Newsletter: August 31, 2010 & Harvest Fest Info!

Dear Friends of the Farm,

This week you are getting Yukon Gold potatoes, white onions, carrots, red cabbage, white turnips, squash, cucumbers, green & purple peppers, tomatoes, green beans, Charleston Gray watermelon and orange flesh honeydew.

New this week are Sunkyo radishes, red peppers, jalapeno hot peppers and our heirloom specialty tomatoes. You will be given a choice between Brandywine, purple and Super Sue tomatoes. The Sunkyo radish has a semi long root with a deep pink exterior and a bright white interior. It has a crisp nutty flavor that is both hot and sweet at the same time. The leaves are edible either wilted or fresh.

You will be getting a full box of fruit that will be filled half with Bartlett pears and Red Globe peaches. First Fruit wants to thank you for being so understanding this summer with the inconsistency with the fruit deliveries. Their weather has really affected their crops. Being a Community Supported Agriculture participant, I know you are learning the ups and downs a farmer has to deal with each summer and how that may affect the quality of your produce. Please be patient and send them your best wishes for a half-way successful summer!

We are also experiencing difficulties in the fields because of the extremely cold spring and then the sudden shift to our extremely hot summer. We had delays in our spring crops and then our main season crops came on early because of the heat. Add to that the stress the plants are experiencing from the grasshopper damage. Needless to say, we are really happy you have gotten this much produce so far! We have had very little extra or ‘bonus crops’ for members to pick. And we are not sure what the coming month will bring!

Heirloom Watermelon and Tomato Salad with Feta

Some people like to eat their watermelon unadulterated, juices dripping down their arm as they hold it out in front of themselves over the grass, spitting seeds to the side. But for a more unusual and surprising use of this juicy fruit, try turning it into a savory salad. We’re at the height of watermelon and tomato season right now, perfect for making this dish! Click here for the full recipe.

~posted by Michele of Cooking with Michele

Newsletter: August 24, 2010

Dear Members,

You will be getting red potatoes, Walla Walla onions, carrots, squash, pickles, green & ivory peppers, fennel and muskmelon.

New this week will be mild Anaheim hot peppers, golden beets and orange-flesh honeydew melon. You are also getting Moon & Stars or Charleston Gray watermelon. These are two very old heirloom watermelons. There isn’t enough to give everyone one of each, so you will have a choice of one or the other at distribution. This year, I think I may have eaten some of the sweetest melons ever! Enjoy them while they last. They are on early which means we won’t have them later in Sept.

Okay everyone! We have three contestants who have sent in their designs for the T-shirt contest. You will need to go to the blog to vote for the design you like best. We will announce the winner in our Sept. 6th newsletter. Voting has started below, and will end on August 31st. We are very excited about this contest and would appreciate everyone getting involved in the voting processes! Please check out the designs have been that have been posted.

Don’t forget to RSVP to Peg Lehr at wrdwrrior@comcast.net or (if you do not use email) call her at 303-329-8506 for the September 19th festival. We will need to know how many adults and how many children will be attending. Please indicate if you are a vegetarian. We discourage guests, but some Members bringing them; we will need their names and how many will be attending. They must accompany a Member and will pay $10 per person to join the farm fun; children 3 and under will not be charged. They cannot have or pick any produce.

Those of you who cannot do field work, there are many ways to volunteer and help out around here! We also need volunteers during the Festival. There is a Check-In Station where everyone attending the Festival will need to get a name tag. Eight volunteers total, 2 per hour starting at 11, 12, 1 & 2. We need a total of 4 to 8 Master Grillers, starting at 10:30, 11:30, 12:30 and 1:30. If you are willing to grill for more than an hour, let us know! There is also a need for volunteers to set up and tear down the Festival. Set up starts at 8:30 and tear down will begin around 3. Every year we have a great bunch of volunteers to clear the tables of empty dishes, rinse them and put them back underneath the serving table; Keep the drink containers full and chop extra produce if needed (again 1 or 2 people every hour). And last by not least there is a need for people to make sure there is toilet paper and paper towels at the bathrooms and take out the trash. Do we have a few canning experts to run the Canners Tent? Peg Lehr will also be taking down this information. We cannot run the Festival without all of these volunteers and your help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you very much for participating!

Jacquie, Jerry, Alaina and Kyle

First Annual T-Shirt/Logo Design Finalists! VOTE NOW!

We are going to have merchandise available with the traditional Monroe Farms logo, but the Monroe’s also want to have an annual contest for a logo that would be specific for each year.  In the last last couple of weeks’ newsletters, Jacquie has requested your designs.  Here our 2010 finalists.  Click on each picture for the best view.

Design 1 – “Veggies and Dog”:

Design 2 (front and back) – “Rooted in Colorado”:

Design 3 – “Colorful Veggies”:

Please use the poll below to cast your vote!

We hope to have the t-shirts available for the Harvest Festival on September 19, so polling will close on August 30th.  Please make sure you vote for your favorite design!

Newsletter: August 17, 2010

Dear Members,

This is week 9 out of an 18 week season. We are half way through the summer. Hard to believe! It feels like we have just gotten started…then again, my body reminds me how much work I have been doing!

How do you like the bounty you have been receiving? I know the season started out slow, but man oh man, Mother Nature really caught up! We have two or three plantings of corn and melon on right now. We try to space it so that when one field goes out, another is coming in. It was so cold and rainy this spring that our early crops were late. Now that is has been hot, our main season plantings are on early. You are getting double the corn and melon because of this. Do not panic, it will all settle down soon. We may end up without any kind of melon or corn later in the season! So enjoy while it is here!

I heard from a little bird that peaches are coming this week. Yeah! The fruit growers have decided that since we haven’t gotten fruit in such a long time, they are going to deliver smaller amounts more often. You will also be getting Crimson Sweet watermelon and green flesh honeydew as well as white turnips, cabbage, summer squash, red onion, carrots, green and purple peppers, eggplant, peppers, beans, corn, tomatoes and muskmelon. You will not be getting potatoes or cucumbers this week.

We are once again letting members who own their own businesses list them on our Blog page. We do not endorse any business listed on the Blog, but it is a nice way to get your information out to our Members. I have used countless members for plumbing, electrical, accounting, doctors and even our trash service! I don’t know about anyone else, but I would rather use a member of Monroe Organic Farms who thinks a little like me than someone I don’t have a clue about! If you’d like your business listed on the blog, post a comment here with your business name and web site. This is an electronic listing only. If you do not have a website, you can post a link to your listing on dexknows.com or a similar website that your business is listed with.

I hope to get statements out within the next two weeks for the September 1st payment. My office assistant quit in the middle of last month, and it has been very hard for me to get office work done when I am not home most of the time. I am working hard to get everyone’s payments into the computer in order to get those statements out. Please bear with me, we may have to post pone the due date for the last produce payment!

Don’t forget to notify your Distribution Center if you are going on vacation and what you want done with your produce. If someone will be picking up for you while you are gone, please notify your Distributor who they are and give them their telephone number.

Alaina is heading in for (we hope) to be her last eye surgery for the year. I will not be available this week. Telephone messages will be checked, but only emergencies will be returned.

Have a delicious week!

Jacquie, Jerry, Alaina and Kyle

Peaches!

Jacquie called today and wanted me to announce that this week, those who have a fruit share will be getting PEACHES from First Fruits!  Hooray!  If you haven’t tried them – these peaches are a real treat!  Yum Yum!  The peaches are here!

Newsletter: August 10, 2010

Dear Friends,

This has been the craziest week of up and down weather for Colorado. The Denver Metro area has been hit hard in areas with heavy rain. Meanwhile, here at the farm the sun never left the sky! The humidity has been a killer though! Rainstorms have passed us on the south (from Boulder) and storms have passed us to our north (from Ft. Collins); but no direct hits. We actually don’t mind not getting the rain this time of year. If we do not get rain, we are guaranteed not to get hail too! This is a very good thing!!

New Crops this week are Chioggia beets, patty pan squash (a round disk shaped squash, great on the grill), Ivory bell peppers, white flesh honeydew and white sweet corn. I know we have been giving you a lot of corn lately. Because the weather has been so warm, several plantings are coming on at the same time. We are giving it to you now because you may not get it later. Corn is very easy to freeze. Cook it the recommended three minutes, cool and cut off cob directly into a shallow pan. Scoop the corn into a plastic freezer bag. Pinch out as much air as possible before sealing. Your tummy will be very happy this winter when you pull out a bag of corn for dinner! It will taste so much better than anything you get fresh or frozen in the grocery store!

Some of you may say you don’t like honeydew melon. This may be true if the only honeydew you have ever eaten is from restaurants or grocery stores. This melon happens to be the sweetest melon we grow. It is picked when it is at its peak of ripeness. It will be soft, but that is just the way it is supposed to be. Be careful how much you eat, it can give you a sugar headache!

Now that you are getting several pieces of produce you will need to pick out yourselves, we are asking that you take a variety of sizes. This way, the last few members at the end of the day do not get the smallest ears of corn or the smallest tomatoes, etc. Please be considerate of all the members at your Distribution Center!

This is a reminder for members competing in the t-shirt design contest that you have one more week to turn in your designs. Make sure you contact Jan Coffelt at jancoffelt@gmail.com so that she knows you are a contestant! She will have detailed information on how to send her your design.

I still have one payment made by someone with the last name of Bates that is not attached to any member of the farm. It is a substantial amount of money! If this sounds like someone connected to you, please call so that we can transfer the payment to the correct member account.

Please continue to bring back your empty bean bags, vegetable bags and egg cartons. We do need you to completely empty them of beans and onion skins. If necessary, please shake them outside to get everything out!

Have a great week!

Jacquie, Jerry, Alaina and Kyle

Olive Oil for Your Vegetables

One of my favorite ways to enjoy the vegetables from the farm is simply grilled or seared and drizzled with a high quality extra virgin olive oil. If you’re in search of some yummy Italian olive oil, check out my blog to learn about my new sponsor, Gourmet Cooking & Living. Leave a comment after the post on my blog to be entered into a drawing for a free bottle of oil!

Cooking with Michele olive oil giveaway – click here.