Hello!
We are so happy to see our old friends and meet our new members this week for the first Summer CSA harvest of 2020; our twelfth season! In this year of change and uncertainty, it’s lovely to be in touch with our supportive community members! We are grateful for your help in signing up for a specific time slot on your pick up day so that we can safely pack your shares for you.
Please check out this video we have made to illustrate how we are set up to greet you this year!
Following the recommendations of state and federal authorities, we have enacted many safeguards for the protection of our farm staff and CSA members and we greatly appreciate your cooperation. If you or anyone in your family has symptoms of COVID-19, please stay home! If you feel unwell at any time and cannot arrange for someone else to pick up your share, you can come and park in a spot marked for a touchless pick up and we can put it into your trunk, or we can donate it to the local food pantry. Remember that if you do know of a conflict in advance of your pick up day, you can reschedule your share for a later time using the Harvie system.
When you come to the farm, please follow the CDC guidelines and wear a mask or other face covering, as there may be times when maintaining 6 ft distance between people could be difficult. As much as we love visiting with doggos, we respectfully ask that all pets be left at home or safely contained within your car at this time.
While some of the veggies are ready to eat, the flowers take more time to mature and flower shares (for those that have purchased them, you will get a specific email when the flowers start) will begin sometime in mid to late July.
If you have an Every Other Week (Biweekly) Share, please check your calendar of scheduled deliveries that is found through your Harvie login portal.
Although we had an exceptionally warm and wet February then things got cold and it has been extremely dry for the past month. We may be starting off with a rather light share volume, but we expect the veggie shares will increase with bounty and variety in the coming weeks. We have many crops under irrigation, but some of the open field crops are slow to take off. We are happy to report though, we have many plants in the ground and continue to seed successive plantings in the greenhouse and fields. Already popping up are potatoes, tomato plants, and melons that should yield a rainbow of produce in August, sweet and a few hot varieties of peppers are growing taller and leafier. Lettuces and radishes are filling out nicely, while garlic scapes, kale, sweet peas, green onions, summer squashes, cucumbers, string beans and more are just a few weeks away!
Some of the produce you will receive in your share has been rinsed from the field, but like all fresh produce, should be thoroughly washed and refrigerated by you at home.
The annual herb beds at the Suffield farm at Hill Street have been recently re-planted and most herbs are not ready for harvesting yet. Once they are ready in a few weeks, please be sure to keep proper social distancing between yourself and other members and have only one person harvesting per bed at a time. Make sure you have clean hands before cutting anything in the herb bed, and please refrain from eating any food until you have gotten home and washed up. Feel free to bring your own clippers, or ask us to borrow some that we will sanitize between members. The U-pick cherry tomatoes and husk cherries are planted, but won't be ready to harvest until the ones in the bigger fields are ready (i.e. when you see them in the shares, they are probably ready in the U-pick too.)
As always, please feel free to email us (lisa@oxenhillfarm.com) or call us (Sheri at 860-214-5104) with any questions or concerns. We are so excited that you have chosen to join us for the harvest this year!
Please share, follow and interact with us to see more recipes and ideas with our Pinterest page and Facebook Page!
Here is the week 1 Pinterest page: https://www.pinterest.com/oxenhillfarmcsa/week-1/
