What’s in the box?

Herb pot - thyme, oregano, sage, parsley, and/or thyme
radishes
bagged spinach (medium and large)
zesty salad mix
cilantro
chard (it’s not rhubarb!)
head lettuce
salad turnips aka hakuri turnips
bok choi

Notes on the box.

Remove tops from radishes and turnips for storage. Tops of both are edible.
The Chard is sometimes mistaken for rhubarb. It’s not rhubarb! You can eat the stems and also the leaves and it’s not reccommended for baking! Recipe below.
greens and lettuces will keep best in a plastic bag in the fridge.
Herb pots! Keep them in a sunny spot and take off what you need. They will do really well if potted out into their own pots or outside if you have the space.

Cosmic Wheel Creamery Cheese Shares

Circle of the Sun and Garlic Dill Quark - I started off the season with two of our most popular cheeses. The Garlic Dill Quark is super nice on a piece of bread with thinly sliced radishes. Or just on a cracker. Or in a veggie wrap with lots of lettuce and a protein. Also really nice on scrambled eggs.
The Circle of the Sun is a farm original and is great for snacking or shredding for tacos or cubing for salads.

Recipes.

Sauteed Hakuri Turnips
heat a tablespoon of butter or other fat in a pan
wash and halve or quarter turnips depending on size. Chop greens roughly and set aside. Sautee turnips until tender and lightly browned. Add greens and cook until wilted. Season to taste and enjoy! Radishes can be cooked the same way.

Garlic Bok Choy with Chili Paste

Chard (and/or spinach) Oshitashi

Skirt Steak Tacos with Cilantro Radish Salsa

On the Farm.

Welcome to new CSA members and welcome back to returning members! The last few years we’ve written about the challenging unpredictable spring weather. This year…. here we are… Please practice social distancing at your drop sites and please take care of yourselves and each other. We hope that the veggies give you time to nourish yourselves and your family. There will be thoughts and observations about the farm, and food systems, and Organic growing in later newsletters, but for now we will leave it there. Enjoy some pictures of the farm. We will see you next week!

salad turnips

bok choi

chard

thyme, sage, oregano, parsley

cilantro

simply sautéd salad turnips with their greens

turnips are kid approved!

a favorite snack around here!

Spring flush! Very full cheese vat for cheese making.

cows and calves

Lego planting experiment

Donated cheese and vegetables and helped with distribution to families in need in Minneapolis

chicken and quail eggs in the incubator

successful hatch of quails! Thanks for the eggs, CSA member Susan!!

Next Week’s Forecast.

kale
spinach
lettuce
bok choi
green onions
dill
another herb pot
radishes
arugula

What’s in the box?

Brussels Sprouts on the stalk
Flat Leaf Parsley
Radishes
Purple Potatoes
Cabbage
Salad Turnips
bell peppers
onions
spinach
cauliflower
kale
carrots
beets

Notes on the box.

Brussels Sprouts on the stalk this time. It’s fun to see how they grow and a fun project to pop them off before cooking. Brussels sprouts are one that our kids like helping to prepare by taking them off the stalk and cutting them in half. You can take them off and cook them right away or put them in a plastic bag for storage.
Remove tops for radishes and turnips for storage. Turnip tops are edible.
Purple potatoes! I love roasting these. So beautiful!

Cosmic Wheel Creamery Cheese Shares.

Lyra and First Snow, our soft-ripened cheese. You can keep the First Snow in the fridge for another week to allow it to ripen further if you like. Or you can enjoy it now. It’s best if you allow it to get to room temperature before eating.
The Lyra is a great melter. A grilled cheese with wilted spinach… Yum.

Recipes.

Crusty Baked Cauliflower and Farro
Baked Eggs with Spinach and Mushrooms
Purple Potatoes with Rosemary and Olives - if you don’t have fresh rosemary, parsely pairs well with potatoes.
Roasted Potato Hash with Bell Peppers

On the Farm.

We’ve been celebrating a small win in which a moratorium on hog CAFOs (Confinement Animal Feeding Operation) has been passed in our county. We are facing the unfortunate reality that large scale hog CAFOs are trying to move into our county, threating our water, air quality, property values, and quality of life. You can visit knowcafos.org to learn more about what we are fighting. At our county board meetings we have been surprised to see that some local conventional family farmers in our area are feeling threatened by people trying to prevent large scale CAFOs owned by out of state agribusiness from coming into our community. We’ve been doing our best to communicate that we aren’t against locally owned conventional family farms and that while we farm differntly, we care about their well being and want them to be successful, but that the hog CAFOs would be bad for our entire community. While the moratorium has passed, we will no doubt still be active in this cause.
We are so grateful to our CSA members who support and want to see small, diversified family farms like ours on the land. One thing we have heard over and over by conventional commodity farmers, by agribusiness, and by the Secretary of Ag is that there’s no room for small farms anymore. They say that it’s inevitable small farms won’t exist anymore and that farms will have to “get big or get out”. We thank you for allowing us to provide an example of an alternative to that fatalism. I don’t think that it’s inevitable for small farms to fail and large CAFOs to take over as long as we understand that the food system is currently set up to make that happen. If we value family farms, that system needs to change. Small, family farms like ours are able to make it because we are working in a different system that we, together are creating in which farmers and consumers have the power and determine our success. We thank you so much for the opportunity.
Tonight in Amery our local Farmer’s Union chapter is hosting food economist Ken Meter and his presentation “Feeding Our Community: Family Farms and Rural Economic Development”. If the event is recorded, we will be sure to share a link.

Thanks again for your support this season! We will soon be reaching out about sign-ups for next season. We continue to try to find ways to make CSA accessible and practical for our members. We love to hear your suggestions for ways to improve, things you like or don’t like. We are going to have to move to a new program for sign-up and organizing shares as the one we have been using for the past few years is being discontinued. We are taking this time to try to improve and make things easier on our members. Any input you might have is appreciated!

Schoolbus on the farm!

We had a fun visit from our local elementary school montessorri classes. Grades 1-3. Josh showed kids what we have in a CSA box and they bunched some radishes and turnips to bring home. Otto showed them the animals on the farm and Rama gave a cheese making demonstration. It was a good fun time!

Otto brought Romanesco and Purple Diakon for his classmates to taste at school. It was a hit with the class so much that the head of the cafeteria is going to get enough for the whole school to get to taste it! Fractalflower all around!

salad mix
bell peppers/ sweet peppers
romanesco (which we are now calling fractal-flower)
spinach
pie pumpkin
bulk beets and carrots
fresh oregano
radishes
brussels sprouts
delicata squash
salad turnips
onions
kale

Cosmic Wheel Creamery Cheese Shares.

Two aged cheeses. Cygnus is a swiss style. I don’t have the multiple aging spaces to set at different temperatures that is required to create the big round holes, but I do like the flavor! Try it diced and added to salad!
Aquilla is our aged jack style cheese. We sometimes call it our potato chip cheese because it’s one that particularly difficult to stop eating once you start! Also yummy on nachos if you are looking to cook with it.

Recipes.

On the Farm.

It’s that time! Garlic is being planted and mulched for next season! Always looking ahead!
Can you believe it that your fearless farmers were outside regular hours at market last weekend?! This weekend you can find Cosmic Wheel Creamery at Mill City Market. Might be a fun way to enjoy the weather?
This weeks blog is short since the blogger is going to give a presentation at the Women in Sustainable Agriculture Conference tomorrow. We hope you enjoy some of the beautiful weather this weekend.