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Tomorrow is our Monday Deliveries as usual! It is Week 9 for our Every Other Week Members. THIS WEEK in Your UPDATE: Keep tabs on Monday Schedules It is official ... WE HAD RAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!! CSA Farm of the Day at the Minnesota State Fair Your Weekly Box Inserts Going Paperless Member Recipe of the Week When do we pick and pack your veggies? This Week in the Boxes Keep tabs on Monday Schedules Members who get their boxes on Mondays... please stay tuned for possible variations in your schedule for deliveries on August 31st, and Labor Day. We have been invited to participate in a booth at the Minnesota State Fair with Minnesota Grown in the afternoon on August 31st and we will have someone else delivering to some of the sites. On September 7th (Labor Day) some of the sites may have changes in time/day because of some of our sites being closed that day. Each Monday site will be informed individually of any change. Thanks! It is official ... WE HAD RAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is so nice that SPRING finally got here with the first good thunderstorm we have had all year! The lightning was cracking and the rain was falling last night and this morning and we picked up an inch of heaven sent raindrops! The plants were looking SO MUCH BETTER this afternoon! There is something so magical about rainwater! It truly has amazed me... even though things have been very horrible this year from a farming standpoint, we have felt so grateful for that wonderful produce we have been getting. It may not be always the prettiest or the largest, or always abundant or maturing on time, but at least the garden has hung in there so we have had the veggies for your boxes. There may not have been the variety we had planned for so far, but we hope that the second have of the season the garden can bounce back. The new plantings of spinach, beans, turnips, and lettuce are looking awesome! Pete is really upset with his potatoes this year. In the beginning, he had to dig so many just to get any kind of volume and thought the later varieties would be so much better. He tried digging some more tonight and was totally frustrated to find only one or two small potatoes under each plant. He ALWAYS grows such awesome potatoes that this is a real ego buster for him. He will check the different varieties later this week. We had planted a later planting so we would have extra, but with such low yields, it is a good thing we did plant more so we can get enough for everyone. This last week of heat did wonders for the Peppers, Tomatoes, and most other crops! We are now finding many tomatoes that have a hint of red starting. The boys found a handful of juicy red ripe ones that they gulped down in their "tomato sandwiches". The tomatoes should really make progress this week and by next we hope to have plenty in your boxes. There are a few Yellow Cherry tomatoes ripening and we will see how many there are for tomorrow. The watermelons are growing like weeds! There are many little icebox ones on the vines just waiting to ripen! Some look close... we have not grown that particular variety before, so we have to taste test them out to see when they hit their best flavor. It is so painful to look at the calendar, then the plants, and try to figure out WHY things just aren't ready... but we are in much the same boat as many other farmers and gardeners. I checked with some other CSAs to see how things were going and they were having much the same delay with their crops... that very cool and dry start to summer hit everyone hard and set us all up for a very unusual summer for anything grown in the open gardens. This is one reason we want so desperately to "go for it" and get huge High Tunnels so we can more effectively control the growing climate. They are pricey, but in some ways it would make it so much easier to sleep at night and not be so stressed worrying about what more we could do to get things growing when the weather just doesn't cooperate! CSA Farm of the Day at the Minnesota State Fair This last week Treasured Haven Farm received notice that we have been selected as one of twelve farms for "CSA Farm of the Day" at the Minnesota State Fair! We will be at the Local Foods Area in the Eco-Experience for the entire day on Friday, September 4th! We are very grateful of this honor and opportunity. If you happen to be at the Fair that day, make sure to stop by and say Hi! We are not certain where we are going to be with Minnesota Grown at the Fair on the afternoon of Monday, August 31st. It may be near the same place at the Eco Experience. We are awaiting more info. Your Weekly Box Inserts Going Paperless On Thursday when the printer ink was out, we sent our veggie box listing only via email. We asked for your input and it was overwhelming… GO PAPERLESS! Save resources...We had been using a collection of odds and ends of old paper we had around the office from many projects over the years, but the ink and space was limiting how much we could get on the page. We will incorporate more info in the email version as we are not so limited on space. We often do not know until the morning of delivery day what exactly is going to be in your boxes, so look for the email that morning. Member Recipe of the Week Roasted Vegetables I use beets, carrots and small potatoes. You could also add onions. Scrub all the veggies and try to cut them to all be a uniform size. Dry them on paper towels. Put them in a big zip lock bag. Pour a good amount (probably a 1/4 cup or so- depending on how many veggies you have) of extra virgin olive oil. Coat the veggies with the oil (just smush up the bag) Arrange them on a cookie sheet in one layer. (I always put foil on the cookie sheet to make clean up easier) Season with kosher salt and pepper to taste. Roast in a 450 degree oven for 30 to 45 minutes. Check every once in a while and stir them around every 15 minutes or so. Absolutely Delicious! - Beth R. Thanks Beth for such a Great and Easy Recipe! Submit your favorite tip and recipes as well. Coming Next Week our Swiss Chard Recipe Contest Winner! When do we pick and pack your veggies? One of the things we try our best to maintain is picking your veggies within hours of them being packed. With the exception of garlic and now onions, most veggies are picked the morning of delivery day within 4 to 10 hours before delivery to your site, immediately hydro-cooled and packed. A few items may be picked, cooled, and packed or refrigerated the night before if we have a lot of crops to pick that day. Within minutes of the boxes being closed, I am on the road heading to your sites to drop off your boxes! We always want you to receive your produce in its best possible condition. Sometimes something may get by us that should have headed to the compost pile, please forgive us. We do place any irregular or blemished produce in the Exchange boxes when possible if you want to work around the bad spots. We handle so much in a short amount of time that we sometimes don't catch everything. We would love to always have everything look Better Homes and Garden Picture Perfect, but that is just not realistic. I call myself a recovering perfectionist and sometimes it just kills me when I see a clump of dirt still on a beet, a less than grand carrot, blemished radishes or summer squash, or this years strange hourglass cukes. I remind myself that if I insisted on Perfection you would not get your boxes for days!!! We strive for excellence as best we can! Appearance is secondary to the flavor and nutritional value which are our top goals! If you get something that is truly substandard, please tell us and we will make it right with a subsequent delivery. By the way, as the fall approaches and much of our help heads back to college and school, we are always open to having help on packing days :) We start when the sun comes up, and the goal is to have the boxes packed by noon! This Week in the Boxes The next variety of Sweet Corn is ready!!! We are competing with some clever and wily raccoons out there this year! The little devils are avoiding the traps and our son on his nighttime reconnaissance and patrols. Remember the varieties of sweet corn we grow are the old standards not the revved up super sweet hybrids, so they are best used as soon as possible after you get them. If you cannot use them immediately, keep them in a bag in your fridge. Some of the other things in your boxes... lettuce blend, carrots, slicing cucumbers, variety of summer squash and zucchini, onions, beets, green and purple beans, peppers (Bell and Yellow Banana... and also hotter long green ones which variety escapes me right now... and hot Yellow Hungarian Wax and the Yellow Banana look very much alike so we will try to paper bag and label the Hot ones :) ... some cherry tomatoes in yellows and reds, and we will put some swiss chard in the extra box for those who LOVE it :) I am sure I forgot something here but.... I will send out emails on the delivery day morning. The Extra and Exchange Boxes seem to be well liked! We had a large variety of extra produce in them last Thursday. We will place some of the larger zucchini and summer squash in there for baking. These extras are on a first come, first served basis. While no system like this is perfect, it offers a better and timely way to deal with food preferences and an outlet for some extra produce that there is not enough to split up for everyone. If you know you will not be at your site until later and definitely would want to be certain you get those extra zucchini for baking, email us and we will be sure to fill extra in your box or additional box! Thanks Everyone for your friendship, encouragement, and great comments! Have a Great Week! Blessings! Peg, Pete, Zach and Ike... Treasured Haven Farm 320-358-3581 www.treasuredhavenfarm.com csa@treasuredhavenfarm.com |
| Here we have a couple sample emails we have sent our members. the other below is In Your Box delivery email. |
| boxes all day! There definitely is a lot of variety in your boxes today. Today I will haul and deliver over a Half TON of veggies! WOW! |