Newsletter – August 29, 2022

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, white onions, cabbage, squash, cucumbers, kale, jalapeno, poblano & anaheim peppers, bell peppers, red tomatoes, Terra Cotta heirloom tomatoes and red watermelon.

Fruit this week should be 20 pound box with a mixture of Bartlett Pears & Blushing Star Peaches.

Mushrooms this delivery are mix of Lion’s Mane & Oyster Mushrooms.  The vendor didn’t bring as many pounds as we hoped for.  Therefore, members who didn’t receive mushrooms the first delivery will receive some this delivery.  ONLY a very small portion of 1st delivery members will receive some this delivery.  

Winter Share: It is hard to believe, but it is that time of year to start thinking about what you will be doing for produce during the winter. We offer one size, based on the Half Share and deliver every other week starting in November. If you are a Quarter Share, we suggest you split the share with another household. If you are a Full Share, we suggest you get two (with a small discount). Attached below is the Winter Share form. Take a look and join us for the winter season. It is completely different and well worth your time and money!

winter-storage-share-sign-upDownload

We need a new location for Wheat Ridge, Jennifer tells us she is unable to do it this year. A tiny bit of info is on the back side of the Winter Storage Share form. But please contact the office for more info or if you have any questions.

Now & Then: With the farm being 85 years old; we thought you might be interested how prices have changed over the years! When Jerry Sr. was a kid in the 1930’s & 40’s, he told us people could load a Model T truck (it may have been called something else) with watermelon for $1 and could get 13 ears of corn for a penny. He started his U-pick farm sometime in the early 1950’s. Customers could pick a bushel of beans (30 pounds) or pickles (45 pounds) or a box of tomatoes (25 pounds) for a $1! When we closed the U-pick farm in 1992; people were able to pick a 25-pound box of tomatoes for $5, get watermelons for $1 each, 45 pounds of pickles for $5, 30 pounds of beans for $5 and pick up muskmelon for $.25 each.

Jerry and Jacquie ran the farm for 32 years. We either helped start or attended the oldest farmers markets in the area: Cheyenne, Greeley, Boulder, Cherry Creek, Longmont, Ft. Collins and Colorado Springs. Back in the 1980’s farmers markets were a very new concept. We had to have people stand out at the street and wave to customers trying to attract them to the event. It was hard to make a living back then. As an example, we sold tomatoes 5 for a $1; 3 muskmelon for $1, 12 ears of corn $1, 4 squash for a $1 and one watermelon (any size) for a $1.

You can see why we were so excited about the farmers markets. We could get grocery store prices for our produce! Jerry and I both went to a farmers market every day of the week and family members would go on weekends to help us out. In total, we went to 17 farmers markets a week. With the amount of energy, it took to go to that many farmers markets every week; we knew we could not keep this pace up forever. We started our CSA in the summer of 1993. As the CSA grew, we discontinued going to the farmers markets until we got down to the four we attended in 2018: Cheyenne, Boulder, Cherry Creek and Longmont.

Kyle was already learning the ropes by then to take over the farm. He closed down his stand at all farmers markets except Boulder in 2020. Today he averages $2 for one tomato, average $8 for watermelon, average $5 per muskmelon, $2 each for squash and $.50 an ear for corn.

We only had two size shares in our CSA in 1993 – a Full for $450 and a Half for $300. We used the Working Members as our Core Group (because they were around starting the first week of April through October) to bounce off ideas and assess each year and our progress as a CSA. (We met for five years regularly and after that about once a year for another two or three.) The first year we gave out way too much food and everyone wanted to quit. We asked every member to give us one more year and to fill out an extensive survey about the amount of food they use based on how many people were in their household, ages of kids, as well as their diet preference. The Core Group met monthly and with their help, we were able to create the CSA you see today.

Until next week…enjoy your goodies!

Jacquie, Jerry, Kyle and Sam

Newsletter – August 22, 2022

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 is week 11 out of an 18-week season. You are getting red onions, garlic, turnips, cucumbers, pickles, cabbage, squash, broccoli, beans, bell peppers, anaheim peppers, tomatoes, muskmelon and watermelon.

This is an Overview of 2013…. another interesting weather year: This letter sure does look different from this time in 2012. We were in a severe drought and were looking at a severe cut in shares sold as well as produce grown for the members. We had no water at all stored in the reservoir and it did not look like we were going to get any snow to make that change anytime soon. Of course, everything changed by the end of February when it started to snow and continued to snow throughout March. Plus, it rained all of April and half of May. Crops were planted late, but at least we had water to nourish them throughout the summer!

Then the rain came in the fall… Nothing compares to a 500-year storm that hit the second week of September that flooded just about every city along the Front Range. Those of you who were in the area at the time will never forget what happened. Some cities received anywhere from 15 to 24 inches of rain in three or four days. Streets became rivers and houses & basements were flooded. The city of Lyons became an island! Helicopters had to rescue all the residents!

Kyle was doing the Thursday Distribution Route that covers Broomfield, Louisville, Boulder and Longmont. By the time he got to North Boulder, the rain was relentless. He happened to have a friend with him and when he got to the distribution center, water was coming off the hill behind them and directly into their home. Kyle and his friend grabbed shovels and dug trenches around the house to divert the water. Unfortunately, water had been coming into their home for the past half hour, so they still had to completely replace everything in the basement.

Guess where all that rain went? Yep, down river. We were cut off from Greeley to our northwest for several weeks. (No one could cross a bridge until they were inspected to make sure they were stable.) To get to town we had to go south to Hwy 66, west to I-25, north to Hwy 34 and then east to Greeley. A normal 15-minute trip turned into a 45-minute expedition…one way! I could not believe what items the water turned up: tanks of all sizes, vehicles, toys, enclosed trailers, buckets, everything people normally have in their backyards, and tons of trash.

The farm was just east enough to miss most of the rain. But the trash along riverbanks is evidence of the kind of impact a huge rainstorm upriver can create (to this day). Did the farm get much rain, you ask? Yes. We received a total of 6 inches over that three-day event. Our lower fields were flooded for about two full days with standing water for a week. It took a couple of weeks to dry out enough to even drive down there. The rest of the fields were wet but fine and distribution went on as normal as it could due to the crazy weather last year.

Harvard Orange Beets

4 medium beets, cubed

2 tsp cornstarch

1 Tbsp butter

3 Tbsp concentrated orange juice

Place beets in water until just covered with a tiny bit of salt. Boil 20 minutes. Drain and reserve, then add butter to warm beet juice. Set aside to cool. Combine orange juice and cornstarch then slowly add to beet juice. Pour over beets and return to heat. Cook until thick and bubbly.

Newsletter – August 15, 2022

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 is week #10 of the 18-week season. You should be getting: Yukon Gold Potatoes, yellow onions, cucumbers, summer squash, red tomatoes, fennel, basil, Honeydew melons, bell peppers, jalapeños, and carrots.

Fruit: Hello from First Fruits Organic Farms! We hope you have been enjoying the fruit in your CSA shares! After several challenging seasons due to freezes, we are happy to have a great crop this year. Peaches are ripening up on our trees rapidly, and you can anticipate another 10lb case in your fruit share this week. These are Coral Star and Starfire peaches, which are freestone varieties — great for eating fresh or processing. We have tried to space fruit shipments out as much as the crop will allow, but if these shipments of peaches are more than you can eat fresh, the peaches can easily be sliced and canned or frozen or can be dried in your oven by placing slices in an oven at 200 degrees until they reach your desired drying stage- usually about four hours. Your February self will thank your August self!

Enjoy the peaches! A wide variety of fruit at our farm in Paonia, Colorado is growing beautifully in our orchards, and we plan to keep the fruit flowing from our farm to your homes. Kacey & Noah Kropp

Honey & Oil: This is another honey and oil delivery week. Those of you who ordered monthly and Bi-monthly, will be getting that this week. It has been extremely dry at the farm, and we have not been getting the rain everyone else has been getting. The bees are struggling a little bit and spend more time cooling the hive than gathering nectar. Those of you who ordered a one-time delivery of honey will get that next month.

Bags: I have been informed that we are not getting our bean bags back. We would like to have those back so they can be reused. Also, as a reminder, please clear out all debris from your produce bags. We are seeing a lot of onion skins left behind. These need to be removed before returning them to your DC. Thank you.

Billing: Late payments have been applied to accounts where no payment was received by the end of July.  Those of you who received a late fee will also receive another statement this week. We did send statements out a couple weeks ago reminding everyone of the due dates. If there are no payments received the day before your distribution next week, you will no longer receive your produce or any add-ons until your balance is paid in full. 

Half of your balance was due July 1st with the remaining balance due by September 1st. If you have been sending regular payments or have contacted the office about your plan to pay, this does not apply to you.  This also does not apply to those with a winter share or animals. But we do need your deposits for any animals you are purchasing, or you may be taken off the list. We don’t want to see members miss out on the remaining goodies to come! If you have any questions, please email or call the office. The office hours are currently 7am to 4pm.  We do appreciate each & every one of you! 

Ten years ago, we were worrying about our water and whether it would last until the end of the season.

Here is an overview of 2012 written in January 2013:

When Jerry and I started farming for his father in 1985, we did not have crops ready for harvest until the middle of July. Since then, we have added three weeks of harvest to the beginning of the season and three weeks at the end.

Nothing shouts climate change more than when you can start your summer season the first week of June! It is a startling and scary fact that our weather is changing. Our water was restricted from the start of the season. We had to decide what would get watered and what would not. Most of our water went to growing vegetables. We decided to let the alfalfa fields die off completely. Our pastures were watered just enough to keep them alive, and we grew a little corn for the animals. By seasons end our reservoirs were drained! You can expect to see 2012 in the record books for years to come.

The nice surprise that came out of this season was how early we could start harvesting and the quality of the produce. It doesn’t matter if the produce is still on the plants or has been harvested; just as soon as it gets wet (from rain or washing) the produce starts to break down. With no rain in sight (or hail), the quality of the produce went off the charts! The Full Share received 561 pounds, Half Share received 378 pounds and the Single Share received 246 pounds. This was an 11% increase over 2011 when we got all that rain and four hailstorms. The average price of your produce was $1.18 a pound. (Last year we averaged around $1.35 lb.)

Hope you all have a great week! 

Fruit Shares Update – August 9, 2022

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

Hello from First Fruits Organic Farms! We hope you have been enjoying the fruit in your CSA shares! After several challenging seasons due to freezes, we are happy to have a great crop this year. Peaches are ripening up on our trees rapidly, and you can anticipate another 10lb case in your fruit share next week. These are Coral Star and Starfire peaches, which are freestone varieties — great for eating fresh or processing. We have tried to space fruit shipments out as much as the crop will allow, but if these shipments of peaches are more than you can eat fresh, the peaches can easily be sliced and canned or frozen or can be dried in your oven by placing slices in an oven at 200 degrees until they reach your desired drying stage- usually about four hours. Your February self will thank your August self! 

Enjoy the peaches! A wide variety of fruit at our farm in Paonia, Colorado is growing beautifully in our orchards and we plan to keep the fruit flowing from our farm to your homes. 

More soon, 

The Kropp family at First Fruits Organic Farms 

Newsletter – August 8, 2022

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 is week 9 of an 18-week season: You should get Yukon Gold potatoes, yellow onions, beets, slicing cucumbers, summer squash, green beans, red tomatoes, Terra Cotta tomatoes.

Fruit: This is a fruit share week. First Fruit tells me you are getting either Sierra Rich or Lucky 13 peaches. These are two of their best tasting, free-stone peaches. For shipping purposes, they will be underripe. Please set out around 6 at a time to ripen on the counter. Should only take a couple of days, depending on how cool/warm your home is.

Five years ago on July 29th, we had a devastating 3” diameter hailstorm that lasted half an hour. Here is a short excerpt:

Jerry, Kyle & Sam planted like crazy for two days. Now you need to realize this is very late to be planting anything! Normally Jerry is completely done for the season by the third week of July. We hope for a long fall and a late freeze. With any luck, we will have peas, lettuce, radishes, kale, fennel and summer squash. All the root crops have survived, and you will continue to get those on a regular basis. The watermelon, squash and cucumbers you received last week were picked before the storm. We will continue to glean our fields for produce.

The fields will take a couple of weeks before the plants that survived will show any signs of enough recovery to bloom and produce again. Time will tell! Plants like summer squash can continue to produce if the top of the plant survived and there are some leaves left. Hopefully we will see summer squash again soon. The vines are dead on things such as melons and cucumbers. Tomatoes leaned over during the storm and anything under the plants may continue to ripen. How fast that happens, we don’t know. (They were just starting to burst into a beautiful red color.) Peppers were stripped of leaves and bells on top were destroyed. But those underneath may also survive. This is the problem: We do not know exactly how these fruits will react, what the texture will be or how they will taste. Do not be surprised by bruising and scars on your produce. We will be handing out anything that is still intact.

I asked Jerry the other day if his day has gotten easier or harder. Jerry replied, “Much harder. I am having to replace shut off valves on a huge part of the drip irrigation. (It was also destroyed by hail.) I am watering plants I don’t know will even live and planting plants that could die from frost before the end of the season. We pick crops that we don’t know if they will last long enough for consumption. Then turn around and feed it to the animals when it goes bad.”

End of year synopsis: The crops that were totally devastated were the cucumbers, green beans & melons of all types. Crops hurt in the storm were the tomatoes, peppers, onions and potatoes. To our surprise, the eggplant, lemon cucumbers & summer squash recovered quite well. Because of all the late season planting, members got more greens than you have ever gotten in the past and the frost waited until we could pick the last planting of corn! At that time, we were attending four farmers markets. We quit all but the Boulder Market (because of contract obligations) and all the produce went to the members. The fields were gleaned for six weeks. I cannot tell you how impressed we were at the resilience of the farm. Members still received an amazing variety of vegetables, though, the share sizes had to be reduced. Jerry and Jacquie never saw a storm like this in our past and truly hope we never do again!

Thanks to our ever-supporting members, we survived to farm another year. We have gained tons of knowledge from the experience and Kyle has already experienced his worst year ever…..let us hope!

Jacquie, Kyle, Jerry and Sam

Fresh Salsa aka Pico de Gallo

½ large onion, finely chopped In a small bowl, add onion, lime juice and salt. Mix well and set aside.

1 hot pepper, finely chopped (no metal bowls or spoons)

1 fresh squeezed lime

½ tsp salt

1 minced garlic In a large bowl, combine the next four ingredients, mix well. Dump the

¼ cup chopped cilantro (optional finely chopped onions from smaller bowl into larger bowl and mix well.

3 or 4 chopped tomatoes Cover and refrigerate, will be good for two or three days, if it lasts that long!

Tip: if salsa is too runny, strain juices or serve with a slotted spoon.

Freezer Jam

This was given to me by a member. I do not know where the recipe came from, but it was delicious! I’m sure you can go online to find reduced sugar recipes.

INGREDIENTS:

4 cups peeled, crushed or blended fresh peaches (overripe fruit works well for this)

1/4 cup fresh strained lemon juice

1 package (1 3/4 ounces) powdered fruit pectin

1 cup light corn syrup

5 1/2 cups sugar

PREPARATION:

Measure peaches into a large kettle; add lemon juice. While stirring with a wooden spoon, slowly add the pectin. Let stand 20 minutes; stir every 5 minutes to blend pectin with fruit. Add syrup and blend well; add sugar and blend well. Cook over low heat to about 100°, just warm to the touch. Do not allow mixture to become hot. Pour jam into jars to within 1/2-inch of top. Cover jars at once. Let stand until jelly consistency and cool. Store in freezer until ready to use. Store in refrigerator once jar has been opened. Makes about 8 half-pint or 4 pint jars.

Newsletter – August 1, 2022

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 red potatoes, red onions, garlic, squash, cucumber, broccoli, green beans, lettuce, red tomatoes, muskmelon, yellow and red watermelon and the full shares are getting Terra Cotta tomatoes…the first of the specialty tomatoes.

Mushrooms: will be delivered this week. The growers tell us that there could possibly be three more deliveries. Please contact the office by email and let them know if you want to be placed on a recurring order for each delivery. Otherwise, we will tell you what will be harvested and the price each time we get a notification. Due to the high interest in mushrooms, no one will get more than two pounds at a time. This way everyone will get some!

Everyone who emailed the office with orders for mushrooms will be receiving some this week.  There are a few members who did not reply about how many pounds they would like – those members will be getting a pound.  For everyone to receive some that requested them, we are limiting to 2 pounds per member.

Yellow Watermelon: Have you tried them before? They’re one of our favorites year after year. They’re smaller melons with a more honey notes going on. We hope you relish them as we do. Watermelon is medicinal! Studies have shown that an amino acid called citrulline helps manage high blood pressure.

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 six 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” moves right over us 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 up … the life of a farmer is an emotional rollercoaster!

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 day; 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 with a watermelon popsicle!!!

Watermelon Popsicles: Remove seeds and blend the watermelon. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze. Or make watermelon snow by freezing on a rimmed cookie sheet and scraping the ice. Perfect snow cones! And as an adult version, make into watermelon margarita’s, just look for a recipe online.

Have a great week!

Kyle, Jerry and Jacquie