Author: Core Group

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Farmer’s Note — Week 10

Dear CSA Member

A special note this week about our Fall Farm Festival. Please mark your calendars, we hope you will be able to attend. The Fall Farm Festival is September 7, 2013 from 11:30-3. Please use the 145 Garcia Lane, Leeds, NY 12451 address. Come and meet your farmers, walk the fields where your vegetables are grown. Bring a dish to share and your own place setting. The farm will provide a barbecue, roast corn and portobello mushrooms, vegetarian chili, fresh fruit and coffee. Thank you to Paradise to Go, for preparing the barbecue and chili.

There will be wagon rides, walks around the farm, freshly dug carrots to pick from the field to take home, help build a scarecrow, pick a bouquet of flowers. If you would like to take flowers home, please bring your own scissors and something that will keep the flowers until you get home. Wet paper towels or newspapers in a plastic bag will usually do the trick.

Other local farms and businesses will be in attendance and have products for sale. Heather Ridge Farm will have fiber items, socks from their own flock of Dorset & Icelandic sheep and llama wool and beeswax candles, www.Heather-ridge-farm.com or https://www.facebook.com/pages/Heather-Ridge-Farm.”

Gary Wiltbank Farm with his beautiful Shiitake and Oyster Mushrooms. Gary is an avid Mushroom Farmer and will be happy to answer all of your Mushroom questions.

Banana Moon Baking Company Arlene Deahl, bananamoonbaking@gmail.com or https://www.facebook.com/BananaMoonBakingCompany. Specialty Cookies, Cakes and Pies. Arlene is a CSA member and imaginative baker. Her cookies are delicious. Can’t wait to try the Dark Chocolate Chipotle XXL Cookie!

We will have all of our Marketplace items for sale as well: Honey, Maple Syrup, Coffee by the pound. Dave Cammer, Maple Producer will be in attendance to answer your Maple Syrup questions.

If you have any questions, please send an e-mail to the farm. Hope to see you at the farm.

Enjoy the Vegetables
Deborah for everyone at Stoneledge Farm

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What’s in the Bag — Week 9

Full Vegetable Share
Carrots with Greens-1 bunch
Walla Walla Sweet Onions-2
Peppers-2
Summer Savory-1 bunch
Bell Eggplant-1 watch the stem for spines
Genovese Basil-1 bunch
Tomatoes-6
Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes-1 basket
White Russian Kale-1 bunch

Half Vegetable Share
Odd gets Eggplant

Coffee Share this week

Fruit Share-1 bag each
Apricots
Peaches
Nectarines
The fruit is a bit hard. Makes it better to transport. Leave it out on your counter and it will ripen in a day or so.

Mushroom Share
Portobellos

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Farmer’s Note — Week 9

Dear CSA Member

We have been blessed with beautiful summer weather the last couple of days. Sunshine without the intense heat and humidity. What we hope summer will be.

We are back in the greenhouses seeding transplants for the fall. Transplanting started in February and as the transplants grow and are large enough to move into the field more seeds are planted and take their place in the greenhouse. The seeding continues through this last seeding in August. It has been a long stretch of seeding, tending and transplanting into the garden.

The Walla Walla onions that you are receiving this week in your share were some of the first seeds we started late in the winter. One seed at a time per cell in the flat. Each onion has been seeded by hand, watered and tended in the greenhouse until it was the size of a really thick, tall piece of grass. Each onion was then transplanted by hand into the field. Watered, weeded and tended in the field until they were big enough to harvest. The Walla Walla are a sweet summer onion. They will not store and should be used up during the week and kept in the refrigerator.

Carrots with their greens, just beautiful. I do not know if you can eat the greens. Some say yes, some say no. I would stick to the safer route and not eat the greens. They do smell great though. The carrots will stay best if you remove the greens from the carrot root. A bouquet of carrot greens? Not sure what other good use there may be unless you have a rabbit for a pet.

White Russian Kale. I have become a fan of raw Kale salad. There is a recipe on the recipe section of the farm website, Recipe, Kale listing.

If you have a recipe you would like to share, please send it to the farm. The Chelsea CSA is also gathering recipes for a CSA Recipe Book that they are working on. If you have a recipe that you would be willing to share for the book, please go to the following link : https://www.chelseacsa.org/news/csa-cookbook-call-for-recipes/.

Tomatoes, Eggplant, Summer Savory and Basil round out the share. Summer is great.

This week is a Coffee Share delivery. Please remember to pick up your Coffee Share.

The tomato harvest is going to be very good this year. We are sending a very nice share already. Members inquired last season about purchasing in bulk to freeze or can. This week due to the great harvest there will be a limited number of 25 pound boxes of field run tomatoes and also 1/2 bushel 10 bunch boxes Genovese Basil that can be ordered from the online Marketplace. The orders will need to be placed by Friday. The products will be available Tuesday online from the Marketplace.

Enjoy the Vegetables
Deborah for everyone at Stoneledge Farm

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What’s in the Bag — Week 8

Full Vegetable Share
Beets with Greens-1 bunch
Walla Walla Sweet Summer Onions-2
Marketmore Slicing Cucumbers-2
Orient Express Eggplant-2
Scallions-1 bunch
Cocktail Tomatoes-6 These are small tomatoes but not Cherry Tomatoes.
Lemon Basil-1 bunch
Flat Leaf Parsley-1 bunch
Bell Peppers-2
Black Bell Eggplant-1 You can tell the Orient Eggplant from the Bell varieties by the stem. Orient has a purple stem that is thin. Bell has a thick, green stem. Watch the spines on the bell varieties. They can be very sharp.
Sungold Cherry Tomatoes-1 basket

Half Vegetable Share
Black Bell Eggplant — Even

Fruit Share-1 bag of each
Peaches
Nectarines
Sugar Plums

Mushroom Share
Cremini

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Farmer’s Note — Week 8

Dear CSA Member

Intense heat to intense rain to some really nice weather. The unexpected rainfall was over 6 inches. It has been so hot and dry that most just soaked into the soil. Since then the skies were clear and the temperatures were very pleasant. More rain as we were starting to pick your shares. It seems at times we are in the tropics rather than upstate New York.

The vegetables are moving into their summer stride. Tomatoes are just starting to ripen. What a treat to slice into the first of the season tomato. Eggplant, basil, onions, scallions, parsley. It is a delicious week for the summertime favorites.

The first of Red Ace Beets with their Greens. Take the greens from the beet root and use as a cooking green. A member forwarded a recipe for Chickpea and Greens Patties which can be found on the farm website, Recipe Section, Swiss Chard all the way at the end. Beet Greens would be a great substitute for Swiss Chard in this recipe. The beet root should be cooked separately because of the size and time it will take to cook through. Please send your recipe favorites. The Recipe section of the farm website is filling up with great recipes sent by CSA members.

Marketplace orders will be delivered with your CSA share if you would like Coffee, Honey or Maple Syrup. Mushrooms are also available through the Marketplace.

This week Cremini Mushrooms for the Mushroom Share and Peaches, Nectarines and Sugar Plums for the Fruit Share.

Make a note that the Fall Farm Festival will be September 7. It is a great day to come and visit the farm, meet all of us at Stoneledge Farm, meet other CSA members, walk the fields and see where your vegetables are grown. Heather Ridge Farm www.Heather-ridge-farm.com and Gary Wiltbank Farm with his Shiitake and Oyster Mushrooms will have displays and products available. We will have a barbecue and ask members to bring a dish to share and their own place setting. More to come. We hope you will be able to attend.

Enjoy the vegetables.
Deborah for everyone at Stoneledge Farm

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What’s in the Bag — Week 7

Vegetables – Full Share
Summer spinach – 1 bunch
Summer squash – 2 pieces
Heirloom cucumbers (Boothby and Poona Kheera) – 6 This is the bountiful harvest time for cucumbers.
Marketmore cucumbers (green slicing) – 3
White Clara eggplant – 1 Be careful picking up the eggplant.  The stem end can have very sharp spines.
Scallions – 1 bunch
Fennel – 1 The bulbs are small but still tender.
Amethyst basil – 1 bunch This makes a beautiful flavored vinegar.  Immerse basil in a light vinegar.  The light purple color and basil flavoring are perfect for this type of vinegar.  Use to make salad dressing. Also can be used as you would use green basil.
Leeks – 1 bunch
Oriental eggplant – 2 pieces

Mushroom Share
Shiitake

Fruit Share
1 bag of white peaches
1 bag of white nectarines

You can tell the difference by the skin. The peaches are fuzzy, and the nectarines are smooth.

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Farmer’s Note — Week 7

Dear CSA Member,

This has been a brutal week to be a farmer.  It is the same for anyone who has to work outside no matter the weather.  Each day it has gotten hotter and more humid.  It must easily be near 100 degrees in the field.  Plenty of water to drink, but the work is hard and we can not stop.

The vegetables are still soaking it all up and producing very well. I thought that last week would be the cucumber week, but the cucumbers have rallied again and the harvest is even greater than last week. A benefit of being a CSA member is sharing in the bounty of a harvest. Each year it varies crop to crop.  This year the cucumbers are outstanding. Cucumber soup, cold cucumber salads, refrigerator pickles. Cucumber and yogurt are a natural combination during the heat of the summer. There are recipes on the farm website Recipe section.

During this extreme heat make sure you get your share home, rinsed and in the refrigerator as soon as possible.  All of the vegetables are fresh, but cannot withstand the heat.

All being said, it is summer.  I guess we should expect a good dose of hot weather.

Enjoy the vegetables.
Deborah
for everyone at Stoneledge Farm