2025 CSA Newsletter (Tuesday Edition) Week #4
/Today’s weather stands in stark contrast to yesterday’s weather. While many people will simply roll their eyes at Mother Nature and complain about having to pull out a sweatshirt, farmers see these extreme weather patterns as a shift to our climate. We are seeing more drastic weather patterns and they are becoming more & more common these days.
We’ve been farming for almost 20 years and the changes we’ve seen over that short of time are pretty dramatic. Just yesterday, after losing about 2 dozen beautiful cauliflower plants to severe sun exposure, we have decided next year we will need to build shade infrastructure for the cauliflower and broccoli during the summer. The intensity of the sun has changed how we can grow those crops. We wonder if in another 20 years we will even be able to grow those cool season crops any more…?
This is exactly why we have become passionate about finding methods of farming and ranching that will help our climate and can make a difference for future generations. We may be small but if everyone does one thing to benefit our environment, image the impact we can have!
Our Farm Camp kids learning about how to identify invasive plants. As pretty as the daisies are, they are determintal to native plants so the kids helped pull the daisies so other native plants can survive. This is an important part of helping the earth heal itself.
Our oldest son Ethan manages the cattle with regenerative practices. he rotationally grazes the pastures in a way which promotes healthy soil. he is constantly measuring the forage and also indexing the plants which are growing in the pastures so he knows what the cows are eating and also so he knows if the soil needs something. he says “the variety of plants on a pasture tell me everything i need to know about the soil underneath.” In this picture, he is moving the solar powered electric fence he uses to manage the cows and he’s collecting samples of the grasses from the pasture.
Ok…let’s talk about your produce today! It was a fun day at Farm Camp for the campers! They got to shadow the Interns and actually help harvest and pack your CSA bags today! So fun to watch our Interns, many of whom were campers themselves, helping teach the young campers how to harvest, prep, clean and pack the bags. It literally brings tears to Farmer Jon’s and my eyes when these kids are showing so much responsibility and ownership of the farm. It’s such an incredible feeling to watch these kids blossom right before our eyes!
Interns Ada and Elise (both of who have been “friends of the farm” for 5 years) are teaching our campers how to harvest raspberries.
our young camper is learning the fine art of stocking the farm store fridge from our awesome intern team!
Your csa bag today! yum!
Your bag today contains:
~Bing Cherries: These are from our friends’ orchard in Washington. We harvested our own sweet cherries here on the farm last week but quickly sold out of them this weekend! We will be getting Flathead Cherries (from the neighborhood folks who we lease some grazing land from) this Friday. They have an organic orchard on the East side of Flathead.
~Raspberries: Fresh picked by our campers today! Raspberries just started hitting so if you need more, swing by the farm store!
~Potatoes: More new potatoes. The Farm Camp had a baked potato bar today for lunch. It is a camp favorite meal!
~Broccoli: These plants were amazing this year! And we got them harvested before the extreme temps hit! Whew!
~Cucumbers: Always the sign that summer has fully arrived! Enjoy them!
~Zucchini: It wouldn’t be a summer CSA without plenty of zucchini! How creative can you get? And FYI, Farmer Jon and I love zucchini and enjoy it regularly!! We are always sad when the growing season is done and we no longer have fresh zucchini!
~Pluots: These are the absolute bomb as far as fruit goes! You can’t get these in the grocery stores (yet) but they are a cross between an apricot and a plum! So unique! We love them so much and so do our customers! They don’t stay in the Farm Store for very long so if you’d like more, then swing by this week and scoop some up!
~Onions: Another crop the Farm Campers helped harvest, clean, and pack for you! These are Walla Wallas again. When we told the Farm Camp kids they were sweet onions, they began eating them like apples! They loved them! Pretty cool to hear the kids bragging about eating a fresh onion they just picked all by themselves!
Well, we hope you enjoy your bag of goodies this week! Have a super week and we’ll see you next week!