Twelfth Week Of Our CSA’s Summer Season
Our Online Marketplace opens this morning, September 6th, and closes at 5pm Sunday September 8th, for a Tuesday September 10th delivery.
Payment mode notice! Paypal is now attaching a charge to our friend to friend money transfers. It isn’t as high as the business account charges but know that you’ll get $98.45 to spend our of a $100 payment. You can always leave check or cash in your box on market day. I will leave this notice up for a while until those traveling get to see it. Since signing on to Paypal, I’ve noticed and effort to become a bank and this is just another step. Do we need that? If you have alternative payment methods get in touch to set them up.
What’s Up at Market
The big shrink was on at market, paring it down to mostly farmers and small food-oriented sellers. It makes for more efficient shopping and one more row of parking spaces. It feels like blackberries might be dwindling and raspberries will shift to the man with late berries soon. There should be more figs each week during their bigger Fall growing season and peaches are gone from market now. Fry Farm has some decent sweet corn but I have to say the crops have been disappointing this year, except for what I got up at Bingham’s farm.
I hear that Berryvale got in some reasonably priced Meyers lemons. Not sure how long they will last but check it out lemon lovers. At market, I can find any kind of peppers now, a relief from the high pre-season prices at the Co-op. If you use them in cooking, they freeze well chopped up. All of this makes me think Abby Lane might show up any Tuesday now. When they do, I’ll make a list of their specialty items for our order page.
Two New Rules (bare with me)
Microgreens
I’ve been thinking about microgreen parameters for some time since it’s heartbreaking to feed them to the chickens who like garbage with equal gusto. Most of my microgreen members have the same order every time they order. I would like to call these subscriptions that I can always fill. When folks order every once in a while I never know its coming and may or may not have seeded enough to cover their orders, though always have some for small orders. I’m trying not to waste pretty expensive seed. So here’s the new rule…
If any ‘subscriber’ is going to be gone, give me a heads up 10 days ahead, when you get your Sunday order to check the week before your absence. I will tag all the order emails with a reminder. If you are planning to place a special order or you don’t order very often and want them when you’re planning to order, give me a heads up the same 10 days ahead so I can seed more. You’ll notice I am now using a different sunflower seed (the striped ones from the big sunflowers) so if you’ve drifted away from them in the past, please try again.
Minimum Orders
‘Back in the Day’ when we started the CSA, we had structured box prices and an 8-week period in which to spend your box value. Now we are all over the place and it only works well when an X number of people order and a Y number of people have orders over $100. In the old days the minimum order was $35 for the small box if ordering every week. I’m going to make that the minimum order for doorstep delivery. You can place smaller orders to pick up here on order day between 3:30 and 6:00.
At Jessie’s Cosmic Garden
I planted the successions of arugula, cilantro, dill and fall mix every two weeks so we’ll probably have the finished product on the same schedule until there are some weekly left overs. The fall greens are about half the size I want for harvest and they are doing really well. I planted a new variety – all brassicas – yesterday for a little later on in the fall. My corn is not doing well so maybe this is going on everywhere this year. I though corn could handle the high heat but that might require watering more often than I care to do it.
I water enough to have big bunches of Thompson grapes and enjoyed the first little crop of concords myself – takes me right back to childhood – grape everything, please. There should be lots more next year. I have seeded ground cover adding about 80 sq ft every time I weed and prep the ground. I have a sturdy vine of lemon cucumbers coming along and am expecting more summer squash as fall sets in. The plants themselves are spectacular so high hopes. Some cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen in the main garden as well as more mountain magics and my sauce tomatoes. In the greenhouse, the Cherokee Purples are starting to color. I included one in an order last week.
In Gratitude
Your generous tips have helped me keep my own fridge and pantry stocked. Your farm support, buying my produce, is how the farm keeps going and also how, for example, I buy my firewood, kerosene etc. and get Martin in occasionally\to help with the heavy stuff. I have heart-felt gratitude to all of you as we complete our 10th year. I’m glad we could be a constant in a world of whirling change. And the farmers share my gratitude as we continue to be a reliable group of local food lovers at the weekly market.
Link to order form: https://www.heartofthesun.com/csamarketplace.htm
Cheers!
Jessie
Important Information (leaving this up for awhile)
I don’t like rules but prefer to suggest some guidelines for the successful running of our CSA. Anyone joining in the last few years has probably not received or been reminded of them. The Old-Timers are quite good about them but we had reminders on the old website that I didn’t include on this one so here goes (and I will leave this up here for a few weeks to catch everyone as well as including it in the link notice email).
Please…
- Watch your statements and leave a payment in your box for pickup when you are not going to cover the cost of what’s being delivered – or make a paypal payment, or stop by with it. Especially during Winter and early Spring Season, our bank balance can get pretty low if we don’t keep accounts topped up. If I use the debit card (often) the transaction is immediate.
- If you are not going to order, tell me well ahead – earlier in the week if its a recent decision and at least two weeks ahead if you are going on a trip or are going to be out for a week or more. I shouldn’t find this out when reminding you to order mid-day Sunday. This is especially desired if you are a regular microgreen customer as I seed them around 12-10 days ahead of harvest. The seed is expensive – making needless chicken treats something to avoid. With a heads up in time, I can plan to grow less.
- Put your boxes out ahead of delivery (will often be later in winter when we drive to Grants Pass). Leave payments taped in them or with a rock on top of them. And please return all my canning jars so I have something to put the next batch of whatever it is in them. Thank You, Very Very Much. I love you all and so do our farmers!