Newsletter – August 24, 2020

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 10 of an 18-week season. You will be getting onions, carrots, garlic, cucumbers, both Japanese and globe eggplant, tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, sweet corn and orange honeydew. Full and Half Shares will get squash and no one will be getting potatoes this week.

Fruit: First Fruit is giving out peaches and Akane apples. First fruit is experiencing the same problem with fruit maturing three weeks early; just as the farm….see below.

This Growing Season: There is a saying among farmers that goes something like this: “It takes your whole life to learn how to grow crops because no two summers are the same. By the time you think you know what you are doing; it’s time to pass it on to the next generation.” Jerry and I have had 35 years to work the land and try to figure out how to grow crops. Between bugs, disease and weather…very few people have the patience to keep going under these distressing circumstances that keep popping up. The weather makes farming incredibly challenging. 2012 was the hottest year on record in Greeley with 85 days over 90 and 15 of those days were over 100. This year is shaping up to be very similar.

When we have consistent hot weather like this (we have had well over week of 100 degree temperatures); it is not only hard on the humans, it is hard on the plants. They experience a shock that is hard to recover from. Most living plants that bear fruit shove all their liquids into the fruit to protect the plant once temperatures get around 95 degrees. (This is why you see splits in tomatoes.) When the temperatures fall below that number, it will retrieve those fluids to support the plant. Other ways the plant protects itself is to stop producing fruit by dropping the blossoms before pollination.

We are experiencing this exact thing. Many plants including tomatoes are dropping their blooms and we do not see a surge of tomatoes coming out of the fields like we would normally this time of year.

Both a good and bad problem to have: It has been such a warm summer, everything started to produce three to four weeks early. Plantings of crops we should not see until next month started to produce two weeks ago. This leaves a gap at the end of the season that is not filled with a new planting. We did not plant one because we did not know this summer would be so hot and bring everything on three weeks early!

Winter Share: Download our Winter Storage Share form. Please fill it out if you find you would like to continue to get produce from November through February this winter. Keep in mind we only have one size share. If you are a Single Share holder find someone to split the share with. The Winter Share is based on a Half Share. Those of you who get a Full Share may want to order two and we will give you $150 discount. See the reverse side for more details. We are looking for a new location for the central Denver location that used to be at 12th & Josephine. Please consider being a DC. We only deliver every two weeks and without a new location everyone will have to pick a location with a farther drive. Call or email for details.

Jacquie, Jerry and Kyle

Statement Dates

Jacquie figured out how to put a text box into her statements this month, however she didn’t realize she selected the wrong month! The due date is September 1^st, not August 1^st!  It was simply a typo.

Newsletter – August 17, 2020

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,

This week you are getting Yukon Gold potatoes, Walla Walla onions, carrots, garlic, cabbage, cucumbers, bell peppers, jalapenos, squash, beefsteak tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, muskmelon (half and full shares only) and honeydew.

Fruit and Honey: Peaches are in!!! The Sierra Rich peaches are a low fuzz, red skinned and an ultra tasty variety!

Everyone will be getting honey this week. Most of you will be getting honey that was harvested from our farm just last week. Those of you getting the 5 gallon buckets will be getting a mixture of all the honey collected in the area.

Storage: I received a couple of calls from members last week asking about storage of your vegetable shares. Our program intends for you to eat your entire share in one week. Some of you may be starting to get a little overwhelmed by all the variety and are not keeping up. The best thing to do is to freeze the extras for winter spreading out your food dollar even more. Pick out what you want to eat for the week and freeze the rest. CSU has a food preservation site for canning and freezing I recommend and can be found on my website; http://www.monroefarm.com.

Freezer: Two things my grandmothers taught me was to freeze as you cook. Cook the entire batch of a particular crop. Eat what you want then freeze the rest in two ways. #1. If there is enough to have a second meal, freeze in a freezer bag and get as much air out as possible. I do this with a stir-straw. Ziplock the bag around the straw and suck out the air. While doing this pull out the straw & zip the bag closed. Label the bag as fully cooked. When you take it out, do not recook the produce, just reheat it. #2. Leave an airtight plastic container in the freezer. Every time you have a few veggies left after a meal, put them in this container. When the container is full, you have instant veggie soup. All you must do is make the broth and add meat if desired. My grandmothers also used to save the water from boiling veggies…by mixing them together you now have your broth for the soup too. Ahhh grandmothers! What would we do without them!

I have learned over the years that two things freeze really well raw. That is onions and peppers. I cut onions in half then slice them for fajitas, dice them for casseroles or cube them for stir fries. I do the exact same thing with my peppers. You can even dice jalapeno and freeze them. Anaheim and Poblano peppers need to have their skins removed before freezing….well, not really. But I found it is a whole lot easier to used them if the skins are removed before freezing.

Fridge: Simple things you can do to stretch the produce into a second week would be to put beets & carrots into zip-locked plastic bags after washing a drying. Kale and lettuce should not be washed until you use it, just put in a plastic grocery bag and into your crisper drawer. Squash, peppers and cucumbers I place in my crisper drawer without covering. Onions, garlic and potatoes I place in a cardboard box and put in an unheated room. They like to be stored in a cool, dark place like the bottom of your pantry on the floor or a closet somewhere close to the kitchen. Some things will taste best if eaten right away. Broccoli, eggplant and corn are three of those things. Eggplant does not like to be stored at all. So, it is best to eat that within a few days; leave on your counter. I do the same with broccoli because I love it so much! I can’t hold onto it until later. But if you are not eating that right away, loosely cover in plastic and store in crisper drawer. I leave my tomatoes and melons on the counter. To get your family to eat the fruit faster, my mother taught me this. She cuts it up and puts it into containers and leaves them in the fridge. Members of your family can help themselves whenever they want it. With small kids this can help you timewise….if you can find time to cut it up to begin with! But it will need to be eaten withing a week. Melons will last as long as they are not cut open. Honeydew has the longest lifespan (3 weeks), then watermelon (2 weeks) and muskmelon will be a few days and up to a week. Hope this helps you use up your share a bit better!

Jacquie, Jerry and Kyle

No Beans

There was a miscommunication between the barn and the office this week. There are no beans in the CSA bags this week.

Newsletter – August 11, 2020

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 Walla Walla onions, red beets, squash, cucumber, lemon cucumber, broccoli, green bell peppers, eggplant, jalapenos, red tomatoes and Terra Cotta (orange) tomatoes, muskmelon, green flesh honeydew and watermelon.

Lemon cucumbers taste just like the long green ones (called slicers) but are round and yellow colored. You may have noticed a new summer squash has been included in your bag. It is round and disk shaped…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!

Oil: Those of you who ordered monthly and bi-monthly oil will be getting that this week!

Meal Planning: I know this can be hard to do because you are unsure of what you will be getting each week or how much of it. 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 fan 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 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. We want all the bags we give you. 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 12th & Josephine 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!!

Summer Squash Frittata Pizza

4 cups shredded summer squash (any type)

½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese

¾ cup flour

2 eggs, beaten

¾ cup grated parmesan cheese

½ tsp black pepper & salt to taste

Thinly sliced veggies…your choice!

Preheat over to 350 degrees. After shredding squash, salt and let stand 30 minutes in a strainer. Press out all liquid with a paper towel. In a bowl, combine squash with the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Spread mixture in a greased rimmed cookie sheet. Bake for 25 minutes. Change temperature of oven to broil. Brush top of crust with olive oil and broil until golden brown. Place a second cookie sheet over the top and flip pizza crust. Now get creative!!! Add whatever sauce you like; basil or oregano pesto, cream cheese or a marinara. If desired; add sausage or pepperoni and all the thinly sliced veggies you want on top. Return to oven and broil until veggies are sizzling and slightly browned.

Newsletter – August 3, 2020

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,

This week you are getting red potatoes, Walla Walla onions, garlic, squash, three kinds of cucumbers: Lemon, pickling and slicing, broccoli, purple & green bell peppers, basil, either red or yellow watermelon, muskmelons and beefsteak tomatoes.

Fruit: Welcome to stone fruit season! Frist Fruit is excited to be supplying their organic nectarines for your fruit share this week. Nectarines are a family favorite of theirs and they are especially tasty this year. We recommend you allow nectarines to ripen at room temperature until slightly soft, then dig in!

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 7th. 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!

A Pleasant Note: Everyone has been so sweet sending me words of encouragement and heartfelt sympathy about my broken ankle. I am starting to put some weight on it. Amazing how much that hurts! We received this note recently and it made out hearts swell with pride and appreciation. With permission, I thought I’d share it with you.

Dear Jacquie, Jerry and Crew,

This is my first year as a CSA member and I’m loving it! I wanted to push myself to learn about new veggies and boy, am I ever: garlic scapes, fennel, kohlrabi, purple peppers, yellow watermelon. I’ve never had any of these before and it has been wonderful figuring out what to do with them. The fennel was braised and cooked in a tomato sauce (an Italian recipe I found). The kohlrabi got cut up into matchsticks and went into coleslaw and the garlic scapes were chopped and tossed into everything—eggs, salad, guacamole and mashed potatoes. I made refrigerated pickled beets with red onion; chocolate, chocolate chip zucchini bread (a HIT at work) and buttered tortellini with sautéed kale with garlic scapes. It’s like a restaurant at our house lately!

Some of my favorites have been the fresh, fresh potatoes, beautiful heads of lettuce and the honey from Lazy Bee Farm. But my #1 eye opener, top of the list winner is the garlic. I never knew what fresh-picked garlic was like. What a difference from the store-bought stuff that was dried up and had lost that delicious smell……mmmm, so good!

God willing and the creeks don’t rise; I will definitely sign up for a CSA share next year. It has been a great experience and I look forward to the rest of the summer. Thank you for all your hard work and the great education you are giving us “townies”!! Gretchen Hugen; Arvada CO

Thank you all for the kind words you send with your payments. I share them with Kyle and Jerry every chance I get. But this special note really made our day, week, even the month!