Newsletter – August 26, 2019

NOTE: This blog is posted by a volunteer. No one from the farm checks or responds to messages here. You must contact the farm directly with any questions, comments, etc.

Dear Friends of the Farm,

This Week you are getting Yukon Gold potatoes, red onions, carrots, squash, cucumber, lemon cucumber, globe eggplant, green & purple bell peppers, red & yellow watermelon, Greeley Wonder Melon, corn & tomatoes. Sounds like ratatouille to me!!!

Fruit: The Western Slope fruit growers are experiencing a late crop on some of their tree fruit. The main season peaches will start next week and I hope to get you ten pounds of peaches every week for at least three weeks. As time goes by, I hope to get you pears, plums and apples too!

Tomato & Chili Picking: Now is the time to get on our Wait List for canning tomatoes. I don’t know when we will have tomatoes, but it will be sometime in September. At that time, you can get your chili peppers too. If you want them roasted, it will cost $5 to cover the cost of the fuel. You can always take them home and roast them on a grill or under your broiler. You will also be able to get onions and possibly garlic too.

Winter Share: Next week, I will be sending out the Winter Share forms. Everyone will find one in their bag. We will need these to be returned by the end of September. We tend to fill up on this one pretty fast and will be advertising at farmers markets. So, the sooner you get them filled out and returned, the sooner I can retain your space for you!

New Winter DC: We have found a Distribution Center for the Downing area (Is this considered “Capitol Hill”?) It will be between 12th & 13th off of Josephine Street. This feels like a good location considering that we have members coming from 23rd & Forest, Colo. & Colfax as well as 6th & Downing & 1st & Logan areas. Jennifer has been a member since 2005 and has been a DC before. I’m really excited to be working with Jennifer again. .….Thank you very much Jennifer!!

Ratatouille Bake

1 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped (or 1 Tbsp dry)
5 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp fresh basil, chopped (or 1 Tbsp dry)
1 med. onion, diced
½ tsp salt
2 C. eggplant, diced
¼ tsp pepper
2 C. summer squash, diced, (any kind)
2-3 tomatoes, diced
4 oz mozzarella, grated
1 bell pepper, diced
8 – 10 oz frozen cheese-filled pasta (ravioli or tortellini work well)

Sauté garlic, onion & eggplant in oil for three minutes. Add next 7 ingredients and sauté 5 to 10 minutes. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Meanwhile cook pasta according to package directions. Drain & cover the bottom of a large, oiled baking dish with pasta. Cover with hot veggies, top with cheese. Broil until brown.

Newsletter – August 19, 2019

NOTE: This blog is posted by a volunteer. No one from the farm checks or responds to messages here. You must contact the farm directly with any questions, comments, etc.

This week you are getting Yukon Gold potatoes, red beets, squash, cucumbers, Japanese or Globe eggplant, green & purple bell peppers, beans, kale, tomatoes, yellow or orange watermelon and muskmelon. The orange watermelon is a heirloom. Fruit share subscribers will be receiving nectarines.

The eggplant was one of the crops that were hurt by the June hailstorms. And unfortunately, we only plant it once during the summer. So; we will not have a huge supply of this. We will give you what we have and hopefully, you will get it more than once or twice!

Our tomatoes are starting to produce and yum; do they ever taste good! This is our main season variety, a beefsteak that is a beautiful red color & shape. If you get a tomato with a blemish, it will be from the June hailstorms. Cut around the scar and enjoy! You are also getting Cherokee Purple, an old Indian heirloom from the early to mid 1800’s. It has a deep red to purple color with a green tinge & oddly shaped. Wonderfully sweet with an ‘old time’ flavor.

Some crops such as melons, cucumbers and squash, will soon be over. We had several plantings all come on at once even though we had planted them two or three weeks apart. This is frustrating for us. We believe that the weather had a huge impact on all the crops. It was such a cool & wet spring and then Boom! It was suddenly very hot! We cannot explain it very well, but, when it gets hot that fast, plants think that summer is almost over and rapidly start to produce. Since everything in nature is about reproduction…you can see how this makes sense!

How did we start out? We often get asked this, so here it goes! Jerry grew up on the farm. The whole family of six helped out from planting to hoeing and harvesting. Jerry’s father ran a U-Pick operation & farm stand for about 35 years from the 50’s well into the 80’s.

When Jerry and I married, we worked for his Dad for five years. Not only did we have the U-Pick farm, but either help start or started to attend the oldest farmers markets in the area; which were in Cheyenne, Ft. Collins, Boulder, Greeley and Colo. Sprgs. We were young, in our twenties and felt like we could accomplish anything! At the height of us attending farmers markets; Jerry and I split up and went to two markets a day and had relatives help us attend Saturday markets adding up to 17 a week. After a few years, we knew this was unrealistic to continue at this pace. In 1991, we asked if we could take over and run things and started to hear about a thing called Community Supported Agriculture. We asked Jerry’s Dad to look into it for us. The following year, Jerry and his Dad went to a CSA seminar in Pennsylvania. One of the highlights in both their lives! The following year, we developed our CSA and had our first delivery of produce to 38 members in the summer of 1993. That’s how it all got started

Missing Something?

*CSA members* – PLEASE READ !

If you have ordered something and haven’t received it ——> call us and let us know what’s up! We are short on help in the office and in the field this season. As a result, we really need your help in keeping us accurate! The farm appreciates you all so much!

Newsletter – August 12, 2019

NOTE: This blog is posted by a volunteer. No one from the farm checks or responds to messages here. You must contact the farm directly with any questions, comments, etc.

Dear Members,

We are half way through the season being this is week 9 out of 18. You are not getting potatoes this week, but we have a plethora of wonderful things! This week you are getting onions, carrots, squash, cucumber, lemon cucumber, beans, broccoli, green and purple bell peppers, cinnamon basil, muskmelon and yellow watermelon. Tuesday and Wednesday are getting red watermelon. We had a surprise delivery of red watermelon last Thursday.

Lemon cucumbers taste just like the long green ones, but are round and yellow colored. You may have noticed a new summer squash has been included in your bag. It is round and disked shape…like an alien space ship. This is called a Patty Pan (Peter Pan’s wife). Dice it, cube it, slice it, scoop it out and stuff it. It doesn’t matter; this is a wonderful tasting squash!

You will be getting olive oil and honey this week!

Meal Planning: I know this can be hard to do because you are unsure of what you will be getting each week. The best thing to do is to plan a meal around whole foods. This is unprocessed food such as steak, chicken, hamburgers, pork and lamb chops, ribs and roasts. It is much easier to slide in whatever vegetables you are getting next to these items. I am a big stir fry and casserole person. I constantly adapt my recipes to fit whatever may be coming from the fields. It keeps things rotating through my kitchen and it feeds us for more than one day!

Produce lull: As you have noticed, you are consistently getting some of the same crops over and over again. The past spring was hard on us with the late snow in May, three hailstorms and all the rain in June….our two biggest months for planting crops. Several items had to be replanted because most of it was either frozen or hailed out. We are now simply waiting for those crops to start producing again. It will not be long before we have tomatoes! One of my favorite items!!!

Produce Bags: Please remember to shake out the dry skins, leaves, etc. from your bags. We are short staffed here and this is an easy thing for you to do on your end. Keep your bean bags separate from the larger bags and return them to your DC every week, thank you!

Need Winter DC: I have been informed that the DC off of 6th & Downing will not be available for Winter Distribution this year. I need a volunteer to take this on for us. In exchange for being a DC, you will get a discount on the price of your share. Please call me for details!!

Quote: Most people have a clock that tells them what time to quit each day. Farmers have a little voice that tells them not to! – Unknown

Newsletter – August 5, 2019

NOTE: This blog is posted by a volunteer. No one from the farm checks or responds to messages here. You must contact the farm directly with any questions, comments, etc.

Dear Friends of the Farm,

This week you are getting Yukon Gold potatoes, Walla Walla onions, carrots, garlic, squash, cucumbers, bell peppers and muskmelon.

No fruit, honey or oil this week.

Final Payments: Final produce payments are due by the first of September. Statements will go out next week. If you have made arrangements with me to make monthly payments, please keep doing so! If I am not paid in full, produce will not be delivered to your DC the week of the 9th. A $25 late fee will be added and will need to be paid along with your final payment in order to get your produce reinstated. Please remember, these fees are non-refundable and are due regardless of how the summer season turns out!

Monsoon Rains: For those of you who are new to Colorado; monsoons are seasonal rains that are drawn up from the Gulf of Mexico from a ‘High’ sitting over Texas/New Mexico/Kansas areas. It pulls the moisture over Arizona and Utah right into Colorado. These rains can last from one week to three weeks and usually occur in the late afternoons. It can help cool us down after some intense hot weather. But sometimes, these rains bring us hail too. Unfortunately, the ‘High” can be right over us too and can make our daytime temperatures very hot indeed! This causes some rain to rise back into the clouds and form small balls of ice. If the ground temperatures keep that rain from falling to the ground and continue to rise back into the clouds, those small balls of ice can become very large and cause extensive damage! August is always a precarious time for us. The hot weather really makes crops grow and because we live in a high plains desert, the rains are usually welcomed. But it scares the daylight out of us because the chances of hailstorms really go up. To sum it up….the life of a farmer is an emotional roller coaster!

Something Fun: Do you realize there are National Holidays designated for every day of the year? This week you can celebrate these activities: August 5th you can celebrate underwear; August 6th is Root Beer Float day and also wiggle your toes day; August 7th is Purple Heart day; August 8th is sneak some zucchini onto your neighbors porch day; August 9th is Book Lovers Day and August 10th is Lazy Day and Garage Sale Day! Celebrate something fun this week!!!