CSA subscriptions are back for 2011

Happy Year of the Rabbit!

Just last week I discovered a most optimistic forecast in a fortune cookie: “In 2011 the rabbit carries you into radical joy.”

It’s true – after a couple of hard winter months, it’s starting to feel a little lighter, a little greener, and much happier than I can remember for a while. The farm is full of joyful promise: I’ve completed my 2011 farm plan, ordered all my seeds, and finished updating our website. And now I hear we’re going to get some decent weather with the possibility of a few sunny days. Wow – radical joy!

On behalf of all the small Island farms, I want to thank you for your commitment to local sustainable agriculture. Truly, YOU sustain us; you have helped champion our dream to build a local food system that nourishes both the individual and the community.

At GreenMan Farm, we are celebrating 15 years of feeding our island. And I’m delighted to let you know that we will be offering CSA shares once again this year. We’d like to offer you – our most loyal fans – an incentive to join (or renew) with our CSA: sign up within the next month and we’ll be happy to send you $20 in “Moolah”, our farm scrip that you can use anytime during the 2011 growing season in our farmstand or our booth at the farmers market. Please check out our new “CSA Harvest Share” page on our website [www.greenmanfarm.com]. There you can read all about our CSA program and even download the enrollment form.

I am so thankful for all the blessings that have allowed us to bring back the CSA. I know it is going to be another wonderful season here at GreenMan Farm - I hope you will enjoy it with us. Thank you for the opportunity to provide you and your family the best food that sunshine, soil, rain and love can grow!

Your farmer,
-Jasper

GreenMan Farm Harvest Newsletter #1

Week #1 - June 9, 2010

Welcome (back) to GreenMan Farm!
Thank you so much for supporting our small family farm! I’m looking forward to a warm, abundant summer and gentle, bountiful fall. In the weeks to come, I hope to get to know all of you as members of the farm family. I look forward to chatting with you about recipes, kvetching about the slugs, marveling at the weather. . . It’s going to be a wonderful season—thank you for sharing it with me.

-Jasper
P.S. If you have any questions or need cooking tips for any of the produce in your bag, feel free to call or email me. I have a gazillion recipes to share!


What’s In The Bag:

· Mixed Salad Greens – A blend of four different kinds of lettuce, Japanese Mizuna greens, Pac Choi, some bodacious Beet tops, and a dusting of mustard flowers. If you like a little onion flavor, pull the purple Chive blossoms apart and sprinkle on top of you salad. Yowie!
· Siberian Kale - This leafy green cousin of cabbage is a powerhouse of nutrition. You can simply toss kale with other greens and vegetables in a salad or stir-fry, or add a handful of chopped kale to your favorite soup. We frequently use it instead of lettuce in everything from sandwiches to tacos.
· Spring Onions - Immature onions can be eaten just like scallions; these are Walla Walla’s.
· Mixed Radishes – Cherry Belle, French Breakfast, Icicle, Purple Plum, Helios (yellow), Kabu, and my favorite, Shunkyo (the long fuschia ones).
· Mizuna Greens – This Japanese mustard green has a spicy, slightly bitter tang that is a great counterpoint to milder salad greens. In Japan it is rarely eaten raw; rather, it is stir fried or featured in broth-based soups. Cooking will tone down the mustardy bite.
· Orange-Sesame Salad Splash - My own concoction; this light splash is the perfect partner for fresh salad greens; not a heavy, gloppy dressing that hides the taste of the veggies. (Please return the bottle to me when empty so I can re-use it.)

Veggie Highlights:
Radishes—The first radishes of the season are a welcome accompaniment to early season greens. The radish root is 94% water and claims modest nutritional value, offering a smattering of minerals, such as potassium, phosphorous, magnesium and iron. The greens however, rank way up there with other dark green leafies, as an excellent source of vitamins A, C and the B’s. Radish greens can be cooked just like mustard greens. Radishes are believed beneficial as blood cleansers and digestive aids, as well.

· Cook to tone down the 'bite' of a pungent radish
· Steam radishes 8-12 min. (until tender but not mushy). Roll in butter, dash of salt and pepper.
· Add slices radish to veggie stir-fry.
· Try a radish sandwich: spread butter on good, crusty bread and layer with thin slices of radish and a sprinkle of salt. I add some salad greens and crumbled feta - yum!

Recipe Of The Week: Zesty Radish Spread
· 1 8-oz. Package cream cheese
· 1 Tbsp prepared horseradish
· 2 Tbsp chopped green onions
· 1/2 tsp dried dill weed
· 1/2 tsp salt
· 1 bunch radishes, finely chopped

Mix all ingredients except crackers in medium bowl. Cover and refrigerate 1-2 hours. Serve with crackers or crusty French bread. Makes about 2 cups.

Oh happy day - GreenMan Farm CSA is BACK!

After 5 years' hiatus, we are so happy to tell all our friends that we are starting up our CSA harvest share subscription again this year. It's been 5 years of change and growth; we found Hazel the wonderful Jersey cow, increased our growing area by 50%, tested many new crops and discovered some real winners(and a few losers!), and increased the integration and fertility of our little farm to a fantastic degree. Now, with the help of our great crew of apprentices, we are going to grow more fabulous food than ever before this year. It just seems like the time is right for the rebirth of the GreenMan Farm CSA.

CSA brings you into closer contact with your food sources and provides more community support for farmers. As a subscriber, you receive a weekly bag full of fresh, nutritious, delicious produce grown locally by someone you know. You can talk with us about your food, ask questions about anything, come to the farm and witness where, when and how your food is grown. This is not anonymous food- this is food that you truly KNOW.

If you'd like to know more about our plans for the 2010 CSA season, please drop us a line - I'd be happy to send you our brand new brochure. Or you can just stop by our farmstand to pick one up for yourself or to pass along to a friend.

It is going to be another wonderful season here at GreenMan Farm - I hope you will enjoy it with us. Thank you for the opportunity to provide you and your family the best food that sunshine, soil and rain (and love) can grow!

-Jasper

Start at the end

So here we are at the beginning of the end of the year. We finished up our farmers market season two Saturdays ago and are looking forward to the regenerative rest of Winter. Now that the dark season is upon us, I hope to start blogging in earnest. We'll see what the season has in store.

The other day, I read a sad and beautiful poem on the family cow listserve that I frequent; it seemed to fit the mood of the season so well that I thought it would be a perfect way for me to start the blog. To me, this poem speaks about regeneration and hope in the midst of a deep inner Winter. I hope you enjoy it as I have.
~Jasper


SHE DREAMED OF COWS
By Norah Pollard

I knew a woman who washed her hair and bathed
her body and put on the nightgown she'd worn
as a bride and lay down with a .38 in her right hand.
Before she did the thing, she went over her life.
She started at the beginning and recalled everything—
all the shame, sorrow, regret and loss.
This took her a long time into the night
and a long time crying out in rage and grief and disbelief—
until sleep captured her and bore her down.

She dreamed of a green pasture and a green oak tree.
She dreamed of cows. She dreamed she stood
under the tree and the brown and white cows
came slowly up from the pond and stood near her.
Some butted her gently and they licked her bare arms
with their great coarse drooling tongues. Their eyes, wet as
shining water, regarded her. They came closer and began to
press their warm flanks against her, and as they pressed
an almost unendurable joy came over her and
lifted her like a warm wind and she could fly.
She flew over the tree and she flew over the field and
she flew with the cows.

When the woman woke, she rose and went to the mirror.
She looked a long time at her living self.
Then she went down to the kitchen which the sun had made all
yellow, and she made tea. She drank it at the table, slowly,
all the while touching her arms where the cows had licked.