The 2012 CSA Season

Dear Friends of the Sunshine Farm,

I am very excited to invite you to continue the CSA with us this year or join us again if it’s been a year or two.  We’re hoping the changes we’ve made will make the CSA work better for us and better for you, too!

Here’s what’s new this year.

• Fruit in your box!  The plan is to reduce the amount of vegetables in the share to an average of 6 items and add an average of 2 fruit items each week.   The fruit will be certified organic or Sunshine Sustainable fruit from our own farm when available.  When not available, we will source organic fruit from other local farms.  If you prefer veggies to fruit in your share, you can always swap out the fruit for more veggies (see below).  All veggies will continue to be grown here at the Sunshine Farm and Certified Organic.

• No more every-other-week shares.  Our CSA is small and the time to manage the every-other-week share was making us pull our hair out.  We hope with a bit less veggies (and fruit instead!), the share will work for you on a weekly basis.  If it’s still too much, we hope you’ll choose to shop with us at the Sunshine Farm Market or the Chelan Evening Farmers Market instead of doing the CSA.  That way you can get exactly what you need.  And as always, you can choose to split a share with a friend and have them pick it up one week and you pick it up the next.

• Swap Box.  We will have a well-stocked swap box available at every pick up.  If you don’t like something in your share, please feel free to swap it out!
   
• No Tuesday Pickup.  I know many of you will regret not having the Tuesday buffet-style pick-up.  But in the end we realized that it was a luxury for us to do this.  It saves us a lot of time and management for us to pack up all the shares and have them waiting for you in the cold room.

• Friday Self-Serve Pickup.  Shares will be available for you to pick up in the cold room on Fridays starting at noon. Your share will be held in the cold room until Tuesday morning.
   
• New Pickup Option on Thursdays at the Chelan Evening Farmers Market.   Don’t want to drive clear out to the farm?  You may choose to pick up your share at the Chelan Evening Farmers Market on Thursday nights between 4:00 and 7:00 pm.

• Red Bags instead of Totes.  This year, shares will be packed in red re-usable bags.  Please bring your bag back each week so we can re-use it.
   
• Vacation Credits.  This year, we will accommodate your summer travel plans!   Let us know by Wednesday night that you will not be able to pick up your share and we will send you a $25 Gift Certificate that you can use at the Sunshine Farm Market or the Chelan Evening Farmers Market.  (You cannot tell us after the fact, once you’ve missed your share, that you’d rather have a Gift Certificate.  We need at least a two-day heads up so we don’t harvest and pack up extra for you.)
   
• Fewer Weird Vegetables.  We have decided to cut down a bit on the variety of vegetables we are growing.  We’ve cut out some of the most minor crops and some crops that we just can’t grow profitably.  Vegetables we will not be growing in 2012 include:  bok choy, cabbage, cauliflower, cilantro, collards, corn, eggplant, kohlrabi, peas, potatoes, and rutabagas.

Vegetables we will continue to grow include:  arugula, basil, beans, beets, broccoli, carrots, celeriac, chard, cucumbers, garlic, kale, leeks, lettuce, onions, parsley, parsnips, peppers, pumpkins, radishes, salad mix, spinach, tomatoes, turnips, winter squash, and zucchini.

• Monthly Payment Plan Option. Pay in 5 easy monthly installments!  Here’s how it works:  please send us five checks all at once.  The first should have the current date and be made out for $125.  The others should be for $100 and be postdated for June 1, July 1, August 1, and September 1.  Your checks will not be cashed until after first of each month and we will send you a reminder email before we do so.  (Your first check covers the payment plan surcharge of $25.) 

This may seem like a lot of changes, but the basics remain the same:  vegetables you can believe in! 

What’s more—the cost is staying the same!  Shares are still just $25/week ($500 for the season).  Even better—if you pay in full before April 1, you get a $25 Early Bird Discount. 

To Sign Up

If you’re a returning member and none of your contact info has changed, you can simply mail us a check with a note about any add-ons and your preferred pick-up option.  If you’d like to pay by credit card, electronic bank transfer, or take advantage of our monthly payment plan, please sign up online.

Please let me know if you have any questions.   You can always call me at 509-670-8958 or email me at any time!

Warmest regards,

Rachel Evans and the Sunshine Farm Crew

Who's Your Farmer?

2012 CSA Membership Now Open! Shares are just $25/week and run for 20 weeks from June to October. Pay in full before April 1 and get a $25 Early Bird Discount. Can’t pay all at once? We now offer an easy monthly payment plan! Top 10 Reasons to Join our CSA 1. Know your farmer! At the Sunshine Farm, you know that the Evans family is growing for you! We live here and feed our family from the farm daily. We want your family to know where its food comes from, too. 2. Give your kids a farm experience. Bring your kids for U-Pick tours (tickets are free to CSA members). Watch our baby goats as they grow. When your kids don’t want to leave, say “Don’t worry, we can come again next week!” CSA members also get free admission to our Fall Harvest Festival. 3. Reconnect with nature’s rhythms. As you begin to eat what’s in season and witness the seasonal changes on the farm, you’ll feel a whole new sense of grounded-ness. 4. We give you a free cookbook! We know the CSA is a challenge for some people. So we help. We give every new member a CSA cookbook that will show them how to use their CSA, vegetable by vegetable, easily and deliciously. 5. We’re Certified Organic. Come on, where else in Chelan are you going to get produce this fresh that’s also guaranteed chemical free? 6. We offer vacation credits! Can’t make it to pick up your share one week? Tell us at least two days in advance and we’ll give you a Sunshine Farm Market Gift Certificate in place of your box that week. 7. Pickup option in downtown Chelan. Don’t want to drive all the way out to the south shore? Pickup your share at the Chelan Evening Farmers Market each Thursday. 8. Fruit in your share! This year we’re cutting back a bit on the veggies in your share to make way for something even better: organic fruit! 9. 10% off at the Sunshine Farm Market. Need more veggies? Or bread, or milk, or a really crazy yummy local jam? You’re in the right place and your discount card is in hand! 10. 10% off at Tunnel Hill Winery. Now there’s a reason to eat your veggies: discounts on wine! We also offer free tastings to you and your guests. Join us today!

Sam Writes: Homegrown Tomatoes

“Money Can’t Buy True Love and Homegrown Tomatoes” by artist Jan Yatsko

Tracking my thoughts out in the field can be a curvy, jumpy, and lengthy trail of mental activity as I pick, set down, collect, sort… sometimes I need to redirect more of that energy to focusing on the picking, sorting, etc., but constantly being around super fantastic veggies and fruits gets me thinking.

A few years ago I read an article that traced the plight of that infamous supermarket tomato. You know the one: perfectly red, quite firm, almost entirely tasteless but cheap enough to justify, and probably from Mexico. As I read, my feelings about that supermarket tomato went from reluctant satisfaction, to undirected frustration and sadness, and finally to ridiculousness, the ultimate realization that though the tomato may be in front of me, I don’t really wish it so. But I still want a tomato! I had to confront myself and ask, what’s the alternative? I came up with two options: homegrown or from a nearby farm, and you could extend “nearby” to anywhere closer than Mexico if the local season isn’t producing tomatoes and you’re fiending. That got me to pondering the difference between homegrown and local, and what we’re producing here on the farm.

Guy Clark says money can’t buy homegrown tomatoes, so in that respect we’re not growing homegrown tomatoes. However, I am positive we’re growing the next best thing, just because you have to buy them. But is an exchange of money between producer and consumer the only thing separating our tomatoes from their homegrown glory? If we ignore that money thing, we can agree that they’re picked ripe, and they look, feel, smell, and taste oh so similarly to homegrown tomatoes. So much so that you should be able to fool 999 out of 1000 people at your dinner table about the source of the tomatoes in their salad, stew, juice, eggs, gravy, or beans (pinto or navy), as long as they haven’t noticed that you don’t have any tomato plants. As for that one person you’re not fooling: it’s you.

Everyone says, “Hmm, mmmm, wwooooww, nice tomatoes, these must be homegrown!” You reply, “Must they be? What makes a tomato homegrown? Is it simply their look, feel, smell, and taste?”  And you all launch off along a trail of exploring the intangibles of homegrown tomatoes. Some points you might come across along the way: your hands are clean now (maybe), but they were such a bugger to clean after spending an hour pruning and training your tomato plants that you had remnants of that strange green gunky crust* on your fingers for the next two days; you’ve been having nightmares that you pruned off the leader on all your plants and you will be stuck with tiny plants; you haven’t slept properly since you got the blood of a few Colorado potato beetles on your hands; you’ve been sleeping much better since you decided to squish what must surely be the entire army of Colorado potato beetles, hopefully erasing their existence altogether and easing your conflicted, usually-nonviolent mind; you’re in complete awe of how many damn Colorado potato beetles there are only a few days after that massacre; there is a pile of rotting tomatoes just outside of your garden under your neighbor’s hedges. And the trail continues to reveal itself well into dessert…

The current reality has it that all of us are not going to produce all of our own food every year, which is why farms like The Sunshine Farm exist. Wherever you fit along the spectrum of not growing any food to producing most of your own food, we try to fill the gaps in your diet. Additionally, if you want to try your hands at homegrown, we provide starter plants at the beginning of the summer to ease you into the journey. That certainly doesn’t make the difference between homegrown and local any clearer, but who cares! This trail is getting long, and it’s all good food anyways, which is really all we wanted in the first place. Time to relax, contentment is already here.

*For the interested, more about that strange green gunky crust you can’t seem to completely wash off of your skin after handling your tomato plants:  http://www.growingformarket.com/articles/green-powder-on-tomato-plants

Meet our new field crew!

Sam is our newest employee. Sam is a friend of a friend of Renae’s and is from Amery, Wisconsin. Sam’s love of dirt was rekindled when he studied soil science. When he’s not harvesting your CSA share in Chelan’s incredible soil, he’s biking or playing drums.

Josh is returning from working at the Sunshine Farm Market two years ago and we’re so happy to have him back two days a week harvesting and packing your CSA shares! Josh is extremely enthusiastic about organic agriculture and hopes to save the world one beet at a time. When he’s not out in the fields he’s perfecting his chocolate truffle with herbal filling - coming to the Market soon!

Grilled Asparagus, Bok Choy, & GarLeek!

No, no not a leek but rather green garlic!  It is only similar to a leek in the way you cut it lengthwise.   Although I will admit to my overzealousness for these early beauties, it is a vegetable with substance naturally infused with garlic flavor!  It is a nice addition to the spring greens whether sauteed with massaged kale, added to an omelet with spinach or thrown on the grill. 
  
1/3 cup olive oil (melted butter if you prefer)
1/2 T. balsamic vinegar
1/2 T. lemon juice
1 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
1/2 lb of asparagus
4-5 pieces of green garlic
1 med. bok choy
 
Slice the bottom off the bok choy, remove & clean stalks. Cut the top 1/4 off the green garlic and slice lengthwise. 

Leave asparagus whole.  Place in a pan that will fit everything as one layer but as a rim to hold the marinade in.

Mix 1/3 cup oil (or butter), 1/2 T. balsamic vinegar, 1/2 T. lemon juice, 1 t. salt & 1/2 t. pepper in a small mixing bowl.  Pour mixture over vegetables.  Let sit for 30 minutes, rotate all veggies and let sit for another 30 minutes.  Place on the grill for 4-6 minutes.  I know you might be saying to yourself, “I am going to start up a grill for just 5 minutes worth of cooking?”  Just think, the ‘grilled’ effect makes a flavor that evokes the summer feeling.  If that isn’t enough for you throw on a NY strip or a tenderloin.

Bring on the summer heat, extended days, neighborhood BBQs & swimming in the lake!