Mulberry Creek Farm CSA

Mulberry Creek Farm NewsBlog

published occasionally at the whim of the editor

Volume 2: Issue 5 – 7/20/10

In this issue:

Introduction

Garden News: This week’s shares

Poultry Products

Hog Hearsay

Jams, Jellies and Honey

Miscellany: Our move

Recipe of the Month: Zucchini

Question of the Month: Do I need to refrigerate my eggs?

It really is hard to believe July is over half done and we’re shopping for school supplies! But here we are in mid-summer, battling insects that bite, sting, chew, or pester and weeds that seem to flourish more and more. We’re once again over-run with chickens and are well into the swing of the weekly garden share cycle: harvest, weigh, count, bag, distribute, repeat.

Garden News

Thus far, you who receive garden shares seem to be enjoying your weekly share of our produce, although I think many of us are having to dig deep to find new and exciting ways to prepare zucchini! (Down below is a great looking recipe sent in by one of our members last week. If you have one, send it along!) Of course, one of the steepest learning curves for many of us when choosing to eat locally is learning to eat seasonally which means accepting what’s growing right now rather than hitting the supermarket for something that’s out of season here but shipped in from far, far away.

Tomatoes and peppers are coming on but, unfortunately, the lettuce is done for the time being. We’re getting fall crops in the ground between rains so we can anticipate more cool weather greens, like lettuce, later in the season.

Here’s what we’re planning for this week’s shares (always, of course, subject to the weather and other uncontrollable circumstances!):

Sweet Corn

Green Beans

Tomatoes (our tomatoes are heirloom varieties so will look quite different than those in the store. If you’re curious and we forget to tell you about them, just ask!)

Bell Peppers

Onions

Zucchini

Summer Squash

Cauliflower / Broccoli

Herbs (probably limited to basil and oregano)

And a few more of you will receive berries this week.

By the way, now that tomatoes, peppers and onions are here, there’s a pretty good recipe for Pico de Gallo on the recipe page, (which is basically fresh salsa if you’re not familiar with it).

Don’t forget to help out now and then on Wednesdays (or any other time – just let us know when would be a good time and we’ll work something out). It’s been hot, but the garden keeps on producing your nummies and would love to meet you! We’ll set you to weeding, harvesting, or even preparing items for shares. (If you come out and help, you get to take yours home early and probably even get something extra, too!) While we prefer that you give us a buzz first, if you want to just show up, that’s fine, too.

Poultry Products

We’ll be processing chickens again within the next 2 or 3 weeks so if you want to pre-order a chicken or add to what you already get, let me know. Generally, we try to take enough birds at a time to cover the monthly poultry shares and have a few on hand for single sales. Again, chickens are $8 each.

Some news on our live birds: our Royal Palm turkey breeding trio and a fair number of their poults moved to Wisconsin several weeks ago. We do still have a variety of live turkey poults available. We lost our Narragansett tom turkey to wounds sustained in that dog attack in early June and will be looking for a replacement tom. We still have the year+ old Blue Slate and Bourbon Red toms available for $35 each.

We’ll be incubating both Dominique and Rhode Island Red chickens within the next few weeks. We have available now a variety of chicks nearing laying age. Day old chicks are $2, adult chickens are $6 each.

Eggs: No news is good news! Egg production is pretty steady and the chickens are being quite cooperative. Again, if you need a dozen, let me know or ask when you get here. We’re trying to have an extra dozen or two on hand at pick-up.

Hog Hearsay

Over the next week, we’ll be saying goodbye to several of our spring piglets. Three are moving to a farm just north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin this weekend and three will relocate to South Carolina early next week.

The remaining 7 will be fed out and sold as pork. Some have been spoken for but we still have a few available. They’ll be slaughtered sometime before Christmas. Although we’ll have moved by then, if you’re interested in a hog or a half-hog, let me know. You’ll pay the processing fee plus $3.50 per pound hanging weight. What that means is that once the pig has been killed and dressed, the butcher will hang it on a special scale to weigh it, hence ‘hanging’ weight.

If you’ve never tasted heritage pastured pork before, well, let me just say that this is what pork should be, not that “other white meat” cardboard stuff you get in the store. Pork isn’t supposed to be white! Think about the difference between a store chicken and one you get from us (or another similar farm) and you get the idea.

A whole hog requires a $75 deposit and the remaining balance due at the time of pick-up. A half hog requires a $40 deposit with the same payment due at time of pick-up.

Expect an average Mulberry Creek hog to have a hanging weight of 100-120 pounds.

Jams, Jellies and Honey

We have made a honey extractor and extracted our first 25 (or so) pounds of honey this year! It’s so much easier than doing it the old fashioned way in front of the open oven. Our honey is raw which means that we’ve done nothing to it other than remove it from the comb. No heat, no preservatives or additives, etc. Just plain, raw honey. It’s $5 for a ½ pint, $15 for a quart.

Don’t forget, we have lots (and lots) of jellies and jams! I guess it’s high time I re-posted the list of flavors. And we can promise you that there’s no “who knows what” in it. Just juice, sugar, and pectin (which is naturally occurring and helps it jell). We don’t make what we don’t eat, so at the moment we don’t have any sugar free jellies except Yellow Plum. Everything is $4 a jar except the Seedless Blackberry and Seedless Red Raspberry which are $5 each.

Here are the flavors. Hope I didn’t miss anything!

Apple Butter

Apple Jelly

Apricot Jam

Cherry Pie Jelly

Currant Jam

Elderberry Jelly

Gooseberry Jam

Grape Jelly

Red or White Mulberry Jelly

Mulberry Syrup

Peach Jam

Plum Jams: Purple Plum, Red Plum, Yellow Plum, Yellow Plum Wine, Sugar-Free Yellow Plum (and this has NO sweetener whatsoever)

Raspberry Jam

Raspberry-Currant Jam

Rhubarb-Peach Jam

White Mulberry Jam

Seedless Blackberry Jam

Seedless Red Raspberry Jam

Please let me know by noon the day of your pick-up if you’d like honey, jam or jelly and which flavor(s). If you don’t specify size for honey, I’ll assume you want a ½ pint. By the way, as you begin thinking toward the holidays yet 5 months away, these items make great gifts!

Miscellany

I’d hoped to have most of our stuff packed up for the move by now, but we’ve been so busy picking beans and corn and doing other farm related tasks that by the time I have time to pack a box, I don’t have the energy! I think we can put a hold on boxes for the moment, but we still need packing material. I know I’m going to go through what we’ve got pretty quickly. Thanks, everyone, for boxes and packing material!

Many of you already know that none of us will be moving until October. We’d planned that Maggie and I would move in time for school to start, but it’s just not going to happen – there are a couple reasons for that. So we will all be here through the remainder of the season! We’ll move in mid-October as soon as the garden share season is over but we’ll be back around Thanksgiving with turkeys (and perhaps pork).

Recipe Corner:

Wondering what to do with all that zucchini and summer squash? Here are some tips:

• Make zucchini bread! (You can also use summer squash in addition to or instead of zucchini.)

• Freeze it for use this winter. We love to sauté a bit of frozen summer squash or zucchini with some onion and herbs for a wonderful side-dish when the snow is thick on the ground. Just wash off the outside of the fruit, cut off the ends, cut the fruit into bite sized pieces, blanch for three minutes, put them in plastic freezer boxes, label and freeze. Alternatively, you can grate it for use in zucchini bread later but you’ll only want to blanch this for about a minute and a half. If you need more information about how to blanch veggies for freezing, check out the preservation tips on the recipe page.

• Here’s a recipe sent in by MCF member Connie Gilhooly: Almond and Zucchini Soup

1 cup whole almonds

2 medium zucchini

4 cloves garlic

2 T butter (I used olive oil)

4 cups basic chicken or vegetable broth

1/2 cup dry white wine

1/2 cup cream (I used plain Greek yogurt.)

salt

pepper

3-4 slices bacon (optional --- I did not use.)

1. Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Place the almonds in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake them for about 20 minutes, until you can smell the roasted aroma. Set them aside to cool.

2. Meanwhile, cook the bacon and set it aside to drain on paper towels. Grate the zucchini (I just cut up, didn't grate since it all goes in the blender later.)and mince the garlic. Rub the almonds in a dry dishtowel to remove the skins; then grind the almonds in a food processor. (The almonds I had were already sliced. I put them in the oven for 15. Did not do the dishtowel thing. Used a blender to grind them. All was well! )

3. In a soup pot, melt the butter on medium. Stir in the zucchini and garlic and cook for 5 minutes, stirring almost constantly. Pour in the broth and the wine and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Stir in the almonds and remove from heat.

4. Allow the soup to cool slightly. In a blender or food process, puree the mixture and then put it back into the soup pot. Stir in the cream and add salt to taste. Reheat gently but thoroughly; do not allow it to boil. Crumble the bacon. Garnish each serving with a sprinkling of freshly ground black pepper and the crumbled bacon.

Random Question of the Month: Do I need to refrigerate my eggs?

First, I’ll say that we have a bunch of egg info on the Food Safety page of the web site (brown vs. white eggs, how fresh is fresh, etc.) There is work to do (of course!) but there’s some basic good information there as well as links to some other relevant sites. So – on to the question at hand: is refrigeration necessary?

There are two answers to this. The USDA and FDA say eggs must be kept refrigerated “at a temperature of 45°F or below. Keep the eggs in their carton and place them in the coldest part of the refrigerator, not in the door.”

The second answer we’ll let you decide – this is a repeat from a small part of the food safety page: Here are a few thoughts based on our personal practice and observation.

1. A hen sits on an egg for 21 days without it going bad.

2. People survived (thrived) for centuries eating eggs that came out of a bowl sitting on the kitchen counter or table. We eat eggs all the time that have never been refrigerated. The trick is to actually cook the eggs before you consume them.

3. If you cook the egg thoroughly, you're not likely to get sick from it. (Egg related illness seems to come almost entirely from eating eggs that have not been cooked through or at all, including stuff that raw eggs are in, like cookie dough.) COOK YOUR EGGS THOROUGHLY!

4. If it floats, don't eat it! If it smells funky, don't eat it! (If you want to check an egg, put it in a bowl then fill the bowl with enough water to cover the egg(s). If the egg just sits there, it’s fine. My practice is that if it bobs a bit but remains touching the bottom of the bowl, I’ll use it for hard boiling or baking.)

TIPS:

* Once eggs are refrigerated, they need to remain refrigerated.

* Fresh eggs keep longer than hard boiled eggs, but hard boiling an egg will extend it's life. Another way to say this is that if you take two eggs that were laid today and hard boil one then stuck them both in the fridge, the hard boiled one would go bad first. But if you take that non-boiled egg and a week or two down the road boil it, it will last a bit longer.

* Successful hard boiled eggs need to be at least a week old. Very fresh eggs won't peel well, no matter what tricks you use.

(By the way, our website says we put the eggs in the fridge as soon as they’re cleaned up which isn’t strictly true – generally, as soon as they’re cleaned up you come to get them. 99% of the time the eggs you pick up have never seen the inside of a fridge but they’re no more than a couple days old and our semi-underground stone kitchen is pretty cool even on the hottest days.)

Thanks for eating local!

Peace -

Gail

Mulberry Creek Farm NewsBlog

published occasionally at the whim of the editor

Volume 2: Issue 4 – 6/15/10

In this issue:

Introduction

2010 Summer Share Details: Please double check again!

Garden News: This week’s shares

Poultry Products

Hog Hearsay

Jams, Jellies and Honey

Recipe Corner

Question of the Month: Do I need to wash my produce?

Miscellany: Move Update

The summer season is here! Shares begin this week for most. If you are an alternating week shareholder, please double check to see if you start this week or next. Also, jot down that we can always use plastic grocery bags (in fact, we really need plastic grocery bags!) and gallon ziplock bags. Please don’t forget to return those egg cartons – and as canning season starts, we’re happy to take jars of any size (jelly, pint, quart, etc).

In the last NewsBlog I included share confirmations. I have a new version based on orders and clarifications received. Be sure to double check before you head off to your pick-up!

Please don’t forget the second third of installment payments is due at or before your first share pick-up! I’ll try to get individual e-mails out today.

Also, if you’re continuing eggs from the spring, please remember that the new egg season starts this week. We need your order to confirm your share.

I have garden share pick-ups scheduled as follows. If you’d like to switch, we need to know by Wednesday morning. If you cannot pick-up in a given week, please let us know by Wednesday morning. If possible, we’re happy to make other arrangements for you to pick-up at the farm.

Summer 2010 Garden Shares Details

Pick-up every Wednesday at the Farm, 4-7pm:

Aker, Brown, English, Gilhooley, Glidden, Moore, Novicki, Shapiro, Sterling, Stubbs, Vance, Welch, Whitehead

Pick up at the farm alternating weeks starting June 16: Becker, Duffy, Kovacs

Pick up at the farm alternating weeks starting June 23: Spriggs-Trobridge, Sterling

If this will be problematic, please contact me ASAP! We need to split our alternating shareholders between weeks. If you’d rather switch to weekly pick-up, let me know that right away.

Pick up every Thursday at Grace UMC, Salem Ave, Dayton, 5:30-6:30pm:

Campbell-Blake, Fairchild, Ramey, Sinnokrak, Temkin

(If you notified me via e-mail and the change is not reflected here, it's because I posted this before I read your e-mail. But you might want to double check

Egg, poultry, honey, jelly etc orders will be included with garden shares.

Confirmed Summer egg customers:

Half: Brown, Cowley, Duffy, Dakin, Glidden, Hitchcock, Manson, Sinnokrak, Spriggs-Trobridge, Temkin, Welch, Wilson, Vance

Full: Becker, Campbell-Blake, Dodds, English, Thomas

(If you have not yet paid, please do so when you pick up this week. Thanks! If you're not on this list and should be or are and shouldn't, e-mail me ASAP! Separate e-mail going out.)

We need to know immediately if anyone still prefers the UTS/Trotwood location for garden share pick-up. UTS egg only drop-off will be at 5pm, Thursdays.

If your scheduled pick-up/drop-off time and location don’t work for you and you need to switch, please let me know ASAP. Farm pick-ups can be pretty flexible. Also, please remember that shares not picked-up will be distributed at our discretion. If you simply forgot or got side-tracked, just call. We’re usually open to you swinging by the farm within a day or two of a missed pick-up.

Any questions/comments/concerns, let me know.

Garden News

Here’s what we’re planning for this week’s shares (always subject to the weather and other uncontrollable circumstances!):

Lettuce – 3 varieties

Spinach

Garden peas

Snow peas

Green onions

Radishes

Zucchini or Yellow Summer Squash

Turnips

Cilantro and/or basil

The early shares are very heavy in salad greens but within the next couple weeks we’ll also have green beans, kohlrabi, cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, carrots and other greens. Expect sweet corn and tomatoes around mid-July.

In between rain storms, we’re trying to stay slightly ahead of the weeds. We’ve resorted to mowing between rows and just trying to keep the big stuff down! We still have more to plant as soon as it dries out enough.

Don’t forget to come on out any Wednesday to lend a hand – we’ll set you to weeding, harvesting, or even preparing items for shares. (If you come out and help, you get to take yours home early and probably even get something extra, too!) While we prefer that you give us a buzz first, if you want to just show up, that’s fine, too.

Poultry Products

Life on the farm can be tough, especially when dealing with livestock and the cycle of life. Occasionally we lose a chicken or two to predators (who also have to eat) and we have lost several of our turkey hens the same way. Last week a dog or dogs got into the pen where we were keeping our goslings and ducklings and killed all but two of the ducklings. The goslings had been doing so well! Some of our larger birds were roughed up but seem to be doing OK. So, it will be some time before we can offer goose or duckling. We still have plenty of chickens, though, including several in the freezer, and the turkey poults have not been harmed.

Live birds are available: Day old chicks are $2, adult chickens are $6 each. We have Rhode Island Red, Dominique, and White Rock chicks, and various adult birds. Royal Palm turkey poults are $10 and up. We are also offering our Royal Palm breeding trio (a tom and 2 hens) for $150, and one each Blue Slate and Bourbon Red toms for $35 each. Our adult turkeys are all over a year old and have proven reproductively. Live birds are local pick-up only.

Eggs: New season starts this week – if we haven’t received your order, please be sure we know that you want to continue!

Some of you have stated that even a half-share of eggs is too many. Let me remind you that you are welcome to purchase eggs whenever you need them. If you’re a farm pick-up, just ask when you get here. If you come to a drop-off location, let us know by Thursday afternoon and we’ll be happy to bring eggs along. Eggs are $3 per dozen.

Hog Hearsay

Our babies arrived Memorial Day weekend! Nova gave birth to 7 healthy piglets that are all growing well. Luna gave birth to 12 and 7 are growing well. Significant interest has been shown in all the girls and several of the boys although as of this writing we have yet to receive any deposits. Weanlings will be available for transport the end of July and are $250 each for registered gilts and boars or $50 for unregistered barrows. A breeding trio (1 boar and 2 gilts, from different mothers) goes for $600. We operate on a “first deposit received” basis. Our reservation form is on the website or I’m happy to e-mail one to you. Even when ordering barrows, we do need a reservation and payment up front. All boars unreserved as breeding stock by July 10 will be castrated.

If you are interested in pastured heritage pork, let us know. You can purchase a barrow (a hog going for meat) and raise it yourself, or you can purchase one or part of one and we can raise it for you. Barrows go for $50 if you raise it. If we raise your hog (or half hog) and have it processed, you’ll pay the processing fee plus $3.50 per pound (carcass weight). A whole hog requires a $75 deposit and the remaining balance due at the time of pick-up. A half hog requires a $40 deposit with the same payment due at time of pick-up.

Pork will be ready sometime this fall. Expect an average barrow at time of processing to have a carcass weight of 100-120 pounds. I’ll try to get a flyer out on pork soon.

Jams, Jellies and Honey

Every time I turn around, we’re capturing or building up another hive. Also, berries are beginning to ripen so jelly and jam season is upon us. This year, if we have plenty of a particular kind of jelly, I’ll be making saft with much of the berry juice. Saft is a Swedish berry juice concentrate that’s pretty much just juice and sugar – no corn syrup or other additives. Whether we offer any for sale is still up in the air since this will be a new venture for us.

If you need honey, jam or jelly, let us know prior to your pick-up and we’ll have it ready for you. And don’t forget, we will ship these items.

Recipe Corner

There's so much you can do with any and all of this produce! With this week’s share, try tossing some snow peas and summer squash chunks in with your salad. Or add snow peas, summer squash, and turnip chunks to your favorite stir fry.

The following was published in the Farm2Fork Fresh newsletter at Dorothy Lane Market, summer 2009:

* Toss the salad greens with the lightest drizzle of olive oil, minced garlic, lemon juice, and a dash of sherry vinegar. You won't need a powerful dressing with greens as fresh and flavor-packed as these!

* If you've never had turnip or mustard greens, they can be used any way you use spinach - cooked or fresh in a salad. They are a marvelous source of vitamins and quite yummy!

* Ever tried a radish sandwich? Simplest early-summer sandwich ever: just mince some radishes, sprinkle with salt and pepper, add a few chopped sprigs of parsley, and place on bread smeared with your favorite butter. (European butters are nice and light for this, but Amish butter, which luckily is widely available throughout Ohio, is especially great!)

Rinsing Vegetables to be Critter Free

Fill a bowl, the sink, some container with cool/lukewarm (not cold, not hot) water, add a couple teaspoonsful – a quarter cup of salt. Use your discretion – the more buggy something may be, the more salt you may want to use. I generally just dump a bunch in, myself. Soak your vegetables for 5-10 minutes then rinse well under running water. With veggies with lots of nooks and crannies, such as broccoli, swish them well after they soak and before you rinse them to help evict those critters.

Vegetable Preservation: see the section on preserving veggies on the Recipe page of the website.

Cooking with Snow Peas

We include two varieties of peas with this week’s shares. Garden peas, peas in the pod, may be eaten whole or shelled then prepared as you prefer. Snow peas, the flat ones, are eaten whole. They are delicious fresh, in a salad, steamed, stir-fried and are a great sugar pea for freezing for later use.

For a recipe for Lemon Butter Snow Peas: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Lemon-Butter-Snow-Peas/Detail.aspx

Cooking with Turnips

First, the greens are delicious. Clean them and use them like spinach.

The fruit of the turnip is little known these days but is worth giving a try. Turnips are a lot like potatoes in substance and many people just eat them mashed – there are a plethora of mashed turnip recipes online – but Glenn loves them peeled and fresh – try slicing them into your salad or stir fry. Go ahead and try turnip salad (instead of potato salad – get it?) or turnip slaw. Just use your favorite potato salad or coleslaw recipe and substitute turnips for potatoes or cabbage. Or chunk them, dip them in your favorite seasoning and roast them or fry them like potatoes.

Have a recipe to share? Send it along to the website forum. When I get a chance, I’ll post it on the website recipe page and I may include it here! By the way, I’m working on getting cooking tips that have been included in blogs onto the recipe page. If you remember seeing something last year that you just can’t find, let me know and I’ll track it down.

Random Question of the Month: Do I need to wash produce?

Absolutely! Although we don’t use chemicals (any more than absolutely necessary, and it hasn’t been necessary yet this year), our neighbors upwind do. In addition, our produce grows out there in the midst of nature where lots of critters and their body functions have access to it. While we will rinse off the bulk of dirt and so forth, there will be some amount of dirt and even some creepy crawlies from time to time. So please do at least rinse your produce unless you like grit and free protein!

Miscellany

We’re still in the sorting out stage and have started packing some items. We’re in need of boxes and, especially, packing material (newspaper, etc). If you have any to spare, let us know. Also, if you’re so inclined, I wouldn’t mind help now and then with some of the packing.

We’re still waiting for the ground to dry up enough at the new place to get the septic system in and the trailer on site. In the meantime, we camp in the old chicken house when we make a trip down – it’s great fun!

I hope you’re as excited as we are to have fresh sustainably raised vegetables on the table again. Eat local!

Peace -

Gail

Mulberry Creek Farm NewsBlog

Volume 2: Issue 1 – published occasionally at the whim of the editor - 1/25/10

In this issue:

Introduction

Garden News

How the CSA Works

Poultry Products

Hog Hearsay

Jams, Jellies and Honey

Miscellany

It’s mid-January, we’ve had a couple weeks of real winter, and then got a bit of a thaw. Glenn has been scouring the seed order catalogs and dreaming of this summer’s crops. The critters are plugging away up there on the hill and we have some recent arrivals. 2010 will be an exciting and busy year at Mulberry Creek Farm!

Garden News

We’ve only heard from one or two people with input about what you might like to see in your share baskets this summer – don’t forget to let us know. We will certainly consider any requests, especially if several of our customers request the same thing. While we use many heirloom varieties and harvest our own seeds, we also rely on seed order houses for many things. We will be placing seed orders within the next few weeks so if you have suggestions, speak now!

We had 16 members in our Garden Share CSA last summer. For 2010, we are going to expand. How much will depend on how many memberships we get early enough. March 1st is the deadline for early bird ordering this year because we have to pay the rent on the fields by March 1st. It’s beneficial to all of us if the farm can avoid borrowing money! Early bird orders must be paid in full by March 1st. $450 for a full-share, $225 for a half-share. I’ll get the order form updated and posted as soon as I can. Last year’s members have first dibs – we won’t accept any new members until after February 15th. After that, it’s first-come, first-served!

2009 Members only: For every new member you help get signed up, we will give you a week free at your membership type and level!

Regular membership due date is April 1st. Share prices are the same as last year: $500 for a full-share, $250 for a half-share. Half-shares may be either half as much every week or a full-share amount every other week. Again, I will be getting the updated order form posted as soon as I can.

We will again offer installment payment plans for non-Early Bird membership orders. You may order your membership at any time, but installment plans are not eligible for the early bird discount. Please contact us for more information or clarification.

Please remember that we practice sustainable farming and use as many organic practices as possible. We use pesticide and herbicide only as a last resort/rescue and our fertilizer is organic. Glenn has recently found an organic way to grow pest-limited sweet corn, which should come as great news to some of you.

This year, we are planning to rent an additional six acres, which will give us more flexibility in planting as well as provide more of a buffer between us and the conventionally farmed fields upwind. Your early share memberships will help us accomplish this goal.

Glenn is working on planning a larger and sturdier greenhouse and hopes to have one up within the next couple of months. This will allow us to start summer crops earlier as well as have early spring crops more readily available.

2010 Share Drop-Off Locations - We are planning to offer the same drop-off locations as last year: here at the farm, Hoffman UMC in West Milton, Five Rivers Vineyard Church in Englewood, and United Theological Seminary in Trotwood. We have had a number of requests to add drop-off locations. If you desire a drop-off location in Vandalia, Dayton, or any other place, we will consider adding a drop-off location if there are at least 3 members picking up there, and we would prefer at least five members per location.

How the CSA Works

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and embraces the philosophy of communities supporting farms and farms their communities. In exchange for committing your dollars to us early in the season, we guarantee you a share of the harvest all season long. Become a Mulberry Creek Farm CSA Garden Share member and receive a weekly share of naturally grown fresh vegetables and fruit (when available) from early June to October, and/or a monthly share of crisp, sweet storage vegetables in November, December and beyond as available. An egg share will get you a dozen eggs each week; a half-share is a dozen every other week, following the same seasonal dates as the garden share. For poultry and other products, it’s a more open arrangement. Some people prefer to purchase several chickens at once and put them in the freezer (which is great for us); others pick up a chicken every week or two with their other shares. Turkeys and ducklings are on demand or in season. There is more about what we think Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is all about on our “About Us” page.

Member Terms and Conditions haven’t changed. By becoming a member, you (the member) agree to be a shareholder in the Mulberry Creek Farm CSA Program and we (the farmers) agree to do our best to provide a bounty of seasonal, local, healthy produce to you as a shareholder. You are also agreeing to share the risks of natural farming with us and that those risks may occasionally affect the items that are included in your share basket. You are also agreeing that the CSA works within the honor system, that it is your responsibility to pick up your share within the appropriate time on your designated delivery day, and that you will contact Mulberry Creek Farm when occasional scheduling conflicts prevent picking up your share on time and that if your box is not picked up on the designated day, it will be donated at our discretion. We (the farmers) agree to be at the designated drop-off location, day and time with your share.

We all understand that there are occasional hiccups in the system, unforeseen circumstances come up, or we just plain forget! Those of you who have been members know that we’re flexible. If you can’t make it or forgot, just give us a call. At the same time, we appreciate your understanding when we have things come up or just plain forget!

So, each week you pick up your share on your designated day and place. We do appreciate that you return the previous week’s basket or transfer your produce to your own bags (we do often use bags and baggies for shares, especially later in the season when there’s more than the basket can hold). Spread the news about our CSA—show off your shares, share your produce and point people to the website! Enjoy the delight of eating seasonally, healthfully, and naturally! And of course don’t forget to share your favorite recipes and cooking tips that we can post on the website for everyone to enjoy.

Work Shares and Volunteering: We often get inquiries from people about working on the farm. While we are always interested in extra help, we are not in a position to hire workers. We pay in eggs, chicken, or produce, sometimes jelly or honey. We understand that some folks are unable to “get down and dig in the dirt” so, unlike many CSAs, we do not require our members to work.

However, we do believe that you, the member, will appreciate your produce much more if you’ve actually helped in planting, weeding, and/or harvesting and we encourage our members to spend a couple hours on the farm helping – we always make it worth your while! Or simply bring a lawn chair and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine and keep us company while we do the work!

As always, we’re open to responding to questions, concerns, rebuttals, and so forth. Feel free to contact us at any time.

Poultry Products

Chicken Broilers: Our supply of frozen broiler chickens is dwindling quicker than we had anticipated! Once the frozen chickens on hand are gone, we will not have chicken broilers available again until the end of March or first part of April. We hope to be able to maintain a steady supply after that. Please let us know your interests – several of the broilers on hand are already spoken for. Broiler chickens are $8 apiece and may be ordered individually or in units. We will consider a discount for bulk purchases.

We do have a number of soup chickens available – they’d be good for soup, chicken salad, the crock-pot, etc, but we wouldn’t recommend them as baking chickens. Soup chickens are $6 each. Call ahead.

Turkey: We selected the very best of our turkeys just before Christmas to keep as breeding stock. We hope to be able to breed our own birds for the entire demand this year, but that means that we need holiday orders as early as possible. We cannot guarantee having birds available if you wait until fall to order.

You will not find a better tasting or healthier turkey than a heritage bird grown on pasture. They do take much longer to raise than conventional birds you find in the store, so they’re more expensive. Our customers who have tried them have assured us that the benefit is well worth the cost. We thought we would need to raise the price this year; however, we have decided to leave it at the 2009 price, well below the price for the typical heritage pasture-raised turkey. As always, if you have questions, please let us know. To reserve your bird, we require a deposit of $25 with the balance of $5 per pound due at time of pick-up. If you’d like to make payments toward your turkey, the smallest birds will be about 10 lbs. and size will go up from there to approximately 20 lbs for the largest.

Duck: After a taste test here on the farm, we have decided to limit our ducks to the heritage Cayuga. Their flavor was phenomenal! Our duckling is sold out until mid-late summer but if you’re interested in duck meat, please let us know. We will accept reservations at $10 per bird.

Egg Update: Egg production was down for a bit during the darkest and coldest days, but is now again on the upswing and we anticipate having an abundance of eggs again by the start of the next share season in mid-February. Eggs are $3 per dozen: a full share of a dozen per week is $50 and a half share of a dozen every other week is $25. We do offer a discount for “Re-Use My Cartons” that puts the full-share at $45 and the half-share at $23. As with other share types, Egg Shares may be purchased in multiples.

Hog Hearsay

If you’ve been following our “blog-lets”, you’ll know that Luna and Nova both had healthy farrowings in mid-December producing strong litters. All available piglets from the December farrowing are spoken for – one breeding trio will be going to a farm in West Virginia and another six of our piglets will move to a farm near Cleveland. We are keeping one breeding trio and a boar for meat and we look forward to being able to testify ourselves on the delectability of Mulefoot meat next fall.

The next farrowing should be in early summer with availability in late summer. We hope to be able to offer pork by the whole or half-hog in early 2011. If you are interested in purchasing a whole or half hog for meat, we can raise it and have it processed for you. Contact us to get your name on a list for reservation information - first come, first served – or for more information.

Jams, Jellies and Honey

Just as a reminder, our old-fashioned, all natural jams and jellies are plentiful. Most are made from fruit grown right here on Mulberry Creek Farm. We have flavors you won’t find in the store, too! Many of you enjoyed the jellies and/or jams you received from time to time in your share baskets last summer – don’t forget to restock! Again, everything is $4 per jar except the seedless varieties, which are $5 per jar. We do ship – contact us for shipping and handling pricing.

The bees are still hibernating, but we occasionally see a few brave and daring ones active on the warmest days. We are looking forward to a great honey season for 2010! We do still have a bit of 2009 honey available. It is raw-honey without water or any other additives. There is even a bit of beeswax floating on the top so you know it’s straight from the hive!

Miscellany

Those of you who have stopped by have seen the progress made on the barn – the laying hens are mostly under roof, now, which is helping with egg production. Once they get used to their new home, Glenn will let them roam again. For now, though, there’s not much in the way of grass or bugs for them outside! There is quite a way to go on the barn, but we hope to have it completed before snow flies next fall.

We are also working on a new and much larger greenhouse. We hope to be able to have many early spring greens available, as well as start many seeds for transplanting. It’s always Glenn’s goal to have excellent tomatoes before the 4th of July!

We have the ability to rent an additional 6 acres of cropland, to our immediate west and south. We intend to plant some of it in alfalfa hay for the critters, but the rest will give us a lot more flexibility in planting so we should be able to avoid some of the crop failures we had last year. We’re still new at this whole CSA thing and are learning as we go. Hopefully the lessons of 2009 were good ones.

Those of you who have been to the farm since Thanksgiving have noticed how muddy and pitted the lane has become. We do apologize about that and are going to try to get something done about it as soon as we have the finances. We were all set to have a load of gravel brought in when we had the property-line fence issue turn up. All our gravel money went to that fence, which is great to have, but has slowed down the gravel project. We thank you for your patience in this!

As soon as we have some good days in the spring, we’ll be starting on spring clean up. We’d love to have helpers come out to collect trash and deadfall, get stuff picked up that has blown around over the winter, do some painting projects, work on early garden preparation projects, or just keep us company. Pop me an e-mail if you’d be interested so we can let you know when our workdays will be.

That’s the news as it is from MCF! Don’t forget to get those Share Membership orders in as soon as you can – and, as a reminder, 2009 members will get a week free for each new member you get signed up!

Eat local!

Peace -

Gail

Just a quickie with the basics - I'm working on a NewsBlog but for the moment and will get the full details out soon.

Hogs: All available piglets from the December farrowing are spoken for. Next farrowing should be in early summer with availability in late summer. Contact us to get your name on a list for reservation information - first come, first served. See the Hog page for more information.

Poultry: We anticipate having fresh chickens available in mid-late Spring. We will accept orders for chicken by the unit, by the month, or in bulk. Contact us for more information. We will accept deposits for holiday turkeys any time. We will not breed more than we have demand for so be thinking now about that flavorful and succulent heritage turkey for your holiday table next Fall or Winter. Duckling is avilable and we will be developing the flock. Contact us for more information. Egg production is down due to the cold and dark, but we anticiapate having an abundance of eggs again by the start of the next share season in mid-February.

Garden/Produce: We are currently accepting 2010 Garden Share memberships from 2009 members only. New members may sign up after February 15th. Early Bird discounts offered to shares paid in full by March 1st. More information to come.

Honey, Jellies, Jams: We have a continued supply of raw honey, old fashioned jellies and jams, and a few syrups. We hope to make more honey and bee products available this year. We will ship within Ohio. Contact us for more information.

Sow Nova delivered six healthy piglets during the night! Again, they will be available as breeding stock or as feeders with pick-up or delivery in mid-February. Contact us for more information. Reservation form is nearly ready to post.

Our Mulefoot sow Luna has given birth to 8 healthy piglets! We will post more (including photos) as we have more information, but most will be available for reservation and ready for pick-up by mid-February - contact us for details.

Mulberry Creek Farm NewsBlog

Volume 1: Issue 13 – published occasionally at the whim of the editor

12/01/09

In this issue:

Introduction

Garden News

Turkeys, Chickens and Ducks

Egg Update

Hog & Hive Hearsay

Jams & Jellies

Miscellany

It's hard to believe we're in the first week of December and it's been as mild an Autumn as this. As I write, however, the weather forecast calls for much colder temperatures within the next few days - I think winter may be upon us!

The big news on the farm is that in the next couple days we expect to have babies! Luna and Nova are both due to farrow this week, one on Thursday and one on Sunday. We'll welcome visitors to see the piglets.

Garden News

Amazingly, there are still several of the hardier fall greens in the garden - we're hoping they'll still be thriving when it comes time to pack our Christmas Winter Share baskets in a couple weeks! We did have a huge disappointment with our potatoes - the reds are holding out fine, but the whites haven't kept at all. We're not sure why, but that's the way farming goes sometimes.

Speaking of the garden, we're in the beginning stages of planning for next year's planting so if you have any input you'd like to share, please let us know. I posted a few survey questions in last month's NewsBlog and I'll try to get them sent in a separate e-mail as well. 

Glenn already has his grow lights set up indoors and is getting ready to start planting seeds shortly after the new year. He is also making arrangements for about 5 or 6 additional acres for next season which will give us more flexibility in planting, and should help aleviate the flood issues of this year. Additionally, that acreage will act as a buffer between our livestock and the conventional farmer upwind.

Turkeys, Chickens and Ducks

We had rave reviews over the heritage turkeys for Thanksgiving! Donna and John Moore told us it was the best turkey they'd ever had. I'll have to say that we won't be going back to those dry, mushy store turkeys! This was our first pastured, heritage turkey and with my first taste I thought: "This is how turkey is supposed to taste!"

We do have 6 more turkeys that will be ready for processing sometime around Christmas. If you're interested in giving one a try, let us know. Again, we need a $25 deposit to hold your bird and the remaining $5 per pound is due at the time of pick-up. Next year we'll probably need to raise the price, but hopefully not to the $12-$15 per pound for the same birds from farms listing on Local Harvest!

We still have chickens in the freezer and Glenn is growing more. The first batch is due to hatch within days and he's considering hatching on a schedule to keep fresh birds available as much as we can. Again, chickens are $8 each.

Ducks are available on order. If anyone hears of a local poultry processer who does waterfowl, please let us know. Ducks are $10 each.

Egg Update

Our hens are producing around 3-4 dozen eggs a day now and we can cerrainly support more customers. We're offering a discount to any current shareholder who gets another signed up - that goes for eggs, poultry or garden shares. More to come on that later on, but be sure to have your friends mention your name when they contact us.

Glenn is in contact with Bushel and Peck, just a mile or so from us, about carrying eggs from us. We'll keep you updated as we know some of you shop there.

Hog and Hive Hearsay

I already shared the news that Nova and Luna are nearing delivery. We are very excited about having our first piglets on the farm! Glenn has already sold one breeding trio and we anticipate being able to sell others for breeding or feeding out for pork. Mulefoot is supposed to be one of the best tasting porks around. We will likely feed out at least one or two ourselves and hopefully have freezer pork available next fall. Let us know if you might be interested in all or part of a hog - we'll work on coming up with some kind of share plan over the winter.

The bees have hunkered down for the winter but on warmer days we can see some out and about. Glenn's uncle used to keep bees and has given us all his old hives so over the winter Glenn will be cleaning them up. Hopefully next spring we'll be able to begin to expand our honey business.

We do have some honey available. Let us know if you'd be interested - it won't last long!

Jams and Jellies

Our first shipments of jam and jelly have gone out! There's still plenty back there and they make wonderful Christmas gifts. Contact us with your order and we'll make arrangements with you for pick-up. Again, everything is $4 per jar except the seedless varieties which are $5 per jar.

Miscellany

Our fall building projects have come a long way! Glenn has the chicken house nearly complete enough to hold them for the winter, the hog farrowing houses are done, except for light and heat which Glenn is doing today. The spot for the farm stand has been leveled so construction can start as soon as it's warm enough in the spring and Glenn is in contact with two or three people about renting or purchasing an unused greenhouse. It's always busy around here!

We had a bit of an interruption in barn buidling a couple weeks ago when a neighbor created a stir because a turkey pooped on his patio (turkey poop is big!), so we put a fence along the north and west property lines. The down side is that the lane will have to remain muddy for a while as we spent the gravel money on the fence. The good news is the fence will help keep our critters a lot safer. Once we have the fence extended all the way around (west of the creek) we'll be able to do more with livestock. Excellent lawn care!

I guess that's the news from Mulberry Creek Farm! Thanks as always for your support! Please continue it by purchasing a share for next summer and selling us to your neighbors! Don't forget ... eat local!

Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All!

Gail

Apple Butter

Apple Jelly

Apricot Jam

Cherry Pie Jelly

Currant Jam

Elderberry Jelly

Gooseberry Jam

Grape Jelly

Red or White Mulberry Jelly

Mulberry Syrup

Peach Jam

Plum Jams:

Purple Plum

Red Plum

Yellow Plum

Yellow Plum Wine

Sugar-Free Yellow Plum (and this has NO sweetener whatsoever)

Raspberry Jam

Raspberry-Currant Jam

Rhubarb-Peach Jam

White Mulberry Jam

Seedless Blackberry Jam

Seedless Red Raspberry Jam

Well, when things start to move, they really start to move! It was just in mid-May that Glenn captured the swarm of honeybees that have developed their hive exceedingly fast.

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We have the goal of someday turning Mulberry Creek Farm into a heritage farm and we have a deep love of and concern for critically rare and threatened domestic livestock and started 2 years ago with heritage breed chickens.

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This spring, we began looking through the lists on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy website to decide which breed of any given animal we'd eventually like to look at. Once we decide on a breed, we peruse breed association websites and look for breeders in our region.

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Here's where the story gets very bizzarre. When I began the overhaul on this site this past weekend, I ended up with this very adorable design including a pig along with poultry. We hadn't seriously discussed pigs as being a part of the plan in the near future but I commented to Glenn, "if we have a pig on the website we probably ought to think about pigs on the farm." So we looked at the ABLC list and decided on the Mulefoot Pig, added it to our "featherless friends" page, and found a couple breeders in the Indiana/Ohio area. I e-mailed one of those farms just to ask a couple questions about pricing, wait time, and so forth. The e-mail I got back said that due to personal health issues they needed to sell their stock, were we interested in the three adult hogs as all piglets are already spoken for?

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Holy Cow! ... Or Holy Hog, I guess would be more appropriate. So Glenn picked up the phone and had a conversation with Pat at PB&J Farm and 15 minutes later said, "OK, we'll take them."

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We need to wait until their litter is weaned, which will be about mid-August. That's good as it will give Glenn and his helpers a few weeks to get an appropriate pig pen constructed.

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Along with Alfred, Luna and Nova, we'll also be taking a trio of Pomeranian geese, which I will be adding to our goose section once I post this. I'll also add links to the PB&J Farm website where you can go to see pictures and videos of our new family members.

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If anyone would like to help sponsor these two critically rare breeds, please feel free to do so.

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Peace -

Gail