by milecreekfarm

CSA WEEK 24

This Week’s Harvest

  • Red Daikon Radish
  • Broccoli
  • Napa Cabbage
  • Red Butter Lettuce
  • Green Leaf Lettuce
  • Cilantro
  • Purple Potatoes
  • Japanese Sweet Potatoes
  • Multicolor Carrots
  • Brussels Sprouts

Farm News

We hope you enjoyed these past 24 weeks of fresh seasonal vegetables–both the kitchen staples as well as the unique items. I enjoyed seeing what everyone was creating on the Mile Creek CSA Facebook Group- lots of delicious looking dishes. I think that the year’s biggest successes were the melons, sweet corn and fall cauliflower. Every year we build on past seasons. Last year we found a cauliflower variety that works well for us but the timing of the planting was just a bit too early, so this year we adjusted the seeding date pushing it back a week and had a really nice run of big blemish free heads. No doubt the weather was on our side when we were able to seed and plant 4 rounds of sweet corn 2 weeks apart giving us 8 straight weeks of sweet corn. What were some of your favorites from the season?

Of course every season has its failures. You probably noticed you never got garlic in your share. In 2019 we had a crop failure because of a really wet winter and early spring. We had enough to give to CSA last year but not enough to save any for planting. So we had to wait until we had it in the budget to invest in a new round of seed stock. The good news is we bought seed garlic this fall and finished planting it last week. The hope is that the 2021 yield will give us plenty for CSA and enough to save for planting going forward. We can’t wait! It was sorely missed!

First crop of 2021 in the ground!

This year we invested in new equipment. Members who were in the CSA last year heard all about our tractor breakdowns as we cycled through several Allis Chalmers G’s, an ancient cultivating tractor. Ben was able to fix them for the most part, but the truth is that our operation was outgrowing this style tractor. We were offered the opportunity to try out a new tractor from a new company that makes tractors and implements for vegetable farms that is located here in Ohio. They came out and did a video shoot of Ben cultivating and changing out implements. We are able to buy the tractor now. It is really exciting and wild to have a brand new tractor as our newest tractor prior was built in the 80s. Enjoy this video of Ben cultivating the radishes that are in this week’s box!

The true indicator of how the year went is if we gave out 24 weeks of full shares with lots of variety and I’d say we did! We were certainly very busy doing it and I only managed to take a picture of 3 of the shares. It was a pleasure growing this food. We are able to invest in our farm thanks to our CSA member support so thank you so much! If you aren’t ready to say good bye just yet, we hope that you can join us for 3 more weeks for our Extended Season. We’ve been busy harvesting our storage crops for late fall and winter and if the weather holds we still have plenty of fresh greens too! Stay tuned for details!

Recipes

Coming Up Next Year …….. Plenty of delicious certified organic produce!