Community Supported Agriculture in PH

Subject: Prospect Heights CSA

We're going too.

My wife and I are definitely interested. My sister in Chicago belongs to a CSA and always raves about the produce quality.

Just a reminder that the meeting is today! Hope to see some of you there!

Subject: Announcement: Prospect Heights CSA Info Meeting, Sun Mar 19

P.S. mods, would you consider making the above post an "announcement" on the message board? thank you!

Subject: A note from the farmer about his veggies, fruits, eggs &

Here's a note from the farmer, Ted Blomgren, about his farm and what they expect to grow this coming year.

Looking forward to seeing you on Sunday at 2:30 at Beast.

WINDFLOWER FARM - THE 2006 SEASON

WELCOME
Windflower Farm is a small family farm in the Taconic Hill country between the Hudson River and the Vermont border. This marks our seventh season growing organic vegetables, and cut flowers for shareholders in NYC, and our third year raising free-range hens. Every Thursday for nearly half the year, we bring our produce to communities in NYC. We invite you to read this brochure to learn more about us and our approach to farming, and the kinds of shares we’re offering this year. If this brochure does not answer all of your questions, please feel free to contact us.

CSA & OUR COMMITMENT
Community supported agriculture (CSA) is a collaboration between farmers and the people who eat the food they grow. As Wendell Berry puts it, “Eating is an agricultural act.” CSA is a means by which people may establish a stronger relationship with the sources of their food. As farmers, we make a commitment to you to be good stewards of the land we grow your food on, and to grow a wide variety of high-quality vegetables in suitable quantities for you and the people with whom you share your table. And you, the folks who eat our food, make a commitment to us and the ecological practices we use by purchasing a share in our harvest, by sharing in some of the risks (and potential bounty) associated with growing crops in the Northeast, and by paying in advance of the season for your produce.

We believe that the principles of sustainable agriculture apply to every kind of farming, from the growing of the fresh vegetables and fruits that make their way to your dinner plates, to the production of the fresh cut flowers that adorn your tables. As organic growers, we use no pesticides or synthetic fertilizers of any kind. To enrich our soils, we use cover crops, crop rotations and compost. We are committed to careful land stewardship, ecological pest management, and a healthy environment for the people who work with us. In this way, we hope to leave our farm in good condition for future generations.

THE WINDFLOWER FARM STORY
Windflower Farm is a small organic farm nestled on 38 rolling acres in the Taconic Hills of southern Washington County, between Saratoga Springs, New York and Manchester, Vermont. We are about three hours drive north of NYC. It’s an area we find beautiful because of its lovely small farms and mix of open fields and wooded landscapes. We’ve been growing flowers and vegetables for more than ten years, and we’ve been on our own farm and distributing in New York City for seven years. It is a craft we truly enjoy.

Jan brings to the farm her experience as an illustrator, her training in botany, and her creativity as a flower designer, and Ted brings his training in horticulture, and his experience as an educator and vegetable farmer. Our boys bring to the farm their boundless energy, a sense of wonder, and their own farm enterprise—a flock of free-range chickens that lay brown eggs. Two years ago, we added a small laying flock to the farm and enjoyed the antics of the little red hens that came to live with us every bit as much as their delicious brown eggs. The experience was so enjoyable, and the birds fit so well with our farm goals, that we have since increased the flock to over 400 hens.

THE VEGETABLE SHARE
Each year we grow 15 acres of organic vegetables for our shareholders in NYC. Our goal is to offer the widest possible assortment of vegetables. Each week, for about 23 weeks beginning in mid-June, we’ll have salad greens and cooking greens, herbs, an assortment of roots, bulbs and tubers, and seasonal vegetables, including tomatoes, squashes, cucumbers, peppers, melons, and eggplant. We’ll have peas in the spring, beans in the summer, and sweet corn every other week from mid-July to mid-September. And we’ll have a wide variety of unusual vegetables that may come in small quantities, but that truly enhance our eating pleasure. Our goal is to meet the seasonal vegetable needs of a family of two adults and two children or two enthusiastic vegetable eaters. Results from surveys of our shareholders tell us that our quantities have been good (“not too much, no too little”) and that the share has been a good value.



SEASONAL HIGHLIGHTS
JUNE… Lettuces, succulent salad greens, ‘Mei Qing’ choi, ‘Oregon Giant’ snow peas, French breakfast radishes, white Japanese turnips, fresh scallions, potted Mediterranean herbs for your windowsill, and, with some luck, a harvest of spring broccoli. This is salad month, a fresh start to the harvest year. JULY… Spring spinach and greens give way to baby beets, bunched carrots, crisp cucumbers, and, by mid-month, squashes, green beans, and basil. By late July, we’ll have green onions, sweet corn, and, with good weather, ‘Juliet’ and ‘Mt. Spring’ tomatoes from our covered field houses. AUGUST… The dog days… sweet bell peppers, eggplants, zucchinis, red and green onions, and new potatoes. Dripping, sliced tomatoes, and mouth-watering melons. All these, along with lettuce mixes, carrots, more green beans, and herbs. SEPTEMBER… Cool nights invite the return of greens and broccoli, while warm days keep the summer vegetables happy. Garden salads and simple steamed vegetables adorn your table. OCTOBER… Frost ends the summer vegetables, but improves the flavor of those left behind. Crunchy carrots, perhaps some cauliflower, the makings for a pot of potato-leek soup, shell beans, steaming winter squash, and pie pumpkins. NOVEMBER… The season ends with cold-loving kale and other hardy greens, salad greens from the field houses, dry beans, carrots, leeks, celery root, potatoes, and cabbage. Hearty stews and roasted root vegetables help us prepare for the coming of winter.

CHOICES
During a part of every season, we use a free-choice distribution format. We know that individual preferences vary, and so we try to offer as many choices as possible. For example, we might bring three or four kinds of greens, and let you decide which to take home and which to leave. If you don’t like kale, leave it for someone who does, and take more lettuce or Swiss chard instead. We’ll also place roots, bulbs and tubers together, specify the weight you may take, and let you decide how many pounds of any one item to take. If you like, you may take an assortment of items (e.g., carrots, potatoes and onions), but you’re also free to take a larger quantity of just one item (e.g., just onions). Past shareholders have told us they are most happy when they’ve had the most freedom to choose, and so we’ll offer as many choices during the year as we can.

THE FRUIT SHARE
We grow very few fruits on our farm, nevertheless, we’ve offered a fruit share that has become quite popular. It consists of 20 weeks of fresh, local fruit, beginning in the early summer with strawberries, cherries, blueberries and raspberries, progressing in mid-summer to include peaches, plums, nectarines, and apricots, and concluding in the fall with assorted apples, pears, cider, and often a jar of something from the pantry. Please note that while all the fruit comes from very capable fruit farmers located near us, only the berries are grown organically. The other fruit is produced using IPM or low-spray practices. As organic fruit becomes more available, we’ll make sure to include it in the fruit share. In the spring, a share might consist of two quarts of strawberries, or a pint of blueberries plus a pound of sweet cherries. In mid-summer it might be two pounds of purple plums and two to three pounds of fresh peaches. In the fall it might contain a half-gallon of cider and three pounds of ‘Gala’ apples. We offer one size of fruit share and it sells for $120.

THE FLOWER SHARE
Our flower share consists of our own organically grown, fresh cut flowers. You’ll receive your first flowers in the middle of June, at about the time your first vegetables arrive. Some weeks you’ll receive arrangements made from a variety of flowers, other weeks you’ll have large bunches of a single variety to choose from. We grow more than thirty varieties of cut flowers. We select varieties for their beautiful colors, fragrance, and long-lasting qualities. Your first bouquets might have spice-scented stock, campanula, a beautiful deep blue, bell-shaped flower, and Bells of Ireland, with its wonderful light green foliage. Next, you’ll receive sweet peas, snapdragon spikes, godetia, sweet William, lavatera, larkspur and brightly colored Asiatic lilies. In the heat of the summer, you’re distributions will include China asters, rose-like lisianthus, sunflowers, rudbeckia, dahlia-flowered zinnias, and celosia. We think you’ll enjoy this year’s selections. Your flowers will arrive in a bucket of water, nestled in a plastic sleeve so that they travel well. You’ll need a vase with a 4-6” opening and tall enough for 18-30” stems. Our flowers are available over a 16-week season, and we offer full shares (flowers every week for 16 weeks) for $160 and half shares (flowers every other week for 8 weeks) for $80.


THE EGG SHARE
We have a laying flock of just over 400 birds. Some are the “sex-link” crosses so popular in the brown egg business, but most are the beautiful old standard breeds (Plymouth and Partridge Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orpingtons, Light Brahmas and Silver-Laced Wyandottes) . We raise them from their very first day, and allow them to range freely on pasture, feeding on bugs, weeds, grass, vegetable scraps, and locally grown grains. They are free of antibiotics and hormones. And they lay delicious brown eggs (that are not fertile). This year, we will offer full shares (one dozen eggs/week for 22 weeks) for $65 and half shares (one half dozen eggs/week for 22 weeks) for $35.

THE WINTER SHARE
During the winter of 2005-2006, we piloted our first winter share. The share was comprised of a wide assortment of storage vegetables, fresh salad greens from our greenhouses, locally grown apples, freshly pressed cider, and fresh brown eggs. Shares were delivered once a month, on Saturday mornings, from December through March. We will build on that experience as we develop the 2006-2007 share. Expect to hear more about this share in the late summer.

WHAT’S NEW AT THE FARM?
Perhaps the biggest change on the farm is that Ted has become a full-time farmer this year. For years he’s been working part-time for Cornell University, where he’s been engaged in on-farm research and extension activities with Hudson Valley vegetable farmers. It’s been a wonderful experience, but he’s very pleased to be able to focus more of his energies on his farm and his family. A larger packing and storage barn and more greenhouses for early and late vegetables are also in the works for this year, with completion scheduled for mid-spring.

THANK YOU
Thanks for taking the time to learn more about Windflower Farm. We think you’ll be delighted with the quality of our farm-fresh products. Feel free to contact us if you’d like to know more. We hope to hear from you soon!

Sincerely,

Ted & Jan Blomgren
Windflower Farm
585 Meeting House Road, Valley Falls, NY 12185

here's my take on how it compares with the green market (and don't get me wrong - i'm all over the green market - or was, not sure now that I've got my CSA chares!)

1) Price: CSA membership is on a sliding scale - depending on your income, shares cost as little as $15 a week, providing veggies for 2-3 people *all week* - try that at the green market. the PHCSA also has financial aid available, and takes food stamps/EBT.

2) Support Your Local Farmer: your share $ gets to the farmer in advance of the season, helping him or her plan ahead. Early $ often means financial sustainability, keeping small farms afloat.

3) Back to Nature: You can meet our farmer, Ted, visit his farm, and get regular updates on what he's growing when. You know where your food comes from, and better yet, you'll get all kinds of details on what going on at the farm.

and of course, there's the community aspect of it all - PHers getting together to bring a missing resource to our community...

oh. and, it's a lot of fun, all this grassroots stuff!

see you this weekend,

Becca
PHCSA treasurer

check out www.prospectheightscsa.com for all the info, and to download a membership form! All the contact info is up as well, if you have any questions..