Newsletters from Raccoon Forks Farms

Dear Friends and CSA Partners –

Welcome to the third week of our summer CSA season! We hope your summer is going well, so far. The 4th of July holiday is right around the corner, and that will affect our delivery schedule. Please note the following schedule adjustment:

 - The first week of July, due to the July 4th holiday, all CSA deliveries will be on Tuesday, July 2nd! Please pick up your CSA share(s) on Tuesday, the 2nd, rather than Wednesday or Thursday, as you would, normally.
 - If you will be out of town or otherwise unable to pick up your share(s) that week (or any week, really), please let us know by Monday of that week. We’ll be happy to hold your share(s) and deliver them with your share(s) the following week!

What are we doing at the Farms this week? Weeding, weeding, and more weeding! We’re also planting. We practice succession planting: we use some of our fields to grow more than one crop per season, planting again after harvesting the first crop. We also plant many vegetables more than once and over time, so that we have repeated harvests of vegetables such as spinach, kale, and even tomatoes. So this week, we’ve already planted more bok choi and basil; and we’re starting seedlings again – for Swiss chard, parsley, and broccoli, at this point. Do you feel as though summer’s just really started? So do we; but we’re also thinking about fall, and the seedlings we need to get going now in order to harvest vegetables during the fall. It makes for an interesting perspective on time!

Dear Friends and CSA Partners –

We hope this finds you well! It’s been a busy week at the Farms – of course, we could write that every week!

We’re continuing to plant: this week, we’re planting winter squashes, Brussels sprouts, more basil (we’ve already got a bunch of basil planted, but there’s no such thing as too much, right?), cabbages, and melons.

Okra, planted last week

Dear Friends and CSA Partners –

Happy summer, and welcome to the start of our summer CSA season! This is the first of the weekly newsletters we’ll be sending you to accompany your shares. We’ll update you on what’s happening at the Farms, and we’ll include information on using, storing, and preserving your shares, with an emphasis on produce. We’ll also send you alerts and updates, as needed, such as when we’ll be delivering during the week of July 4th!

A couple of important reminders:

 - Please make sure that the shares you pick up have your name on them

 - If you have a vegetables share, please remember 1) to transfer the contents of the box into your own box or bags, 2) to unfold the CSA box, and 3) to leave the CSA box for us to pick up and re-use – thanks for doing this!

 - If you signed up for a fruit share, the first week of fruit will probably be in early July (we’ll keep you posted about that), and

 - Please share your favorite recipes for eggs, produce, and chicken with us so we can share them with the rest of the CSA group! And if you send us photos of the dishes you create, we’d love to include them in the newsletter!

If you have questions any time during the CSA season, please let us know.

Thank you again for participating in our CSA! You support us in our dual missions: offering employment and job-coaching to people with disabilities and mental illness; and farming sustainably to raise fresh, healthy, local, chemical-free food. We’re excited to share this year’s harvests with you!