9-9-2008
Thanks to all of you that came to the potluck. Your dishes were all beautiful and delicious! And to those of you who didn’t make it – we hope to see you at next year’s CSA Potluck!
If you did bring a dish to the potluck, could you please email me the recipe? There has been an outcry for a little Copper Moose Farm CSA Potluck ’08 recipe folder…..so I’d love to put that together and send one home with each of you before the season is over.
Since not everyone was able to make it, and because this is very important stuff, I wanted to go over a few things we talked about at the Potluck regarding next year.
First off, I plan on this year’s CSA running at least through September. When I know exactly which week will be our last, I will let you know.
Our policy for signing up for the next year’s CSA will be the same as last year: I will send out an email around the end of February inviting you all to join again. Once you get that invite email, you need to send in the form and payment if you want to be members again. The membership prices will remain the same for next year. Two weeks after I have sent the invite letter to you, I will extend it to our waitlist folks, if there are any spaces available. In a nutshell – I will hold your spot for 2 weeks after I send the invite letter, if you have not returned the form and payment at that point, I will fill your spot.
The CSA is going to stay the same size as it was this year = 50 families. We would like to perfect our system with the size it is.
We are going to add a small hoop house to our farm system. The hoop house will be 50 feet long, and a couple beds wide. It’s going to be moveable so we can slide it down the beds it covers – basically giving us the flexibility of two greenhouses in one. Part of the space inside the hoop house is going to be dedicated to more of our favorite cherry tomatoes! The rest of it will go to a variety of other crops.
I have heard a lot of concern this year over heirloom tomatoes, and I would like to address some of them. Heirloom tomatoes have been bred for their superior flavor. You don’t find them all over the grocery store for a few reasons: they don’t ship well due to delicate skins, the plants themselves are susceptible to most diseases and therefore are hard to grow, and they are low yielders in comparison with other tomato varieties. Growing them in a greenhouse adds to the concern over disease and pest problems. We don’t have many of the natural pest predators and cleansers here in the greenhouse that are present outside (birds, the sun, the frosts..). The growing season is not long enough up here at 7,000 ft to grow them outside – so our heirloom tomatoes must be grown in the greenhouse.
With all of that said, the point is that they are not really suited for this climate, and we are really fortunate to have them, and have them as early in the season as we did (all due to this amazing building). Tomatoes, especially heirlooms, are a big treat up here. Next year, the hoop house is not going to GREATLY change the amount of heirlooms you receive throughout the season. You will not be getting tomatoes every week next year, just like this year. I want you to be happy with your CSA experience, so if not getting tomatoes every week or every other week is ruining it for you, then maybe this isn’t the gig for you…..sad as it is to say that.
We have to harvest the tomatoes twice a week. They do not keep on the vine, nor do they keep off the vine. Once harvested, I need to send those tomatoes out, whether to you or to restaurants or a market. We harvest all the ripe tomatoes on Wednesday morning to distribute to you all. Then we must harvest them again on the weekend. This year we were taking them to the Park Silly Sunday Market – inviting you to come pick some up there, and selling them to the public. This is one of our outlets for crops that must be harvested twice a week (mostly flowers and tomatoes). When CSA members did come get tomatoes at the market, I recorded that, so that all members will get approximately the same amount of tomatoes throughout the season.
The greenhouse is obviously our most limited growing space. The peppers, eggplant, cucumbers and tomatoes must be grown in a greenhouse up here to be productive. Because of that we can not grow enough for every member to get every item each week. Next year, getting a cucumber, heirloom tomatoes, pepper or eggplant every couple weeks will continue.
We are a CSA; our goal is to provide you with a wonderful variety of vegetables and fruits that can be grown sustainably in this bioregion. Our goal is to possibly expose you to new vegetables, or new varieties of old favorites. Our goal is to help you find ways to prepare vegetables you have never eaten before, and maybe in the process you realize that you do like….turnips, or arugula, or eggplant (for example). Our goal is to keep your fridge full of some of your everyday favorite veggies. Our goal is to connect you with the people growing your food and the land it is being grown on. Our goal is to provide you and your family with the opportunity to see the weekly changes on this farm. The CSA is the life blood of this farm, and we put you first whenever possible.
But we are not only a CSA. Copper Moose Farm also sells produce to restaurants, caterers, and markets. We need to do that to make this business sustainable.
Next week I am going to send out a survey for you to fill out. Your input is incredibly valuable to us, we want to make this CSA the best it can be and we can only do that with your help. Thank you, in advance, for your input.
A garden is never so good as it will be next year
– Thomas Cooper
The Harvest
1# salad mix
Cabbage
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch leeks
Gold Coin onion
2# potatoes (Russet Nugget)
Fish peppers
Not everyone will get the following:
1.5# heirloom tomatoes
Cucumber
Eggplant
Sweet peppers (Sweet Cal Wonder Bell, Purple Beauty)
¼# arugula
3 oz basil
2 oz Shiso
Squash
Squash – The squash was damaged by the frosts last week, even under a heavy cover. It’s still hanging on, but the production has dropped way down. Bummer.
Potatoes – Russet Nugget this week! Russet Nugget was released by Colorado State University in 1988. This variety is excellent for French fries and baking. Russet Nugget is going to be the best variety this year for long term storage…..if you can hold off.
If you did bring a dish to the potluck, could you please email me the recipe? There has been an outcry for a little Copper Moose Farm CSA Potluck ’08 recipe folder…..so I’d love to put that together and send one home with each of you before the season is over.
Since not everyone was able to make it, and because this is very important stuff, I wanted to go over a few things we talked about at the Potluck regarding next year.
First off, I plan on this year’s CSA running at least through September. When I know exactly which week will be our last, I will let you know.
Our policy for signing up for the next year’s CSA will be the same as last year: I will send out an email around the end of February inviting you all to join again. Once you get that invite email, you need to send in the form and payment if you want to be members again. The membership prices will remain the same for next year. Two weeks after I have sent the invite letter to you, I will extend it to our waitlist folks, if there are any spaces available. In a nutshell – I will hold your spot for 2 weeks after I send the invite letter, if you have not returned the form and payment at that point, I will fill your spot.
The CSA is going to stay the same size as it was this year = 50 families. We would like to perfect our system with the size it is.
We are going to add a small hoop house to our farm system. The hoop house will be 50 feet long, and a couple beds wide. It’s going to be moveable so we can slide it down the beds it covers – basically giving us the flexibility of two greenhouses in one. Part of the space inside the hoop house is going to be dedicated to more of our favorite cherry tomatoes! The rest of it will go to a variety of other crops.
I have heard a lot of concern this year over heirloom tomatoes, and I would like to address some of them. Heirloom tomatoes have been bred for their superior flavor. You don’t find them all over the grocery store for a few reasons: they don’t ship well due to delicate skins, the plants themselves are susceptible to most diseases and therefore are hard to grow, and they are low yielders in comparison with other tomato varieties. Growing them in a greenhouse adds to the concern over disease and pest problems. We don’t have many of the natural pest predators and cleansers here in the greenhouse that are present outside (birds, the sun, the frosts..). The growing season is not long enough up here at 7,000 ft to grow them outside – so our heirloom tomatoes must be grown in the greenhouse.
With all of that said, the point is that they are not really suited for this climate, and we are really fortunate to have them, and have them as early in the season as we did (all due to this amazing building). Tomatoes, especially heirlooms, are a big treat up here. Next year, the hoop house is not going to GREATLY change the amount of heirlooms you receive throughout the season. You will not be getting tomatoes every week next year, just like this year. I want you to be happy with your CSA experience, so if not getting tomatoes every week or every other week is ruining it for you, then maybe this isn’t the gig for you…..sad as it is to say that.
We have to harvest the tomatoes twice a week. They do not keep on the vine, nor do they keep off the vine. Once harvested, I need to send those tomatoes out, whether to you or to restaurants or a market. We harvest all the ripe tomatoes on Wednesday morning to distribute to you all. Then we must harvest them again on the weekend. This year we were taking them to the Park Silly Sunday Market – inviting you to come pick some up there, and selling them to the public. This is one of our outlets for crops that must be harvested twice a week (mostly flowers and tomatoes). When CSA members did come get tomatoes at the market, I recorded that, so that all members will get approximately the same amount of tomatoes throughout the season.
The greenhouse is obviously our most limited growing space. The peppers, eggplant, cucumbers and tomatoes must be grown in a greenhouse up here to be productive. Because of that we can not grow enough for every member to get every item each week. Next year, getting a cucumber, heirloom tomatoes, pepper or eggplant every couple weeks will continue.
We are a CSA; our goal is to provide you with a wonderful variety of vegetables and fruits that can be grown sustainably in this bioregion. Our goal is to possibly expose you to new vegetables, or new varieties of old favorites. Our goal is to help you find ways to prepare vegetables you have never eaten before, and maybe in the process you realize that you do like….turnips, or arugula, or eggplant (for example). Our goal is to keep your fridge full of some of your everyday favorite veggies. Our goal is to connect you with the people growing your food and the land it is being grown on. Our goal is to provide you and your family with the opportunity to see the weekly changes on this farm. The CSA is the life blood of this farm, and we put you first whenever possible.
But we are not only a CSA. Copper Moose Farm also sells produce to restaurants, caterers, and markets. We need to do that to make this business sustainable.
Next week I am going to send out a survey for you to fill out. Your input is incredibly valuable to us, we want to make this CSA the best it can be and we can only do that with your help. Thank you, in advance, for your input.
A garden is never so good as it will be next year
– Thomas Cooper
The Harvest
1# salad mix
Cabbage
1 bunch carrots
1 bunch leeks
Gold Coin onion
2# potatoes (Russet Nugget)
Fish peppers
Not everyone will get the following:
1.5# heirloom tomatoes
Cucumber
Eggplant
Sweet peppers (Sweet Cal Wonder Bell, Purple Beauty)
¼# arugula
3 oz basil
2 oz Shiso
Squash
Squash – The squash was damaged by the frosts last week, even under a heavy cover. It’s still hanging on, but the production has dropped way down. Bummer.
Potatoes – Russet Nugget this week! Russet Nugget was released by Colorado State University in 1988. This variety is excellent for French fries and baking. Russet Nugget is going to be the best variety this year for long term storage…..if you can hold off.
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