| Newsletter | 7-8 Weeks Until CSA |

What’s Been Happening on the Farm:
This past month on the farm…

• We heard our 3 month old laugh for the first time while watching her sister dance with Daddy (Kyle)...

• Kyle and many amazing friends built the first half of the foundation for our 6 meter diameter (20 foot) bell tent. AND we got the tent put up! This is where we will live during the growing season so we can be close to the farm (helps when you have two kids and have to pack 10 thousand bags to and from the farm!). We will be learning how to live mostly off-grid during the week through the 6 month growing season. We will heat the tent with a wood stove made for tents and cool it with shade and the breeze! We will go to our house on weekends to do laundry and so that Athena can go to work at the hospital overnights Saturdays and Sundays (we hope next year the farm will be established enough and we will not have to work almost 7 days a week!)
• We got all our nightshades started under grow lights (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant). We also have our onions, green onions, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower starts going strong. We have started to harden off the onions and green onions on nicer days and all the ones that are big enough have been thinned and/or trimmed. 
• Athena turned 35!!
• We have lamented over all the rain and cold days that have put us behind on getting beds prepped for our earlier crops. We basically have to work in the field on every dry day even if it’s cold. Things will warm up!
• We got our peas planted! We have sugar snap and snow peas in the ground. Athena’s favorite or snow peas (the flat ones) but interestingly the more popular ones for selling are sugar snap (the more “bulby” ones).
• We have continued to grow a community of CSA members and could not be more thankful. So far the investments our CSA members have made have helped pay for this season’s soil-building and balancing amendments (we use a gentle soil amendment recipe described in the book The Intelligent Gardener by Erica Reinheimer and Steve Solomon), 2 ergonomic garden forks, beneficial insect attracting flower and herb seeds to intermix in our vegetable zones, and a hand-powered cultivator and wheel-hoe. THANK YOU!!
Recipes
While the season is still cool you can enjoy many of the colder season crops such as kale and winter squashes that have been saved from the end of last season. We are itching for the fresh greens of spring but in the meantime you can make chips from those kale beds that have continued to produce over winter and soups or pasta out of those winter squashes. Three of are favorite recipes of these are below:
Kale Chips: Minimalist Baker Recipe
Curried Winter Squash Soup: Minimalist Baker Recipe
Creamy Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce: Cookie and Kate Recipe
And if you are feeling up to it, try making your own noodles! It’s pretty surprisingly easy...and SO tasty!
Homemade Pasta Noodles (SO GOOD, SO EASY!)
Storage and Preservation Ideas
​Now is the time to clean out your fridge and dust off your food preservation supplies. Get your dehydrators out, your jars ready, and your freezers cleaned out! We will send specific suggestions with each newsletter on a variety of vegetables as they come into season.
• Kyle and many amazing friends built the first half of the foundation for our 6 meter diameter (20 foot) bell tent. AND we got the tent put up! This is where we will live during the growing season so we can be close to the farm (helps when you have two kids and have to pack 10 thousand bags to and from the farm!). We will be learning how to live mostly off-grid during the week through the 6 month growing season. We will heat the tent with a wood stove made for tents and cool it with shade and the breeze! We will go to our house on weekends to do laundry and so that Athena can go to work at the hospital overnights Saturdays and Sundays (we hope next year the farm will be established enough and we will not have to work almost 7 days a week!)
• We got all our nightshades started under grow lights (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant). We also have our onions, green onions, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower starts going strong. We have started to harden off the onions and green onions on nicer days and all the ones that are big enough have been thinned and/or trimmed. 
• Athena turned 35!!
• We have lamented over all the rain and cold days that have put us behind on getting beds prepped for our earlier crops. We basically have to work in the field on every dry day even if it’s cold. Things will warm up!
• We got our peas planted! We have sugar snap and snow peas in the ground. Athena’s favorite or snow peas (the flat ones) but interestingly the more popular ones for selling are sugar snap (the more “bulby” ones).
• We have continued to grow a community of CSA members and could not be more thankful. So far the investments our CSA members have made have helped pay for this season’s soil-building and balancing amendments (we use a gentle soil amendment recipe described in the book The Intelligent Gardener by Erica Reinheimer and Steve Solomon), 2 ergonomic garden forks, beneficial insect attracting flower and herb seeds to intermix in our vegetable zones, and a hand-powered cultivator and wheel-hoe. THANK YOU!!

Recipes
While the season is still cool you can enjoy many of the colder season crops such as kale and winter squashes that have been saved from the end of last season. We are itching for the fresh greens of spring but in the meantime you can make chips from those kale beds that have continued to produce over winter and soups or pasta out of those winter squashes. Three of are favorite recipes of these are below:
Kale Chips: Minimalist Baker Recipe
Curried Winter Squash Soup: Minimalist Baker Recipe
Creamy Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce: Cookie and Kate Recipe
And if you are feeling up to it, try making your own noodles! It’s pretty surprisingly easy...and SO tasty!
Homemade Pasta Noodles (SO GOOD, SO EASY!)
Storage and Preservation Ideas
​Now is the time to clean out your fridge and dust off your food preservation supplies. Get your dehydrators out, your jars ready, and your freezers cleaned out! We will send specific suggestions with each newsletter on a variety of vegetables as they come into season.