromise on organics. Ever.

Cherry Valley Organics, founded by Jodi Danyo, began as a one-third-acre “urban farm” in the Pittsburgh suburb of Crafton, Cherry Valley Organics now encompasses approximately 36 acres in nearby Cherry Valley, Washington County, PA. Despite this expansion, the footprint of the operation is still quite small with farming operations encompassing less than 8 acres. The farm was built, quite literally, from the ground up!

Our Farm Share Growers, Emily Kramer, Vanessa Davis, Lindsay Henry, Alexis Williams, and Alliy Gundlach, love producing high quality organic products for our local Pittsburgh communities. You can find our products at the Sewickley Farmer’s Market on Saturdays (April through November), and also at local florists and specialty shops. In 2018, we opened a Farm Market & Cafe along the Panhandle Trail in Burgettstown, PA.

What makes our Farm Share unique?

*We wash the produce. Thoroughly. You are unlikely to get any mud in your CVO Farm Share bag. We still recommend that you wash our veggies, but many items will be ready to eat (and may make for excellent snacking in the car on the way home from the pick-up location).

*High diversity of veggie crops. We grow over 150 varieties of vegetables and herbs per season, on average.

*Specialty crops, like microgreens. It's a bit unusual to see this high value crop in farm share programs. They are a bit tricky to grow, but wow do they pack a nutritional punch! Despite their small size, they are the most nutritious veggie in the share!

*We believe in minimizing our environmental impact, and we use biodegradable and compostable packaging wherever possible. And we have a variety of new packaging products in the works for 2021.

*Specialty cut flowers are a niche crop for us. We grow many of the hard-to-grow flower varieties like Ranunculus, Bells of Ireland, Delphinium, and more. Many more. Nearly 300 varieties! Our flowers are not your run of the mill market flowers. Our bouquets are carefully crafted, and absolutely gorgeous!

*We have extensive partnerships with other local businesses and farms, including Primrose Farm (pasture-raised eggs), Paul Family Farms (maple syrup), Tait Farm (jams, butters, shrubs), Weatherbury Farm (flours, milled products), Big Bob's Honey (honey), Clarion River Organics (potatoes, sweet potatoes, melons, winter squash), Woolf Family Farms (blueberries, apples, peaches), Cherish Creamery (cheese), Emerald Valley Artisans (cheese), Steel Cup Coffee Roasters (organic, fair-trade coffee), Conover Family Farm (pickles, hot sauce) and more! A selection of these items is available on a weekly basis and can be added onto your Veggie Farm Share in any quantity you choose. We believe in the value of small business and keeping dollars in our Pittsburgh neighborhoods.

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