We’re happy with our first week bags.  Allow us a moment for personal horn tootage here:  there’s a lot of CSAs that don’t start until later this month, or even June.  There are several possible spins on this, of course.  They may simply be smarter than we are. We certainly aren’t better farmers (they’re all our friends).  Maybe we just like the adrenaline rush.

We’re sending you three beautiful lettuces.  Now, here’s the deal with the greens you’ll get from us this summer:  they will not be perfectly clean.  To do that, we’d need a second intern.  They’ve been swished in ice water, sprinkled with the hose, drained, and chilled.  They’ll keep well. But you will need to rinse them off before you use them.

You have some first cuttings of parsley, just enough for a little garnish on your salad this week.  You have one of Judi’s awesome whole wheat pretzels.  You should have had apple jelly, but that’s a story I’ll save for later.  Maybe after the disaster in the kitchen’s been cleaned up, and it starts to be funny.  It isn’t, yet.

You have nice radishes, and some green onions.  There will be more volume and weight in your bags each week until we hit our peak, but we’re pleased with this first bag.

Check the newsletter for reminders about this week’s Bean Planting Party!  We hope you can join us for an informal potluck and a work session planting a field for the Food Bank.

Other leaps of faith on both farms:  a pad site for a hoophouse Katie can’t afford yet, lots of baby lambs, cows and goats at Judi’s, fields getting turned, strawberries being planted…….it’s all going to start coming together, now, in a huge rush.

We still have room for new members (and we’re waiting for some of our old Beans who’ve reserved their spots through email to send in the forms……yes…..YOU) so if you’re thinking about joining our CSA, read the ‘about us’ info at the top of the page, check out the other CSAs in the area, and if we seem to be the best fit, let us know if you have any questions!

We’re thinking about offering a winter CSA in the not-to-distant future, and so this winter there’s been a lot of experiments underway at Stoney Creek.  The information in the seed catalogs regarding days to harvest is based on optimum growing conditions, not winter’s cold and reduced daylight.  (The latter is actually more of an issue for growing winter food than the former.)  So we’ve chosen some varieties that are bred for cold hardiness, and I’m trying them out in several locations, and keeping records of the average temperatures in the low tunnel, the greenhouse, with extra light, without, with an extra snort of fish fertilizer, without, and so on as we see what works best.

We’re regularly harvesting collards, kale, spinach, lettuces, carrots and radishes, and the peas planted on Christmas morning are about four inches tall.  Of course it’s an unusually warm winter, so it’s difficult to extrapolate too much from these experiments……other than that we’re successfully growing peas, carrots, lettuces, etc in central PA in winter, and that’s just pretty darn cool.

If you’ve got sharp eyes you might notice that the kale in the lower right picture is growing in old dresser drawers. It’s a little goofy but it works.

Maybe we’ll be adding the winter CSA option this fall, maybe not……but either way we’re eating well at Stoney Creek this winter!

Forgotten are the floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes of 2011, the disappointments (remember the entire crop of carrot seed being washed down into the Chesapeake Bay?), the heat, the bugs,  the sore muscles, the struggles to repair equipment that picks the most inopportune time to break down.  I miss picking peas and popping open the fresh pods.  I miss inhaling the fragrant, vibrant scent of the greenhouse.  I miss sitting on the tailgate of my pickup truck watching the faces of the little kids, and big ones too, as you look into your bags to see what goodies are there.  I miss falling into bed at night with every muscle aching and then realizing oh wait….my boots are still on.

There’s only one conclusion to draw from this:  your Cool Beans farmers are crazy women.  Many of you may have suspected this for sometime now, and frankly it’s not news to us either.  To be honest, we’re happy to be so.  To paraphrase Don Quixote:  when the whole world seems crazy, who knows where madness lies?  To us, driving to a grocery store to buy processed food that may or may not be labeled accurately and completely, that may or may not be fresh, that may or may not have been grown safely, that may or may not have been grown by fairly treated workers who might live thousands of miles away…..well, that doesn’t make sense to us.

Your Cool Beans food is grown organically and sustainably, with respect for the earth and our helpers, and love for our customers.

And we’re ready to accept 2012 memberships!  The tabs at the top of the page are updated now, and you can read information there about the CSA, read and print the contact, or contact us if you need more information.  Quick version for ‘old’ Beans:  same cost, same delivery times.  Quite a lot of improvements behind the scenes, with additional greenhouse spaces and some new fields, and we’ll be expanding from 55 to 75 shares, with the help of some interns and part time help.  And two quixotic farmers who truly believe that this year will be the best year ever!

You have some picture-perfect peppers and some not-so-perfect, but still yummy, tomatoes.  This crazy rain makes the tomatoes crack easily; we’re picking them a bit ahead of dead ripe to try to avoid this, but it’s hard to prevent.  You’ve got some homegrown celery, which you’ll find has a much stronger celery taste than the store kind.  and you’ve got an onion or two – might be a good week for peach salsa!

There is NO DELIVERY NEXT WEEK (AUGUST 23).  Judi’s children will be exhibiting animals at the Perry County Fair, and since we are between interns we couldn’t work out the logistics for packing and delivery.  We’ll resume regular deliveries the following week, August 30.

I’m not even going to try to write a list in this week’s paper newsletter – Judi has a morning dentist appointment so that last phone check, when we compare what we’ve picked at each site, isn’t going to happen.  I know everyone will have stevia, and beans, and potatoes, but beyond that, I’m not sure.  It’s going to be like this next week, too – you’ll have a nice bag, but I’m not going to know ahead of time what’s in it.  Once the iris are all shipped, I’ll start seeding a lot of flats of fall lettuces and other crops, so we’ll be back in the salads again pretty soon.

There are three openings in the Radels’ meat CSA, if you’re interested, and if you’re already a Cool Beans member, you’ll get the discount that applies to members of both CSA’s, even if you join the meat CSA now.  Feedback from the meat CSA has been very positive, and those folks who’d initially signed up for a six month trial have all renewed.  AFter these three spots fill, I don’t think they’ll have openings until the end of this year.

Your bag has new potatoes this week – while they’re useful in many ways, boiling them is a great way to appreciate the tender flavor of the first potatoes of the season.  They were dug last night, and if you’ve never had really fresh potatoes you’re in for a real treat.

You have the last of the spring lettuce, it’s not a lot, but still pretty good.  If you have a half share, you have the arugula that we couldn’t pick in time for you last week.

The weird curly thing is a garlic scape.  This is the top part of the plant, which forms about a month or so before the bulbs can be harvested.  Some farmers think that removing the scapes helps the bulbs get bigger, but whether that’s true or not, the scapes themselves are a a real treasure.  They have a wonderful garlic taste, pretty strong, and you can use every single bit of it.  You can also chop it and freeze it for later.  Depending on which garlic variety your scape came from, you might have one with a slight curve, or one that’s corkscrewed like a pig’s tail.

You might have peas – I’m writing this before I head over to Judi’s, and we’re not sure if the irrigating last week at Yeehaw Farm moved them along fact enough.  So I’m not sure yet if they’ll be in this week’s bags or not.

In your small herb bag, you have fresh stevia.  This is amazing stuff – 30 times sweeter than sugar, does not spike blood sugars, raised, of course, completely organically!  If you’re unfamiliar with it, start by nibbling the tiniest bit of leaf to get the sense of it.

I’ve shamelessly pilfered someone else’s words here to describe how to best use it.  You won’t see stevia again for a few weeks, but we hope to have a good bit of it through the season.

quoting:

The sweetness of the stevia plant lies in its leaves, and you can use it in a variety of ways. I’ve used a fresh leaf right off of the plant in a glass of tea, and it provided just a bit of earthy sweetness. However, the best way to get the most out of your plant is to dry the leaves and make your own powder.

Harvest all of the leaves from the plant and dry them. On a moderately warm fall day, your stevia crop can be quick dried in the full sun in about 12 hours. Just place the plants on a piece of newspaper in an area with good air circulation. A home dehydrator can also be used, although sun drying is the preferred method. I’ve even used the heat of my attic during the summer to speed up the job.

You can crush the dried leaves by hand using a mortar and pestle or using a coffee grinder. You can use the stevia in this powdered form, adjusting the amount you use to achieve the desired degree of sweetness. Keep in mind that stevia is 30 times more sweet than sugar and a general rule of thumb is 1 generous tablespoon is roughly equivalent to one cup of sugar in terms of the level of sweetness.

You can also make your own stevia simple syrup by adding a cup of warm water to 1/4 cup of fresh, finely-crushed stevia leaves. This mixture should set for 24 hours and then be refrigerated. It works perfectly for sweetening beverages.

She’ll be making ice cream from cow, sheep, and goat milk, so you can sample all three if you wish!

There won’t be full farm tours because the animals are all out on pasture at this time of the year, but you’d be able to see the two main fields we use for the CSA.  You might get an extra scoop of ice cream if you pull a few weeds…….

Your bag has lettuce, onions, pesto turnovers, lip balm, lemon mint (I know it as lemon balm, and Judi calls it lemon mint), and another herb.   If you have a full share, you also have arugula.  We’ll try to get the half shares some next week.

Peas were close, but not quite close enough for this week, and we’re looking forward to new potatoes very soon.  Just in time, as the lettuce will slow down during the hottest part of the summer (but will return in the fall.)

Or take Cool Bean Roger’s approach, which is to describe your growing conditions, and let me choose (there are actually a lot of other things available, but not enough of any of them to list).  I’ll  pick some things that are perfect for his backyard garden.