CSA 2014 - Week #1
June 3, 4 & 5
Welcome to the first week of the CSA! We have a wonderful harvest of greens in this first week's share. They are especially tender this time of year, so be sure to handle them carefully! I know I'll be serving up some wonderful kale and spinach salads this week. Try the kale salad recipe below - it's the best!
STRAWBERRY UPDATE
We know that many of you are anxious for our U-Pick Strawberry season to begin. We are monitoring the crop daily and we'll post a notice on our website and Facebook page when we are confident that there will be enough to open up the fields to pickers! By next weekend there will be plenty, so you can confidently make plans to come visit us and U-Pick on Friday and Saturday June 13 & 14 and the following week, June 20 & 21. Hours are 10am-6pm on Fridays and 9am-5pm on Saturdays.
And yes, we have a separate field of strawberries planted for the CSA, so you should receive strawberries in your CSA share at some point this month.
VISIT THE FARM!
Farm Tours are held every Saturday in June at 2pm starting this weekend! Free for CSA members and their families.
GET TO KNOW US!
Some of you know us well, others are new to our CSA program and new to our farm. Here's a little background... My husband, Matt Kurek, started the Golden Earthworm Farm nearly 20 years ago on a small piece of rented land near his family's home. A self-taught farmer, Matt grew the farm from that one acre plot into one of the first organic CSA farms in the country. We now grow on 80 acres of Certified Organic farmland and serve dozens of communities on Long Island and Queens with our beautiful organic produce. Farmer Matt and farmer James Russo, who joined us as a partner in the business in 2005, are the incredibly hard working farmers responsible for growing the produce you receive in your shares. We also have a team of dedicated and hard working employees who maintain and harvest the crops and wash and pack up your share each week. Many of them have worked for us for over a decade. I have always been the one behind the scenes designing our website, taking the photographs, developing recipes and running the business end of things. I'm constantly running (or biking) between the fields, the farm office and our farmhouse kitchen. Matt and I live on the farm with our two little farmers-in-training, Galen and Zinn. It's a busy, dirty!, beautiful life. We are so happy you have joined us this season! Please don't be a stranger - come visit us or drop us an e-mail. We love to hear from you! - Maggie
FARM WEATHER REPORT
Farmers love to talk about weather. And why not? It is the single most important thing in their lives. (Ahem, after their family, of course!) It is the main factor in determining the success of a crop, the timing of a planting and the outcome of a harvest. In other words, not only is it important to your farmers, it is going to be very important to you this year too! The weather will determine what gets harvested and packed into your CSA box, and what you will ultimately be serving up on your table this season. So, how is the weather on the farm? Well, this spring has been unusually cold, as I'm sure you know all too well. Fortunately, this didn't keep us from our usual seeding schedule in the greenhouses where we start many of our crops. It did delay our strawberry crop, which is now about 2 weeks behind schedule. They're starting to ripen, but slowly. They should reach their peak by mid-June.
THIS WEEK IN THE SHARES
Baby Bok Choi - 1 bunch
Red Kale - 1 bunch
My favorite kale is back! Time to try the recipe below for a raw kale salad. You'll love it!
Lettuce Mix - 3/4 lb bag*
Spinach - 1 bunch
Arugula - 1/2 lb bag*
*A Special Note on the bagged greens: We’re using a greens harvester for the first time this year which makes the harvesting faster and allows us to give out a lot more to each member! The downside is that it also harvests some weeds along with the crop. So, we’re asking members to help us by removing the weeds from their bags at home. We’re sending extra poundage in the shares to make up for the weight of the weeds in each bag. We think this is a fair trade off and we’re going to try to reduce the number of weeds as we get more experience working with this harvester over the course of the season. Thanks!
STORAGE TIPS
In a bag in the fridge...
Kale, Lettuce Mix, Arugula, Spinach, Bok Choi