Welcome to the beginning of our 2025 growing season! We are so excited to share a trip around the sun with you for yet another season. Welcome to our Small Family Farm community if this is your first season with us and welcome back if this is your second or sixth or twentieth season with us. We are committed to doing the work of building community, stewarding the land, and raising nutritious, seasonal, local, fresh, and organic produce. I cannot imagine a life more in line with our values than farming. It is truly an honor to do this work and we are thankful you are here to share this experience with us!
Our little CSA farm began in the Spring of 2006 when we had sold 60 CSA Shares. We didn’t have land yet, we weren’t married yet, we didn’t have a tractor or a greenhouse or even all that much experience. We had wide eyes and a romantic heart that brought us into farming and kept us going. In 2007, FSA helped us buy this farm and they borrowed us enough money to put up a greenhouse, buy a tractor, and continue our little CSA operation of which grew to 82 members. With each subsequent year, we sold a few more shares growing our business until Adam was able to quit his off-farm job in 2014 when our second child was born. Our CSA membership goals were rising to 200, then 250, then 300, then 350 CSA shares. We are now a fully stable and mature CSA operation packing about 400 boxes a week which is a number we have maintained for several years now.
This season is special because it is our twentieth year farming. This does feel monumental as we are both first-generation farmers. Neither one of us grew up on farms. We didn’t have more than a few years experience farming when we bought this farm. We had only our big dream of living off the land, raising a family in the countryside, and the desire to grow chemical-free, beautiful food for our community fueled by young-love, big ideas and a strong work ethic. We were determined to make it work-and so we did.
We named our farm ‘Small Family Farm’ because we wanted to epitomize the ideal small family farm. We wanted the complete storybook image. We wanted the small family of children, the colorful rows of vegetables, the tractor, the big red barn, and the cows in the fields of green grass, the greenhouse and maybe a couple pigs. Today we have all of those things, except for pigs. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and I do believe our farm has become exactly that. We are the Small Family Farm that is an agricultural enterprise entirely supported by our community. We don’t ship orders around the country. We are 100% sustained by you, our local friends, neighbors, and community members who value seasonal, local or organic produce in their lives.
Additionally, we grow everything you will receive in your boxes on our farm. We don’t buy-in produce from other farms (with the exception of asparagus every Spring because, wow, we would need a huge asparagus patch to produce that much asparagus). There are plenty of mail-order produce boxes out there buying in produce from around the country, assembling boxes of vegetables and shipping them off to internet shoppers. But we believe there is a big difference between grocery store produce and the produce you receive from your local, organic farm. We hope that if you’re not already sold on the difference you’ll be able to see, taste, smell and feel the difference by the end of the season.
Finally, our Weekly Dig Newsletters are written by yours truly. I don’t copy and paste newsletters from previous years and I will never use AI to write a newsletter for me. One of my deepest held values is authenticity and integrity and it would be a breach of my personal moral contract to do those things. If I’m tired, and it’s been a long, week, I’ll be short and you’ll know I’m working hard out here. And if I’m elaborate and well-said you can still know that we’re working hard out here! Did I mention it’s an honor to do this work and share this season with you? We’re so glad you’re here!
What’s in the Box?
Asparagus- 1 Pound bunches of asparagus. This is the one item that we do buy in from anther organic farm but we feel it wouldn’t be a Spring CSA box without asparagus! Even when I sort through recipes all day, my favorite way to eat asparagus is grilled after it has been marinated in lemon juice, olive oil and salt.
Pac Choi- Also called boc choy in some recipes. Pac chio is on the more difficult items to grow organically because the bugs usually really like to eat them. But we were growing them in a greenhouse with floating row cover over them which helped achieve this gorgeous presentation!
Red Buttercup Lettuce- Also greenhouse grown. Red buttercup varieties are such a Spring treat. The leaves are so tender and delicious! Use the leaves like a wrap for egg salad, tacos, or chicken-lettuce wraps. I trust you won’t have any problems getting these greens into your belly.
Cherry Bell Radish- Even cherry bell radishes get us excited this early in the year! How thankful I am for the humble radish now!
Spinach- A generous .70 lbs of spinach on the first picking! We were thrilled the spinach did so well this spring!
Herb packs- Your herb packs contain one rosemary plant, one thyme plant, one oregano plant, and one sage plant.
Next Week’s Best Guess: asparagus, red buttercup lettuce, pac choi, cherry belle radishes, spinach, and herb packs.
Recipes-
Spinach Salad with Warm Maple Dressing
Fettucini Alfredo with Asparagus
