YES!  We are SO HAPPY that Spring is here and that it seems to be closer to average than the last two seasons were (such late ones!).  We started heating our greenhouse last month and it is already full of flats of seedlings.  We are saving energy and money this season by having our friends at Steady Hand Farm and Sweet Top Farm share the early greenhouse space with us.  We are very lucky to be in a great farming community! 

The 2015 season is starting smoothly and we think it's going to be an amazing year.  We are going to have a fantastic crew this season with THREE farm workers returning from 2013 and 2014.  We will be welcoming back Dana, Haley, and Ben!  Kelsey who has a background in pottery just finished her first week here on the farm and is already a seeding expert.  And soon Sam (who did bike delivery for Peace Coffee for several years) will arrive to help out and hopefully play a tune for us on his fiddle! 

We have CSA shares available and have been really pleased with the number of "Eat Like a Farmer" shares and cheese shares that are selling.  We only have a few "eat like a farmer share" left, so if you are thinking about that one, we encourage you to jump on it!  (read the last blog entry for more information about our Eat Like a Farmer Share).  We have vegetable and cheese shares left to sell this season and sign-ups have been steady, which is good.  We welcome any questions that you have and hope that if you haven't signed up for 2015 yet, that you will soon!  If you've signed up, please encourage your friends and neighbors to eat healthier and support local foods and farms by joining Turnip Rock.  We'd love to get our CSA filled up sooner than later and we don't want anyone who's thinking about it now to miss out!  Now is the perfect time to claim your share of locally grown certified Organic goodness! 

Here are some pictures of what we've been up to....

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We hosted the Farming Women! potluck for some farmers that made a facebook group and wanted to meet in person before the season began.  It was great to meet and spend time with fellow farmers and share some very tasty food (even for late Winter!) 

Sure sign of Spring - totes and totes of potting soil for Turnip Rock and neighboring CSA farms lining the driveway!

A nice warm day inside the greenhouse for starting up the heating for the seedlings.  Sadie wears boots on her hands so she can crawl in the snow!

Turnip Rock and Steady Hand kids as the greenhouse gets filled up with seeded flats waiting to GROW

potting soil party!

onions growing!

Welcome Kelsie and her assistant, Dumpy the bucket!

Welcome back, Dana! 

The following beautiful photos are all Dana's.  Enjoy!  

Wow!  It's about time for an update, right?!  As we hope you have noticed, we have re-done our entire website!  Apparently iWeb '08 had an expiration date and we suddenly found ourselves no longer able to update our website.  Eek!  It was looking pretty rough, anyway...  so we are happy to have this new (quite fancy looking) website to share with you!  It took a while, but we have switched everything over, including our blog (though we lost the recipes in the move!).   It's amazing all the hats we get to wear and things we learn to do as CSA farmers.  Computer work is a struggle for us, but we did it!  YAY!  So, if you find any spelling errors or have trouble with anything on the website, please let us know and we will try to get it fixed ASAP! 

We've also been busy planning the 2015 season and getting together some new share options.  We are SUPER excited to be offering our "Eat Like A Farmer" Share!  Vegetables, eggs, meat, and farmstead cheese - ALL from our farm!  Have a look at the "share options" page to learn more about it.  The "eat like a farmer" share is the share that brings us closer to our goal of having a whole farm ecosystem in which we supply all the fertility needs for our farm from our own farm.  There are very few farms (nation wide, even) who are offering full-diet CSA shares and we are thrilled to be pioneering in this way.  Having all the aspects of our farm integrated and complementing each other is very important to us.  Having an ethical, on-farm source of compost for the health of our soil and the amazing-ness of our vegetables has long been a goal of ours.  We are pleased to be taking real steps to get there - and pleased that the bonuses of having on farm compost makers (cows, chickens, and pigs) are going to be beautiful artisan cheeses, whey-fed woodlot raised pork, and pastured chickens and the orangest, highest standing egg yolks you've ever seen!  Not to mention the bonus of spirit, beauty, and wholeness that livestock adds to a farm. 

We still have quite a bit of infrastructure to put in to get everything in place, and we are considering a kick-starter to get us all the way there, but we are optimistic about how far we've come toward our goal.  We also think that this season will be better than the last two had been for us, financially.  But we have to get our heads up above water again, the move to this farm, cold wet springs, early falls  and the ongoing investment into cheese making has made it hard to maintain our financial sustainability and an infusion of cash may be the only way we can do it.  We are looking closely at our budget before we make decisions.  But kick-starter or no kick-starter...

Now is the time to sign-up! 

We are already about half way to our sign-up goals and almost sold out of single shares, already!  If you are a returning member, we welcome you back and thank you so much for signing up with us again and letting us grow your food.  Please encourage your friends and neighbors who are interested in healthy, Organic and local food to sign-up for a share with us!  If you are having a look at our blog and website and considering signing up with us, we hope you like what you see.  Whether you are a returning member or just browsing, we would love to talk to you!  If you call Turnip Rock Farm, you will be talking to the farmers growing the food.  We really like getting to know the people who are getting the food from our farm, so please don't hesitate to email or call us! Scroll through the 2014 season blog for a good idea of what to expect from a CSA share with us and to get a feel for what our farm is like.  We hope you find us to be a good fit!  

And here are some pictures of goings-on...   Thanks for reading!  

Whats in the box(es)? 

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potatoes

beets

onions

garlic

cabbage

spinach

diakon radish

green top and topped turnips

leeks

carrots

brussel sprouts

collard greens

winter squash

Notes on the box(es).... 

We tried to harvest some broccoli and kale for you, but it was too frozen.  Kale was crumbling apart and broccoli was frozen solid and thawed into a sad floppy tree.  But the Collards and brussel sprouts did okay during harvest and everything else was gotten before the big cold snap rolled in. 

To store brussel sprouts, snap them off the stalk into a plastic storage bag, seal, and keep in your fridge. 

Cabbage will keep for a looooooong time in your fridge.  Cabbage always keeps for a long time, but adding that this is a storage variety, it can hang out for quite some time.  You may have to remove the outer leaves, but it will still be good.  If you've ever considered making sauerkraut or kimchi, this is a good time!  Did you know that 2 tablespoons of fermented vegetables have as many probiotics as an entire bottle of probiotic supplements?!  And much of our immune system is dependent on healthy gut flora.  So during cold and flu season, it's very important to get some fermented veggies in our systems.  We love a serving of kimchi with a fried egg for breakfast.  Making fermented veggies is a great way to save a lot of money and help your gut flora. And it will make your veggies keep well into the spring while saving space in your fridge!  And all you really need are your veggies and some salt! Give it a try!

 Recipes... 

[yumprint-recipe id='59']Sauerkraut

Orecchiette with Butternut Squash and Sage

Wild Rice and Butternut Squash Salad with Maple Balsamic Dressing

Orange Glazed Brussel Sprouts and Butternut

Cabbage and Radish Slaw with Peanut Dressing to be served at room temperature

Vegan Lentil Shepherd's Pie

One pot Cabbage Casserole

Dijon Roasted Cabbage is a healthy one

and this is Roasted Cabbage recipe with bacon in it. 

On the farm...

     Looking at the 10 day forecast, it seems as though we won't make it above freezing, and will be 20 degrees below average!  We are not equipped to handle the extreme cold in our pack shed.  Also, the greens and broccoli are too frozen to harvest, so what is out of the field is everything that we have to offer!  In an effort to save yourselves and your farmers a trip to your drop site, we have combined the last two deliveries.  So here are the last TWO boxes of vegetables.  A lot of the items don't need to be stored in your fridge, so we hope to not overflow your fridge. 

     So this wraps up the Winter Shares!  We think you will still have local veggies around for your Thanksgiving meal.  Yay!  We are grateful for our CSA members!  Thank you! 

Best way to bring a baby out to the field on a snowy day.

It's hard to make bunches with gloves on, but also hard with cold wet fingers!

Harvesting in the snow!

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Taste testing the snow!

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Happy Winter, everyone!