Welcome to 2013 CSA

Welcome to our 2013 CSA season.  We've been preparing and planning for this season since last fall, but the planting outside just began yesterday.  We are very happy to welcome spring and excited to get our hands in the ground.

We plan to start updating the blog weekly with what we're doing on the farm and pictures, bookmark our blog to stay posted on how your veggies are growing.

Yesterday we planted potatoes, one of the funnest for our kids, because they can all help.  Jeremiah, our 10-month-old was even crawling through the dirt.

Marking out the rows in the potato garden

We have our little dining room green house going.  We start all our own seedlings in the house and then as they grow and the temperature permits, we move them to the workbench in Josh's woodworking shop (which has a south window.)  This begins the hardening off process.  In the evenings we bring the plants outside for a few hours, until they are tough enough to be planted in the garden.

Josh, Olue, Jeremiah, & John filling newspaper pots with potting soil.

Cauliflower

Pepper

We moved the cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, kale, kohlrabi, herbs, celery, celeriac, and fennel out to the shop this weekend.  The tomatoes and peppers are still in the dining room.

Week 16 CSA Pick-Up...Last week

What you'll find in your basket this week...

• Potatoes
• Red
• White
• Cranberry Red (these have a red flesh)
• Peppers
• Yellow Banana
• Green Bell
• Green Garden Salsa
• Carrots
• Fingerlings
• Large variety for winter storage
• Onions
• Winter Squash (buttercup)
• Carving Pumpkin
• Tomatoes (hopefully)

We decided to give everyone the same "extras" since it's all things that will last for a while and we have a great abundance.

The gardens are done producing since we had frost 4 nights last week.  None were completely killing of the tomatoes, so hopefully we can pick a few that look like they have ripened since then.

Remember to bring back all of your boxes and bags.  We won't be bringing your vegetables in boxes this week, so you'll have to bring your own container to bring home your veggies if you don't want bags of potatoes rolling around in the back of your vehicle.

Thank you for a great season!  We look forward to next summer and providing your veggies again.  If you have any suggestions or new veggies you would like to try, let us know.  We are always looking to improve our CSAs.

We will again be selling only10 shares next year.  We'll send out the brochures in the mail in February.  We will give the shares to the first 10 people to return their money next spring.

Week 15 Pick-up

What you'll find in your basket this week...

• Potatoes
• Tomatoes
• Cherry tomatoes
• Peppers
• Onions
• Carrots
• Sugar Pumpkin (for making pumpkin pie or bread or muffins, etc)
• Spaghetti Squash
• Zucchini

Next week is our last week.  In addition to the regular basket next week, we will be posting a list of additional extra veggies that you can get.  Please let us know which ones you want of these once the list is posted.

The gardens are on the down hill.  The vines were nipped by frost this weekend.  Now we can see the squash and pumpkins to pick.  The soup beans are all dry and ready to pick.  The popcorn will soon be dry enough to pick.  The tomatoes and peppers are in full swing.  The potato plants are all dry and ready for harvest.  It's definitely been a great produce year!

Week 13 CSA Pick-up

What you'll find in your basket this week...

• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Onions
• Beets
• Peppers
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Beans
• Cucumbers
• Zucchini
• Edemame

Extras this week...

• Purple Cabbage
• Tomatoes

We were gone for the weekend, but could tell what kind of weather we had since the gardens looked hot, dry, and wind blown.  The cucumber and bean production is slowing down.  What's left of the beets are pretty huge.  The tomatoes are starting to pick up in their ripening.  The peppers look great...so many many peppers on them.  The edemame are now ready to start picking.  Most of the potato plants are starting to dry.  Seems like a lot of the gardening is winding down, while the tomatoes are just getting started.

We'll be picking soup beans this week.  We let them finish drying in the house in pods and then shell them in November/December while we watch the Sunday night football game.  The kids love to help with this.  These will be the soup beans you'll get in your CSA boxes next summer.

The edemame are a soybean.  You'll find tips on how to cook them in From Asparagus to Zucchini under bean.

Pickles

Here are the recipes that I use for pickles.

Dill Pickles

1. Put sprig of dill and one clove of garlic in bottom of wide mouth canning jar (I use pints since we don't eat that many pickles).
2. Pack with cucumbers.
3. Pour boiling brine over cucumbers.
• 1 quart vinegar
• 2 quarts water
• 1/2 c. canning salt
• 1/2 c. sugar
4. Lid and ring the jars then hot water bath for 10 minutes.

You can refrigerate the extra brine and use it for later.  I started with a double batch of brine this year and made 22 pint jars.

Dill Pickles

Sweet Pickles/Refrigerator Pickles

1. Cut up one onion and enough cucumbers to fill a gallon jar (or 2-2quart jars or 4-1 quart jars or...)
2. Make brine:
• 4 c vinegar
• 3 c sugar
• 1/3 c canning salt
• 1 tsp tumeric
• 1 tsp mustard seed
• 1 tsp celery seed
3. Cover and bring brine to boil and boil for 5 minutes.
4. Pour over cucumbers and onions.  (Make sure you have the window open since hot vinegar steam seams to sting your eyes pretty good.)
5. Keep jar in refrigerator.  Should keep for about a year.

Sweet Pickles

If you don't have enough room in your fridge to keep a gallon jar, you can make these in canning jars and hot water bath for 10 minutes.  I use a double batch of brine for 12 pt jars.  I have a little wasted brine, but they my jars are full enough for canning.  I make the refrigerator version for us and process pints to sell.  The processing doesn't seem to effect the crispness too much.

Week 12 CSA

What you'll find in your basket...

• potatoes
• carrots
• onions
• beans
• beets
• zucchini
• cucumbers
• peppers

Extras...

• purple cabbage
• cherry tomatoes
• pickling cucumbers***

***We are going to start pulling out the pickling cucumbers after this week, unless you want more to can.  Let us know.

We're starting to pull the plants in the garden that are done producing (cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, kale).  We give these to the chickens.  They seem to eat less grain feed this time of year because of all the veggies they are getting.  It is especially nice this year since the price of feed is going up a lot.

We are trying something new this year.  As we clear out areas in the garden, we spread manure, till and then plant oats.  We are hoping this will improve the soil health, decrease weeds for next spring, and help retain more moisture for next spring.  We are also hoping it will make our old tiller last a little longer.  We used to wait until everything was done producing, pull it all out, till the whole garden, spread manure and then till again.  This was hard on both the tiller and Josh, making them work hard covering the whole garden twice in one weekend.  Josh tells me that tilling is his least favorite job.  I don't like it either, since I can't help.  We can work together on almost every other project on the farm and that is what we like most about what we do.

The tomatoes are starting to ripen.  The first ones that ripen have bottom end rot, so that is why you aren't seeing them in your basket yet.  It seems to happen every year.  But you should be getting tomatoes soon.:)  The edemame will be ready soon too.  Otherwise you're baskets will continue to have the pretty much same things as this week for a while.  The other "new" items will be the fall items that will come at the end of the season...winter squash, pumpkins, and gourds.

We won't be having sweet corn in the baskets this year.  It got too dry and couldn't recover.  So if you are craving it as you drive by the road side trucks filled with corn, stop and gets some.

Week 11 CSA

What you'll find in your basket this week...

• Potatoes
• Carrots
• Onions
• Beans
• Beets
• Zucchini
• Cucumbers
• Peppers
• Purple Cabbage

Extras...

• Cherry Tomatoes

The tomatoes will be coming soon.  There are a lot on the vines, but none are red yet.  The crops will be slowing down now.  The vines are growing well.  We got a well needed inch and a quarter of rain on Saturday.  Hopefully we won't have to water for a while now.  It had been really dry up til the rain.

As a heads up we will be having a change of day for pick-up the week of Labor Day.  Bismarck pick-up will be on Monday (Labor Day), Sept 3rd, 5-6pm.  New Salem pick-up will be Monday(Labor Day), Sept 3rd, 6:30-8:00pm.

Here are some pictures I took of the gardens about two weeks ago.  It's been pretty crazy here with canning and family activities, so I haven't gotten them up til now.  I haven't posted to our personal blog either, and I think the grandparents are waiting for more recent pictures of our kids.

popcorn

pullets
They have just started laying little eggs!

carrots

Zucchini

zucchini

Banana pepper

tomatoes

tomatoes

cabbage

beans

picklers

cucumbers