June 26th, 2023

** Please do not reply or comment on this post. The office does not receive comments or questions from the blog. Please reach out to jacquie@monroefarm.com **

Dear Farm Friends,

    Welcome to the third week of CSA!  This week, you will be receiving sugar snap peas, rainbow chard, garlic, garlic scapes, summer squash, pickling cucumbers, Hakurei turnips, and fennel.  You can eat both the bulb and the fronds or greens of fennel.  The fronds can be used in salads such as coleslaw or potato salad to give it a kick.  You can also dry them and use them as a pot herb. Keep in mind, if we give you the greens to any plant, they will be edible and can be used as an herb or cooked as a green.  Fennel is very kind on the tummy.   

July 4^th is a Tuesday this year.  Not this week, but next week we will move all Tuesday distribution to Monday, July 3^rd.  Connect with your distribution centers if you have questions about this. 

Payments due July 1^st for those of you who have only paid your down payment.  If you have a unique payment plan that we’ve agreed on, continue with that!  For everyone else, the remainder of your total is due either in full on July 1^st or in two payments on July 1^st and September 1^st.  Thank you for being timely with your payments. 

A note on beginnings: We know it may seem odd when we give you one or a couple small pickling cucumbers.  Think of them as a bite of what’s to come when we can really load you up.  We feel that it’s better than no cucumbers at all.  Remember, we often find ourselves in a pickle (haha) when we have a small amount of produce to spread out over hundreds of CSA shares.  It’s not a simple task.  We do an immense amount of planning to make sure we get you everything we are producing and that you are our priority.  So, while one pickle may seem ridiculous to you, to us that one measly pickle is a literal extension of our hearts and farm to you.  Our plants are just starting to produce right now.  You may not have noticed, but most other farms are not yet producing summer squash let alone cucumbers out in the field.  To be producing these crops with the spring we had has amazed us.  We are so grateful that we can distribute these items to you and that we have not been destroyed by the weather.   

Fun Fact:  Chard is basically the same plant as a beet except bred for their above ground parts whereas beets are bred for their underground parts!  Multiple plants can come from one seed.  For all the fellow plant nerds out there, the seeds of chard (and beets) are known as polyembryonic.

Basic Canning Instructions:  Since we are getting closer to full on pickle season, and we’re sure we will get enough fruit to can at some point in the season, we thought we would share these tried-and-true family tips with you. 

Here are some of our basic canning steps for the Front Range:

1.  Sterilize jars and lids.  Keep hot while filling other jars (the dishwasher is awesome for this).
2. Pack produce tightly while jars are hot.
3. Add hot brine/syrup & cover to half inch from top of jar.
4. Add lid and rim, tighten and set into canner.
5. Hot water bath for 15 min. plus 5 min. for every 5000 feet above sea level.  We sit at just over 4800 feet, so that makes our canning timer set at 20 minutes.

These steps have served us well for many years.  Jacquie’s mother and grandmother used the same rules, and we never had a problem with any of our canned goods!  Canning can be very therapeutic if you can get used to the heat.  You know the saying, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!”  Good luck!

SHAVED FENNEL, MUSHROOM AND PARMESAN SALAD

Servings: 4                                                                                                                    Author: Alice Waters

Ingredients:

• 2 small /1 medium or large, fennel bulb
• 3 large, white mushrooms
• 1/2 fresh lemon
• Parmigiano Reggiano cheese (sub vegan cheese)
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• salt and pepper
• Directions:

Wash and trim fennel bulbs – cut away feathery tops and root end. If you can only find large bulbs, remove the tough inner core on the root end. Save the fronds for decoration.  Using a vegetable slicer or mandolin slicer, slice the fennel as thinly as possible and scatter over a plate or platter.  Drizzle with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Shave mushrooms into paper thin slices and scatter over fennel.  Season with more salt and pepper, a squeeze of lemon juice and the remaining olive oil.  With a cheese slicer or vegetable peeler, shave about 30 thin slivers of Parmesan on top of the fennel and mushrooms. Do not toss!  Using scissors, decorate with chopped fennel fronds.  Serve immediately.

Simplicity (How happy is the little Stone)

Emily Dickinson

How happy is the little Stone

That rambles in the Road alone,

And doesn’t care about Careers

And Exigencies never fears

Whose Coat of elemental Brown

A passing Universe put on,

And independent as the Sun

Associates or glows alone,

Fulfilling absolute Decree

In casual simplicity

With gratitude,

Kyle, Sam, Jacquie, Jerry, Linda & The Crew

June 19th, 2023 Newsletter

Dear Farm Friends,

 Our first week was fresh and delicious but this week is even better!  What’s in your bag this week?  Garlic, garlic scapes, squash, (either zucchini, round zucchini, or yellow squash), sugar snap peas, Hakurei turnips, and green butter head lettuce.  The scapes are the tops of the garlic that if allowed would become a flower.  When we remove them from the still-growing garlic plants the garlic bulbs get larger.  It’s a win-win harvesting them.  They’re so delicious and removing them helps our garlic get big! Garlic scapes are a fleeting favorite of many.  They are extremely versatile.  They can be grilled or roasted and eaten as a vegetable, minced and added to salads & eggs (like green onion) and are fabulous chopped up and added to any stir fry.  You can also add them into pesto or into hummus.  Hakurei turnips can be shaved or sliced, dressed with oil and vinegar then eaten raw, steamed, or cooked any which way. We love to simply dice all these new veggies and throw them in together in a stir fry with salad on the side.  The turnip greens are easily revived in cold water and then can be steamed, or rubbed with oil and salt, then air fried or baked into chips.

Newsletters:  This is the last hard copy newsletter you will receive unless you notify your DC that you would like to receive one each week.  Ideally, you can head to our website www.monroefarm.com and subscribe to receive communications emailed to you directly.  Scroll down to the bottom of our homepage, enter your information, and hit subscribe.  Thank you for helping us cut down on our paper usage!

    Fruit:   We are expecting to start getting fruit in July with one of many cherry varieties!

    Honey:  Those of you who ordered monthly and bimonthly will be getting it this week.

Zelle payments: We still have a few Zelle payments that we haven’t been able to place with an account.  One was made in May for $215.00 and the other was made last week for $200.00. Please, if this could be you, call the office!  You must let us know if the payment is coming from a name that is not attached to your account so we can add that name to your account. 

Please make sure any emails from jacquie@monroefarm.com are not going to your spam folder.  We have one new member who we only have an email address for.  We need your other contact information.  If this is you, call the office or email us back!

What’s in your bag and how to use it all:  Remember, your bag may seem small now, but it will keep growing and growing.  Soon there will be extras on the side to grab such as tomatoes and melons.  Cucumbers are going to be coming on in full force very shortly.  It looks like we are going to have an awesome carrot year.   Certain crops could be delayed due to all the moisture we’ve been getting paired with how unusually cool it has been.  This week will be the first time we’ve gotten into the 90’s.  This lack of heat is rare for us being in the middle of June already. We need high temps for warmth loving crops like peppers, melons, and tomatoes.  Please remember that Linda in the office won’t be able to see into the future and tell you exactly what you’re going to be getting next week or the next.  If you’re at a loss with what to do with certain vegetables, ask your distribution center and remember there are thousands of recipes online.  Google can be helpful when seeking a recipe.  Consider ordering our CSA cookbook that has tons of community sourced recipes for each veggie you may encounter. 

Veggie Wash

Juice from a whole lemon

2 Tablespoons Vinegar

1 cup water

1 spray bottle & scrub brush

Mix and spray onto surface of veggies.  Let sit for a minute or two.  (Longer if trying to remove wax from store bought veg) Scrub lightly on soft skinned veggies and more aggressively on hard skinned produce like winter squash, cucumbers, root veggies and melons. Leafy greens simply should be sprayed, let sit 5 min. then rinsed.

Why couldn’t the turnip go to the party?  It was grounded. 

With gratitude,

Kyle, Sam, Jacquie, Jerry, Linda, & The Crew

First week of Distribution

Posted on June 15, 2023 by jacquiemonroefarmcom | Leave a comment

**Please don’t respond to this blog. We do not receive comments or questions from this page. ** Direct any questions or comments to the office. 970-284-7941

Hello to all of you Farm Friends! Welcome to the first week of distribution! We hope you all are doing well and are surviving these rainy days!

A few reminders for all of you: We know your bag is not full, but remember it is just the beginning. Every week we should be bringing you more and more produce! If there is something you are not familiar with, you can ask your distribution center about it. They may have suggestions on how to prepare and cook it. We also sell a CSA cookbook for $20 that has recipes for everything you may get. Google is also an amazing source of information and recipes!

We do not know what we will be harvesting and delivering to you each week. It is a surprise to all of us! A newsletter comes out usually on Mondays and has a list of what you should be receiving in your bag that week. Please watch for that.

ZELLE PAYMENTS – Please remember if you are sending payments through Zelle, to contact the office to let us know you are sending it and which account to apply it to. We are not able to see memos attached to these payments. The only information we receive with a Zelle payment is the name of the bank account holder. This may or may not line up with the names on the member list. Please check your statements and contact Linda if you are missing a credit on your account for a Zelle payment. We currently have received two unclaimed Zelle payments.

We still have spaces available at most of our distribution centers for your friends and family to sign up for. We have four distribution centers that are full and can no longer have more members added. They are listed as Denver’s 6th & York, Denver’s 29th and Monroe, Denver’s Colorado & Colfax, and Denver’s Logan and Louisiana.

Please reach out to Linda at the office for any questions, concerns, or suggestions. We all want to make this the best summer season for everyone.

With our greatest gratitude for each one of you,

Kyle, Sam, Jerry, Jacquie, Linda and the Crew

First week of distribution

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Newsletter – June 12, 2023

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. Please also note that it is not possible to only receive summer share newsletters.

Dear Friends of the Farm,

Welcome to our first week of CSA distribution! Although we have been dealing with a ton of weather this spring, the farm is finally starting to look like it’s June. We have been talking about how important listening to our instincts has been in decision making this year. When to plant and when to water has been so much more challenging with all the storms. However, the greens have been loving all the moisture and we are thrilled to already be producing summer squash!

Produce: This week you are getting garlic, garlic scapes, summer squash, bok choy and head lettuce. This is a normal start to our season. In the coming weeks we are expecting to add peas, turnips, cucumbers, kale, chard, onions, carrots, beets, and more. Shares will start out small and gradually gain momentum as more and more vegetables come into season. Each week new crops will be added, and your bags will have a wonderful assortment of produce before you know it!

It is very important that you return all your bags every week! Food safety is important to everyone. Please take care of your bag and make sure animals do not lay on it, it’s not left lying on the floor of your car where people can step on it and please remove all food debris before returning to your distribution center.

It is a good plan to pre-wash produce outside to get most of the soil off in your yard (or an extra-large bowl set in your kitchen sink) and not down your drainpipes. Children may especially love this task. Getting your kids involved in the pre-prep work, talking about the produce & asking them what they want to eat may help get them motivated to try different varieties.

Your Distribution Center: We ask that you have patience and be respectful in any interactions with your Distribution Center. Our amazing members who run distribution centers have offered to allow people to pick up shares from their home. The result is that we can have a CSA program that is convenient for everyone. Distribution Centers may have up to 40 members to keep track of. Please respect their hours. If you need to pick up at a different time than usual or have forgotten to pick up during normal hours, please call and make new arrangements; do not show up after hours without prior communication. Distribution centers will hold produce for 24 hours. If there is no contact from you within that time period, the produce will be donated to a place of need, that includes your fruit. We encourage CSA members to donate their produce when going on vacation. If you plan on having someone pick up your share for you while you are gone, your DC will need their name and phone number. This gives them permission to hand out a share to someone other than yourself and it gives them a contact number if someone forgets to pick up. Ask your DC questions! They are a wealth of information and will help you use your share. Consider getting our cookbook. There are ten recipes for every veggie we grow. Check to see if your DC has a veggie exchange box.

4th of July: This holiday falls on a Tuesday. Any member who receives their share on Tuesdays will be affected. All Tuesday distribution centers will instead receive their share on that Monday, July 3rd. Everyone who picks up on Wednesdays and Thursdays will have no change to their schedule.

Your Expectations and Us: Joining us in CSA involves sharing the risk of farming with us. Mother Nature doesn’t cooperate with our plans often. Remember that sometimes produce looks pristine in grocery stores because it’s been waxed, irradiated, sprayed with fungicide, or all the “imperfect” items have been discarded. This results in tons of unnecessary food waste and a lot of strange things being done to food. If an item has a safe imperfection, we give it out to you! We never treat any produce with anything other than love. We often grow varieties for their taste, not necessarily for their beauty. If there is an abundance of produce, you will get it. If there is a shortage of produce, you will see that too. Along with rain we sometimes get hail. Don’t be surprised if you get produce with scabs from the damage this causes. We work very hard to catch produce that is badly bruised. Occasionally, we miss something. We apologize ahead of time and will do our best to make it up to you if needed. Our intent is to get you the best of the best always picked fresh. We prioritize our CSA membership above all other outlets such as farmers markets. We love what we do and care deeply about the grounds we live on, the food we produce here and the people who eat off this land AKA you!

Statements: We will send statements each month. For those of you who did not pay in full at the time you joined the farm, your first produce payment (including fruit, oil, honey & eggs) is due July 1st. You may pay these fees in full or in half and the other half will be due by September 1st. If you are paying monthly, then continue making the agreed upon scheduled payments.

First Year Members: Allow for an adjustment period as you figure out how to incorporate your share into your life. You will need time to process your produce by sorting and washing. If you are willing to put up with the soil, don’t wash veggies until you are ready to use them. This will help everything last longer. Produce breaks down as soon as it gets wet. You can avoid getting soil in your fridge by bagging things. The more tender a crop is, the sooner it will need to be eaten, i.e. greens, summer squash, peas, beans, broccoli, cantaloupe, cucumbers, and tomatoes. You can revive almost anything with an hour soak in cold water! Potatoes even become more nutritious if soaked for a few hours in cool water before cooking. We will dish out more tips on storage and prep as we go through the summer.

Newsletters: To receive a direct email with our weekly newsletter, head to the homepage of www.monroefarm.com, scroll to the bottom of the page, enter your information, and subscribe. Please notify your DC if you prefer to get a hard copy at the distribution site. It is important to read your newsletters because they will inform you about everything in your share, plus recipes and tips. We will also notify you in the newsletter of bonus you-pick days and other events that may directly affect you or the food you’re receiving plus any farm happenings. Don’t forget to check out our Facebook or Instagram for pictures and videos. Please continue to contact us through the office by email or phone if you have any concerns rather than social media DMs.

How to contact us: The best way to reach us is by phone. We are very good at answering phone calls. However, you can email us if you do not need an immediate response. As the summer gets busier it can take us up to a few days to return an email. If you need to make a change in your share or DC, please call us. We pick veggies on Monday for Tuesday, Tuesday for Wednesday and Wednesday for Thursday. Keep this in mind if you want to make a change. Whenever you call about your share, especially if needing to make changes, always identify your Distribution Center!

Thank you: Welcome to the 2023 farming season with Monroe Organic Farms. We hope you enjoy eating with us. The beginning of CSA is always so exciting! This week’s share is just a sample of what is to come. Our family is looking forward to sharing a fantastic summer with you. Thank you for giving us this opportunity to be your farmers!

With gratitude,

Kyle, Sam, Jerry, Jacquie, Linda and The Crew

Newsletter – June 6, 2023

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. Please also note that it is not possible to only receive summer share newsletters.

CSA DISTRIBUTION BEGINS NEXT WEEK!

Our first days of distribution will be June 13, 14 and 15. Your distribution center will contact you with all necessary information including which day you pick up.

Questions? Call the office at 970.284.7941 or email jacquie@monroefarm.com

Please direct all questions to the office!

We are so thrilled to have you with us this growing season. Here’s to fresh veggies and a bag that keeps getting larger and larger each week! We know the first week can seem slim but we will get you all the deliciousness that you deserve! Follow along on social media by visiting Facebook and Instagram.

Be sure to subscribe to our emails (this is separate from the blog notifications and is how you will now receive the newsletter) via the homepage of our website. Just scroll to the bottom to sign up!

**  Please do not reply or respond to this post as we do not receive your messages.  This is posted by a CSA member.  **