A couple announcements:
Payment for your shares is due this month unless you made other arrangements. If you want to make other arrangements please contact me. We are more than happy to accommodate.
We have new drop sites for Woodbury and (near) 3M. The Woodbury drop is in Stone Mill Farms. The near 3M drop is just off McKnight and Lower Afton Rd. At the end of May or early June specific information for each site will be sent to those members picking up at each site.
We are still taking orders for all our shares. Please continue to tell your friends, neighbors, relatives, co-workers, etc. Referrals are our most successful sales channel!
Speaking of shares, maybe this is a good time to highlight a couple of our add-on shares you might want to consider. These are great compliments to our VeggieShares:
FruitShare is nine weeks of delicious, certified organic fruit from small orchards across the country (it’s not local but it is really hard to grow peaches here in MN). Included in FruitShare are cherries, blueberries, peaches, plums, pluots, nectarines, apples, pears and grapes (plus some things I may have forgotten). If you or others in your household love fruit this is a great way to support small, organic farms and receive delicious fruit all at the same time!
Did you know that DNA tests have shown that one third of all seafood sold in the US is mislabeled with some species having over 90% fraudulent labeling? Yikes! When buying seafood there is a good chance you are not getting what you paid for. With our Seafood and SalmonShares you will not be deceived. SeafoodShare and SalmonShare are a monthly assortments (except SalmonShare is not an assortment, just salmon) of wild, Alaskan seafood caught by small boat fishermen and fisherwomen. None is farm raised. It is harvested from sustainable fisheries using ecological practices. You can even learn about the fisherpeople who caught your fish! SeafoodShare includes salmon, halibut, black cod, ling cod, pacific cod, rockfish and spot prawns. SalmonShare includes king, sockeye and coho salmon. If you like seafood this is a great add-on to your VeggieShares!
That is enough for now. I will cover other add-on shares in future newsletters.
Farm News
How ‘bout this weather? Talk about March Madness! The month starts out with lows in the -20 degree range. Warms to the 70s! Then the temp drops again with snow, then more snow. Now wind — and lots of it! Soon hopefully we’ll be back to the 70s or at least the 50s. All this time our little baby plants are kept warm and safe in the farm’s seedling womb that we call the greenhouse – despite the fact it isn’t green. So far we have planted broccoli, brussels sprouts, leeks, onions, shallots, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, kale (three different kinds!), lettuce, thyme, oregano, rosemary, lemon thyme, parsley, celery, celeriac, and various flowers. All these plants are cool season plants so they can withstand a bit of below freezing temperatures once we transplant them out into the field next month. Next week we will plant some more cool season crops (e.g. kohlrabi) and a few warm season crops that require a long growing season (e.g. hot peppers). Plus we are due for a second planting of broccoli. This CSA farming is complicated business!
The other baby news here on the farm are our new baby chicks. Talk about March Madness! We got a few more to add to our collection. We seem to be the farm that can’t ever get rid of hens unless they find some way to make it to hen heaven on their own. So we have a lot of chickens we are feeding and some of them are laying eggs. It will be quite a few month before these chicks are old enough to lay eggs. But at least we have a few weeks to marvel at how cute they are!
That’s about it for now. Let me know if you have any questions.
Q. If Fruit Comes From A Fruit Tree, What Kind Of Tree Does Chicken Come From?
A. A Poultry.