week 1

Hey CSA folks,
We are looking forward to seeing everybody this week. You will notice the beautiful skeleton of the much anticipated packing shed. We had intended to have it all finished before the first pick up, but believe us when we say that we have thousands of good excuses for its incompleteness. Among other things that happened this week was the transplanting of the winter squash and watermelons, the seventh succession planting of lettuce, the third seeding of carrots and beets and the continued trellising and pruning of the high tunnel tomatoes, and the eternal chore of weeding, weeding, weeding.


This week was also the first week of farmer’s markets for us. It felt great to return to the Manchester market (Thursdays at the rec park from 3-6). We’ve been doing it there for the last 3 years and were greeted with enthusiasm by our regular customers. We made our debut at the Dorset market on Sunday (10-2 by Williams store) it was a new crowd for us, but it won’t be long before we have hoomoos addicts coming to us for their fix. It was wonderful to see a good number of CSA members at both markets. While we’ll be happily taking care of your veggie needs for the rest of the season, we encourage you all to support other local food producers- there are amazing bread, cheese and jam producers at these markets. Also, if you happen to visit our stand, please introduce yourself as a CSA member to whichever wwoofer is working there (just to be friendly and also to get your 20% discount).


We’d like to offer a bit more information about your veggie pick-ups. We’ve asked folks to choose either Tuesdays (12-1) or Fridays (4-6). When you show up at the packing shed (located here at Teleion Holon- 2106 River Road) you’ll find bushel baskets of everything that’s been harvested that week. There will be a sign by each basket letting you know the quantity of that particular veggie that is equal to one unit (i.e.- ½ pound of salad mix = 1 unit). A small share will be entitled to less points than a full share, but you can choose to use the points however you want. As the season progresses, you will have more points to use and a wider variety of veggies to choose amongst. Pick your own flowers and herbs do not count as points, but eggs do. We promise that this is not as complicated as it sounds and we will be there to help folks figure things out. Also, we will have prepared food (crackers, hoomoos, veggie burgers, granola) available for sale at 20% off our market prices. Everyone has a $20 credit to try things out and after that we’ll use a debit system for keeping track of purchases.


And last but not least are the veggies of the week: you can look forward to salad mix, spinach, head lettuce, bok choi, mizuna, radishes, garlic scapes, eggs and herbs- parsley, cilantro, super spicy pepper cress, lemon balm, anise hyssop, greek oregano and more. Kat will be giving herb garden tours to show folks how to harvest and give ideas for how to use herbs (including our delicious house iced tea). Speaking of ideas, the following recipes are from a favorite of ours: Farmer John’s Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables. It’s full of great recipes, farm stories, essays, and hilarious quotes and is seriously worth investing in. We’ve also included suggestions for proper storage and handling to keep your veggies fresh and tasty