Week 7 | Spring 1 CSA Newsletter Tues | Apr 16
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New season...new customers...new drivers...new routes...we appreciate your patience; call or text Robin at 708-370-8017 if you have any questions about your delivery tonight. |
Notes from Chris
Spring has arrived and we're excited to be packing our first box of the new season. After an incredibly hot growing season last year, and a cold and very wet winter/spring so far, we're settling down into a fairly typical, though somewhat cool and wet, spring. Though we'd all like it to be a little warmer and see things mature more quickly, these moderate growing conditions are nice, much more favorable than last year's, and are part what makes the Midwest excellent for agriculture. Our cool weather crops love these conditions, and there will always be plenty of heat come summer, so we're very much appreciating this spring weather while we can.
We're starting off the spring season with a nice mix of storage crops from last fall, and greens from our lingering winter and new spring plantings. Our fantastic carrot crop from last fall continues with almost 5,000 pounds still in storage. Even after five months in storage, these still are some of the best carrots you'll ever eat, with nice sweetness and great texture. They do need to get eaten in the next month or two, so expect a good supply of carrots through mid-May. Not quite as sexy but still in good shape from last fall's harvest are the last of our purple top turnips in this week's box. The final cutting from winter's spinach crop will give us frost sweetened greens this week and next.  Finally, we're including our first spring cutting of our mild mustard green cousin, Red Rain, in this week's box. This is one of our favorite Asian Greens that you'll be seeing in weeks and months to come.
For our new customers, we pack our boxes over time/on average about 10% above the value you pay. Nothing is ever perfect, we'd rather err on the safe side, and we want to be sure you're getting good value for your money. Value varies slightly from week to week. We track and publish values on our website weekly so that customers can see how much they're paying for what. Early in the year (like this week), the overall box value will occasionally be below what you paid (less than 5% under this week) as there aren't as many crops to harvest. As variety and crop volume quickly increase, so do the variety and quantity of produce in the CSA boxes. In the weeks ahead, expect variety to increase slowly, and expect quantity to nudge up 10-15% above what you're receiving this week. -- Chris Covelli
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Questions?
Call Robin (in Chicago) at 708-370-8017 | Chris (farmer/owner) at 608-712-1585
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Click links below for info
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WHAT'S COOKIN'
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Start your ovens! Check out our Preparation Tips to oven roast your carrots and turnips--for now and later. Use them as a side dish now, then nibble on them at room temperature, add them to scrambled eggs, puree them for soup, or freeze them for later. Roasting enhances their sweetness and makes them endlessly useful. |
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Extra Produce | Maple Syrup | Sunflower Oil Raw Honey | Pastured Chickens | Organic Eggs
Stone-Ground Flours & Pancake Mix | Blue Corn Tortilla Chips | Our Salsas, Soups, Preserves & More Seasonal Cookbooks
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