Check out this huge garlic from Glacial Till Farm! The garlic is harvested and is on drying racks being prepped for CSA boxes in coming weeks. Do you love garlic as much as we do?
We are marching into the dog days of summer, and our produce reflects this change. Tomatoes and green beans make their first appearance this week, although in limited quantities. Our lettuce is sparse as we wait for the next beds to produce larger quantities after they were devastated by the extreme heat. But the good news is that you have oh so many choices of what to include in your box this week.
After the brief rain last weekend, the weeds seemed to grow by leaps and bounds, and I spent a good while reclaiming the beets in my kitchen garden that had been neglected for far too long. While weeding, I thinned them and brought in a heaping peck basket. Now I need to find time to pickle some of them. Beets seem to be one of those veggies that you either love or hate. I am definitely in the love camp. But some of my family will only eat them in chocolate beet cupcakes (the original red velvet cake).
We are getting some great feedback about the Harvie CSA. I know that learning a new system can be frustrating at times, but overall our members are happier with their customized boxes, even with packing errors where we miss an item. About 40-50% of you are further customizing your shares each week.
Since we have had many questions about payments, let me explain how it works. If you chose the payment plan when you signed up, you were charged about 25% of the total at sign-up. The next 25% was charged with the first delivery. The remaining 50% is divided into equal payments that happen before each delivery, either weekly or biweekly. And if you add extras to your box, that adds additional costs to your box. You can see the charges that are planned for the remainder of the season on this page.
Harvie hired a top-notch software developer this spring, and his team is making some changes to the system that will make the customization screens easier to understand. Some of the changes are minor tweaks, but they make checkout more streamlined.
This week we are featuring Going with the Grain's Country French Levain bread as an extra, as well as lions mane and oyster mushrooms. And don't forget that there are lots more local foods available on our Webstore. Over there you can find shallots, eggplant, kale, fennel, and more, as well as lots of dairy products and meats. Grateful Life Farm has some chicken cuts available beginning this week. When you place an order, be sure to choose "CSA Member" at checkout to avoid an additional delivery fee.
On behalf of your NWPA Growers farmers,
Amy Philson
