Week 1

Crop	Half	Cost	Full	Cost
Straw berries	1 quart	5.00	2 quarts	10.00
Asparagus	½ lb .	3.00	3/4 lb.	4.00
Cilantro	1 bunch	1.00	1 bunch	1.00
Turnips	1 bunch	1.50	1 bunch	2.00
Radishes	1 bunch	1.25	1 bunch	1.75
Lettuce	1 head	2.00	2 heads	4.00
Mesclun Mix	1/3 lb.	2.00	½ lb.	3.00
Kale	1 bunch	1.50	1 bunch	2.50
Total		17.25		28.25

Recipe Of The Week

Cilantro Lime Vinaigrette Salad

Wash and add a small amount of the spicy mesclun mix to a head of chopped lettuce. (Mesclun mix: tatsoi, mitzuna, red mustard, green mustard, arugula, red russian kale, baby swiss chard).

2/3 cup lime juice 2/3 cup packed cilantro

3 tablespoons minced garlic 2-4 dashes Tabasco

1/4 cup apple cider vinegar 1 tablespoon cumin

pinch of salt 1/4 cup olive oil

Place all the ingredients for the vinaigrette, except for the oil, in the blender. Turn on the blender and slowly add the oil. Pour the vinaigrette chilled on top of your salad. Enjoy!

What’s Going On?

CSA Volunteer Work Day: This Sunday on the farm from 1pm-4pm. Bring your family to see the farm and do some work! More info and directions to come via email!

Hello! I am excited the season is starting, as I hope all of you are as well. There are a few things I would like to review with folks about how the CSA works, just so I know we are all on the same page.

1) If you know by the Monday night before the Wednesday delivery that you will be unable to pick up your share, please email or call the farm to let us know. We will not pack you a box for that week. You will then receive a ‘credit’ good for an extra week’s share. You can notify the farm to use this credit at any time through out the season.

2) If you do not notify the farm in advance that you can not pick up your share, and your share is delivered and you do not pick it up within the designated pick up times, your share is forfeited for that week. It is good to be respectful of the set pick up times as our pick up sites are loaned to us on a volunteer basis.

3) Your name is on your box so you can have anyone you like pick it up for you, it does not have to be you.

4) I will communicate with the CSA group through the weekly newsletter and group emails primarily. Any and all important information concerning your shares will come to you in one of those two forms of communication.

5) Please return the previous week’s wax box to the pick up location when you pick up your following week’s share. The wax boxes break down very easily from the bottom, please feel free to break it down before you return it as it is easier to transport them stacked. The boxes are re-used and cost almost $1.00 each, so lets take care of them.

6)Please, at any time, feel free to send me any questions or thoughts via email. I am happy to converse with you all.

This year the farm is lucky to have Charlie St Clair as an intern. Charlie has been working full time on the farm since the first of March and will see the season through until October. We have also recently hired a fellow named Lee to work two days a week to help out through the busy summer months. Charlie will be helping me out on Wednesday’s at the Carrboro Market, so folks who pick up their shares at the market make sure to say hello.

Some of you may be wondering how the dry spring has been on the crops at the farm. It has been dry, that is for sure, but aside from having to move some sprinklers around more than we would like, it hasn’t been too much of a problem. I have a good irrigation system set up, and because of that, we can recognize some of the benefits of the dry weather. First off the soil has been ‘workable’ all spring, which means it has been dry enough to do tractor work at any time I have wanted or needed. More often than not it can be pretty wet in the spring, and with the lack of warm drying days to dry the soil out, that can cause some delay in using the tractor and preparing beds. The second benefit is that there have been hardly any weeds!! I use some overhead sprinklers to irrigate, but mainly I use drip line. Drip line lays on the bed right at the base of the crop so that as water drips out of it into the soil it is deposited right onto where the roots of the crop are growing. This prevents water from germinating seeds in the rest of the bed where the irrigation is not needed.

All that being said, we did get 2.5 inches of rain this weekend and what seemed to be about another inch last night (although I haven’t gone outside yet this morning to check the rain gauge). Now after not having rain for so long, I am actually stressing out about having too much! A farmer is never satisfied. Here are some of the problems with having too much rain all at once right now for the farm. It is strawberry season, and that can make the rain a problem for a couple of reasons. First off, strawberries and rain do not mix that well. Too much rain can give the strawberries a watered down flavor, as the sun and the right amount of water provide the sweetness, not as much sun and too much water dilute the sugars. The rain can also lead to rotting of the berries in the field as the berry itself hardly has a protective ‘skin’ to protect the fruit. Unless the sun comes out to dry the berries the next day, sitting wet berries is a combination for some fruit loss. Strawberry season also means that we are busy, and that the amount of time in a week we have to actually do work, as opposed to harvesting veggies and berries, can be limited. Really wet soil means that the kinds of work we can get accomplished is limited also, as tractor work, hoeing weeds, transplanting and more cannot be done when the soil is too wet. So, limited time to work, and limited windows of opportunity to do the work we need to do depending on how the weather treats us, can make this work very strategic. I actually enjoy the challenge to it all, so please don’t confuse all of this for complaining, rather just sharing what goes into it all : )

What To Look Forward To....

Fortunately there is a good bit to look forward to for this year. I will highlight a few things for now, and save some for future newsletters as well. I am excited this year that the garlic is doing fabulous, and we have a lot of it. I mention this one first off because last year I was very disappointed that the garlic did so poorly. Keep in mind when I mention these things that it is not all said and done until you see it in your boxes. A bomb could explode in the garlic patch, or a wild dog could dig them all up in the night.....you never know is my point. But, for now, they look great and I am optimistic that they are going to be available and abundant. This season the onions are doing well also, something I always seem to have a hard time with. I will cross my fingers they will make it, for some reason I have such bad luck with such a yummy food item. We put our tomatoes in the ground last week, so they are on their way! We have a lot more coming also, beans are germinating, summer squash plants are in the ground and growing. Of course I am getting ahead of myself, we still have a good 6-8 weeks of spring crops to go. On that note, next week you can look forward to more strawberries and hopefully asparagus. Spinach, bok choi and other greens are on their way, as well as kohlrabi and dill. Well, that is it for now folks, please, please, please send me feedback even if you just have the slightest incline to do so. Take care! Elise.