Newsletter – September 30, 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 Farm Friends;

This is week 16 out of 18:  You are getting potatoes, onions, garlic, daikon radish, bell peppers, anaheim & jalapeno peppers and tomatoes.

Fruit:  You are getting Bartlett pears and Gala apples from First Fruit.  Next week you will be getting more apples, but not sure what kind yet!

Winter Shares:  Everything is going well and it feels like we are getting a lot of crops in for storage.  I believe all the winter squash has been harvested and if not all then most of the onions.  Potatoes & carrots we will harvest toward the end of October as well as the cabbage.  It was hurt by the hail, so we want to give it as much time as possible to recoup!

Memberships are coming right along.  I still have openings, so please let friends & co-workers know we have room for new members!

Survey:  Everyone can pick up a hard copy of the survey at their DC. This is very important to us.  I know filling out some details seem monotonous, but, it makes a difference knowing how many people are using what types of shares.  We want to know how you feel about supporting a farm during the good times and the bad.  Is getting only the best looking produce important to you?  If so, a CSA may not be the right fit for you!

Daikon Fries

• (5) Cups Daikon radish, peeled & sliced, ¼ inch thick sticks by 3 inches long
• 1 1/2 tablespoons grapeseed oil (I’ve used olive)                             
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger pulp, freshly grated
• 1/2 teaspoons chili paste (I’ve used Valentina & Sriracha sauce…what I had on hand)          
• 1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon Tamari or soy sauce (prefer Tamari)
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

Preheat the oven to 475°F, and adjust a rack to the center.   In a gallon zip lock bag, combine the oil, chili paste, Tamari or soy sauce, ginger, sugar and salt.  Add the Daikon fries and toss them until they’re all evenly coated.  Place in a single layer on a 9X13 baking sheet.  Place the baking sheet in the preheated 475°F oven and roast until they are golden brown on all sides, about 30 minutes. (You should gently toss/filp them about halfway through the cooking time.)  Drain, cool and serve!

Newsletter – September 23, 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 Farm Members;

This is week 15 out of an 18 week season and you are getting Yukon Gold potatoes, yellow onions, green kohlrabi, garlic, eggplant, yellow & green bell peppers, anahiem & jalapeno peppers, tomatoes and corn. Kohlrabi is in the cabbage family and can be used the same way. It is good cubed and cooked like turnips, sliced like potatoes and fried or shredded and eaten as a salad. We were not expecting this corn to mature and it didn’t quite fill out right. They will be small ears and missing cornels. You don’t have to take it, but we feel some corn is better than no corn and it’s delicious!!

Fruit: No fruit this week, but next week you will be getting a large box of pears and apples.

Oil and Honey: As a reminder, you are able to order oil and honey for your winter needs. It is not required that you have ordered either one during the summer. This can be your first order for the season. October will be the last delivery, so think ahead of your needs and let me know by September 30^th. I will be calling Lazy Bee Ranch and Healthy Harvest to place an order that day.

Winter Share: We are still taking orders for Winter Shares and have filled 2/3 of the spaces. I will be leaving forms at your distribution centers this week if you need one. You may also sign up on line at monroefarm.com.

If you have sent a form on line, please do not send another form with your payment. It is confusing and may cause duplicate charges. Thank you.

Winter DC’s: We have found a location for Wheat Ridge. It will be located at 33rd & Lowell run by Jennifer Redies. I want to thank everyone who offered your home as a location. I deeply appreciate your generosity.

Also, I forgot to mention that the Centennial location moved from Clarkson & Dry Creek to University and Orchard. It will still be run by Peggy Walling who recently moved into her old childhood home!

Garlic Separating Party: We have not come up with a date to do this yet. It will be in October and it usually includes both Saturday and Sunday on one or two weekends. If you are interested in helping out, please call the office to get on the list and make sure you repeat your phone number!   I will call you just as soon as we know when we will be doing this. I will place a notice on the Blog and in this newsletter (if we have a date before the season is up).

Newsletter – September 16, 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 yellow onions, garlic, purple carrots, summer squash, eggplant, cucumber, lemon cucumber, yellow bell pepper, green bell pepper, Anaheim, jalapeno, tomatoes, basil and orange honeydew.

Fruit: You are getting a 20# box of peaches this week from First Fruit. These peaches are called Summer Lady. They‘re a late season peach and one of the favorites! All summer they have time to soak up the sun, then in the fall they sweeten up with the cool nights. With light fuzz, a beautiful red blush and amazing flavor, I bet they become your favorite too! If processing, they are a free stone peach and the skins slip off easily.

I know it doesn’t make sense about the peaches when we see them all over the place. So I asked about the story and this is what all the fruit growers are telling me. They have contracts with the grocery stores that they have to meet. The peach crop was late and the stores were pressuring them for the product. These contracts are not for a one time delivery…they are continuous. The growers also wanted plenty of peaches for their festival, so they delayed placing orders with CSA’a and restaurants. Think about this. If they can sell a product for full retail price; why do they want to sell a bulk order for wholesale? They make more money selling for retail and were able to keep up with the demand of harvesting. The crop ripened slow and steady instead of all at once this summer. That left us sitting without peaches!

Produce: As many of you have heard, we had a big hailstorm last Wednesday. The storm hit around 6:13 and lasted until 6:30 hailing the whole time. Just like in 2016, we will be giving you as much produce as possible and some of it may have cuts, scars and bruises on it. We want to get this produce off the vines so the plant does not put any more energy into it. You must process and use this produce right away! We are not trying to give you produce that is broken open and oozing. But this can happen while it sits during the day. We apologize in advance if this happens. The farm is very resilient, so don’t give up on it. We have four more weeks to see what we can dig up!

Statements: They are going out this week. Late fees have been assessed if payments were not received. If you do not receive a statement, you are paid in full. Thank you for your support during this trying time in our lives.

No-Till Experiment: I thought it was time to update you on Kyle’s no-till experiment. He planted the first phase crop which was rye grass. He realized he did not plant this thick enough once it started to grow. You should not be able to see the ground below. Unfortunately, it needs to be very thick for when he rolls the crop down and crimps it, it should make a very thick mat. Kyle decided not to plant corn or beans into the crop knowing there would be a tremendous amount of weeds that would grow with the crop. Instead, he continued to experiment on crimping techniques. He learned a lot about his timing and plans on starting all over next year

Need for Wheat Ridge DC

From Jacquie –  

A member offered to be a DC for the Wheat Ridge location and I initially turned them down.  Now I want to know where they are again.  Everyone who is calling is down south of the location I need.  I just want to check exactly where they were located and see what my options are.  Have them contact me again please!

Thank you!

Newsletter – September 9, 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 is week 13 out of 18; we are 2/3 of the way through our season. Produce you will see are Yukon Gold potatoes, red onions, carrots, squash, Lemon cucumbers, regular cucumbers, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, orange flesh honeydew and white flesh honeydew.

Fruit: You are getting pears and plums. The pears need a few days outside of the fridge to finish ripening. I usually put out 6 to 8 pears at a time and eat them once they have turned a yellow color. Next week you will be getting a 20# box of peaches from First Fruit!

Bags: Just a reminder now that the onions are starting to dry out that you need to remove any debris from your produce bags before returning them to your DC. Thank you!

Last Chance to order extra honey or oil. Think about what you have used and what you will need to get you through the winter. I must have any changes or additions called into me by September 27th for an October 7th delivery. Please do not email me!

Winter DC Needed to replace the 26th & Sheridan location. This was an unplanned change by the current DC and we will need to find a new one for the area. They are unexpectedly moving. If you are willing to offer your home for a $100 discount, please contact me. If we cannot find a new location for this side of Wheat Ridge, everyone will have to choose another location.

Garlic Separating Party! This happens only in the late fall. We have to separate the bulbs of garlic so that we can plant it before it snows. We anticipate this will happen sometime in October. It is a big project and it usually takes us a couple of weekends to complete the job. Please call and get on the Garlic Separating Party list and we will contact you just as soon as we know which weekend we will be working. Benefit: you get to go home with all the garlic that is not suited for planting! And we get a huge job competed in record time!!!

Strange Season: You can see it with the fruit growers easier than with the farm, but this is a very crazy year! It was so cold, wet (and snowy) this spring that it delayed produce from ripening like we are used to. Then it got hot, hot, hot in July and August tricking the plants into thinking the end of the season was very soon. We ended up with three planting of crops coming on all at once. Therefore, we gave you a lot of produce! We needed to because now that we are in the last few weeks of distribution, it is really going to slow down. I know we probably overwhelmed some of you and some of you probably just learned to deal with it. But unfortunately it is all coming to a screeching halt! I’m sorry this is going to happen and we still have some goodies up our sleeves. So enjoy what we have while we have it!!

Newsletter – September 2, 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, yellow onions, carrots, squash, cabbage, cucumber, lemon cucumber, eggplant, bell peppers, tomatoes, white flesh honeydew, muskmelon and watermelon.

Corn Worms: Yes, we have them and yes we are still going to give you corn with them in there! Worms do not like GMO corn or insecticides. If you want organic corn, you will face corn worms. With a sharp knife, cut away the area where they have been eating. Boiling your corn will then sterilize everything. So don’t throw out that great corn…enjoy it!

Greeley Wonder Melon: This was an extinct seed up to two years ago. Jerry and I grew this for his dad back in the late 1980’s. We had a terrible hailstorm and it killed all the melons that year. We thought we had lost the seed for this very special melon!

You see, it was developed in the 1890’s in Greeley, Colorado. What made it special was its size. Back then in the old days, seed companies did not exist. You got your seed either by saving it or getting it from other growers. The Monroe’s got this seed in the mid-1920’s from a farmer down the road and have been growing it up to the late 1980’s.

Kyle happened to be in an old barn looking around and found a bucket of seed marked “Greeley Wonder”. He brought it out and showed it to Jerry and sure enough is was the so called extinct seed we thought we had lost. Kyle took off the first two inches and threw it away and plucked out ten of the fattest seed he could find slipping it between wet paper towels. Sure enough, they all sprouted! He then hand selected 2000 more seeds and spouted them in the greenhouse, planted them outdoors and grew them for the first time in 2017. We are proud of the fact that this seed now exists in two seedbanks as well as with Seed Savers. I’m sure Seed Savers will continue to propagate the seed so that it can be sold to other growers around the world!

Fruit: Yay! We are getting peaches this week!

Next week: pears and plums.

2019 Winter Storage Share: I can’t believe it either, but yes, it’s time to start thinking about how we intend to feed ourselves for the winter! Our Winter Share is based on a Half Share. If you are a Single Shareholder, you will need to divide this share with another household. If you cannot find someone to split the share with you, ask your DC to see if anyone else in your area would want to share with you. If you get a Full Share, you may need two Winter Shares. We will give you a discount of $150 if you need two. Distribution will start November 6th and produce should be delivered every other Wednesday after that through February 26th except for our three week winter break over Christmas and New Year. It is suggested to pay your fees in total by December 31st due to summer sign up in January. See payment options on the sign-up form. Deadline is October 31st.