Hello and Happy New Year!

We hope your holidays were restful and rejuvenating. We were grateful to spend some quality time with Harvey, our kindergartener, and see some extended family members.

Please note: I made a mistake in my original email about the last two dates of the winter share. They are March 14th and March 28th.

I realize this may seem strange - two distributions in January, one or two in February, and two or three in March. The reason for this is the very dry and challenging growing season in 2022. In order to have enough produce for the end of the share, we are planting extra spinach and greens in our high tunnel greenhouses which will only be ready in March.

We appreciate you understanding the challenges of growing organic produce during extreme drought (2022 in Middlesex county was categorized as a "natural disaster" by the USDA). We will have delicious food, we just need to nuance the distribution times a little bit.

Thanks for being flexible.

We had a winter rainbow on December 23rd. I've been feeling older lately, but one of the highlights of being older is that I know when the light is right for a rainbow. They usually appear behind the house and barns, but I knew, as I got out of the car returning from an emergency dentist trip for Harvey's broken tooth (he's ok), that there was a rainbow and ran back to find it. If I didn't have as much life experience, I might not have known to look for a rainbow on December 23rd.

I'm committed to paying attention and finding rainbows this year. And, you know, growing and distributing lots of great produce.

Our team is gearing up (literally, lots of rain gear and warm winter clothes) to begin picking and packing out winter shares this week. We are so happy to be keeping so many employees on year round, and to be growing and eating such an abundance of produce right here on our farm. Thank you, again, for being a part of our Winter CSA. Local eating in New England during the winter months is not for everyone - and we're grateful you are willing to make that commitment.

Please use the button below to complete the customization form for your share.

Please complete the from by 7am Monday (I need lead time to plan/harvest/pack the shares)

There are instructions in the form - please email me if you have any questions. If you subscribed to the mushroom share the mushrooms will not be in your box - please make sure to pick them up in addition to your produce box.

Please plan to pack out your share at pick up if possible.

I know it might seem like just a box to you, but $2.75/box is kind of a lot when you add it up. Especially when these boxes can get many uses. To prevent waste, help us save some money, and double check that we packed your share correctly, please plan to pack your share into your own bags, or bring the box back at the following pick up. PLEASE DO NOT TEAR THE BOXES. These boxes are meant for multiple uses and do have the same structural integrity after they are torn. If you feel like the box is going to tear, stop what you are doing! Some day I will get around to taking a video of myself making and breaking down a waxed box to have on the website.

Recipes

Here are a few recipes to get you excited about our produce options for this distribution!

WHOLE ROASTED CARROTS WITH FRESH GINGER

If you prefer a savory carrot dish, try these whole roasted carrots with a gingery kick.

ROASTED CARROTS, POTATOES AND ONIONS

Roasted veggies are a go-to in our house. You can use whatever you have on hand – have leftover turnips? Toss them in! Want to make it a main dish? Throw some sausages in (just make sure that they come to temp if they’re not pre-cooked).

KOHLRABI AND CARROT SALAD WITH CHEDDAR

This salad has a fantastic crunch factor. Purple and green kohlrabi are interchangeable.

MAPLE CIDER VINEGAR ROASTED CARROTS

This sweet and tart fall side dish uses the carrot greens as well.

ROASTED SWEET TURNIPS

You can do it, eat some turnips! They are really, really good for you! If eating just turnips isn't your style, then consider adding them to a roasted vegetable mix with carrots, red onions and sweet potatoes!

SPINACH PESTO PASTA WITH SHRIMP

If you have more spinach than the recipe calls for, make a bigger batch of the pesto and freeze what you don’t need now. I like to freeze pesto in ice cube trays and then store them in a baggie in the freezer so I can grab what I need.

SPINACH BURRITOS

I’ll be giving these a try this week. My kids aren’t huge fans of spinach but wrap it up in a burrito and add some cheese and sauce and we’ve got a winner!

Below is the contents of the first email sent in December

Hello and thank you for subscribing to our Winter CSA!

Your dedication to eating locally, year-round, and supporting our mission of creating a farm that is sustainable not only for the environment, but also for the people who work here (read: year-round employment) is recognized and appreciated.

Plus, you get things like extra sweet winter carrots, spinach, and lots of nutrient rich, hearty roots for warm winter cooking. If you are like me, the colder it is, the more you want to eat, and having healthy food that is fun to cook with is a great excuse to eat well.

Of course, you know this. It's why you signed up, but I just wanted you to know that you are seen and valued and we will do our best to make your winter share experience enjoyable!

CUSTOMIZATION

On the Friday before each pick up we will send an email with a form for you to customize your share. Because of freezing temperatures, we pack everyone's share and hand boxes out of the heated truck to protect the produce. If you forgot to customize your share, we will pack you a farmer's choice share.

MUSHROOM SHARES AVAILABLE

After great success this fall, we are again partnering with Fat Moon Farm to offer a mushroom share this winter!

Enjoy certified organic mushrooms with your winter vegetable share! Pick up one pound of mushrooms with each share.

Grown by Fat Moon Farm in Chelmsford, MA, you can expect a wide variety of very high quality, gourmet mushrooms including oyster, maitake, shiitake, and lions mane.

Visit the Fat Moon Farm website for more information!

https://fatmoonmushrooms.com/pages/types-we-grow

The photo above is of a winter share from 2018. We used to do distributions just once/month in winter, but got feedback from customers that storing so much produce was overwhelming, so we switched to every-other week. This gives us a chance to give you more fresh greens (yum!) and keeps your fridge and pantry from feeling too packed.

2022 was the hardest growing season we have ever experienced. The extreme drought made growing storage crops incredibly tricky. We have enough, and we have plans to purchase from two other certified organic farms to supplement if we fall short on some storage crops: Red Fire Farm out in western Massachusetts and Brookford Farm in New Hampshire. We will also have potatoes available from our good friend Matt at Sparrow Arc Farm in Vermont. We love "local", but "regional" is really a more rational goal for a sustainable food system. If produce is offered from another farm, it will be labeled as such in the customization form.

Each week we will include recipes with the customization form so you can select items based on what you plan to prepare. I will include an asterisk next to items that would be helpful for the farm for you to eat, either because we need them to get used up and or because we have an abundance. Carrots will always have an asterisk this winter! Red onions, too. And sweet turnips (good sliced in salad or roasted)!

If you are unsure if you have paid, I will be sending out invoices in the next few days.

We are going to take a little time over the next few weeks to regroup from what has been a three year push through a pandemic, moving a farm two times, endless construction projects, and two of the most challenging growing seasons we have ever experienced.

Tomorrow is the solstice, and our "farm-i-versary". We are so grateful for how far we have come, and so excited about where we are going.

We hope you have a wonderful holiday season and that you are excited for the winter share to begin. We look forward to seeing you in the new year!

Your Farmers,

Brittany, Kevin and Harvey