Summer 2012 CSA share on sale!

Yippeeee!

It's true, you can now ensure a fabulous full 24 weeks of summer and fall glory on your kitchen table by buying a summer 2012 CSA share today!! Remember peas, beans, tomatoes, flowers, broccoli, peppers and all that other wonderful stuff? Well, we're growing it again. And soon - we fire up the greenhouse on March 11th which we feel is right around the corner.

What's new and exciting in 2012? Plenty! We're extending the 2 big greenhouses to almost twice their current length - a nothing-to-cough-at undertaking that will increase the tomato, sweet pepper, eggplant, and winter green selection offerings here at Sweet Land by a bunch. Paul and I are going to get that project underway around the beginning of March, and it will probably only be fully completed in down-to-the wire style by the greenhouse plant date - May 5th. We're excited. We love growing in passive tunnels and love the quality of the crops that come out of them. Now we're doubling all that goodness just for you! (Remember, we are, and this is actually good information to have under you belt, a CSA only farm. That means that everything that we grow is for you, the member. We never divvy our produce up amongst various markets. That means the cream of the crop goes to the CSA. For example, those greenhouse tomatoes pull a good price at market - around $3/lb When we give out 8 tomatoes per week that's a market value of around $18 - and the cost of the ENTIRE share per week is only $21.66. Not a bad deal.)

What else good is happening this year? This bigger greenhouses also mean a longer season of tomatoes in the fall because we won't have to rip them all out in September to plant greens. The field of summer raspberries that we planted 2 years ago will start to bear this year, right after the strawberries are winding down. The fruit year will now start with strawberries, roll into summer raspberries, and, depending on how long those summer raspberries bear, roll right on into the fall crop of raspberries. So, more fruit! Of course I'm going to play around with more flower varieties. I just can't help myself. Thank you for providing solid justification for my addiction. We are planning on planting a lot more of the Romanesco broccoli. I thought that that crop was exceedingly delicious and basically wanted to eat it forever. We're also going to try out some different colored cauliflower - we grew orange cauliflower last year and thought it did great. This year we're trialling purple and lime green cauliflower as well. Since almost every person on the planet loves potatoes we are increasing the potato field by a third. Potatoes are fickle fickle beings, but we hope that by growing a whole lot more of them we'll be able to reliably supply you with them earlier in the fall than we were able to last year. We are going back to our old stand-by paste tomato variety, san marzano, after the not so great bellstars of last year.

SHARE PRICE
This year we are increasing the share price from $510 to $520. The share will last for 24 weeks - same as 2011. So, that's $21.66/week (up from $21.25/week in 2011). We will keep the distribution style the same, with the barn divided into the "One Bag Side" and the "free choice" side. We will also continue to allow only two adults per share. Join today by sending in either payment in full, a quarter deposit of $130, or an easy down payment of $50. Make checks out to Sweet Land Farm, and send to 9732 Route 96, Trumansburg, NY 14886.

SWEET LAND EGG SHARE
Yes'm we will have those delicious eggs here again this summer. The farm would be so lonely with our chickens' earnest antics. This year we are, after doing an enterprise budget on egg production, increasing the egg share price to $5/dozen. The share is for 24 weeks, so the share price is $120. Eggs will also be available to non egg share members for $5.50/dozen. Those little eggies just cost a lot to produce, and there is no way around it.


GREAT GREENS GIVEAWAY
Join us for our 4th Annual "Great Greens and Roots Give-away" and Summer CSA sign-up on Saturday, March 17th from 1-3 pm. (What better way to celebrate St Patrick's Day that at a Greens Give-away?) Sign up for the Summer CSA BEFORE March 17th and you can fill TWO BAGS with what ever you want - greens or roots. If you sign up at the event you to get to fill one bag. We'll have the greenhouses open to all of you to frolic around in and pick delicious greens, newly rejuvenated by the returning sun. We'll also have bulk vegetables for sale. This event is open to anyone who wants a share, or just wants to get to see the farm in the spring, bring a friend! This is a one-time event and will happen rain or shine.

OTHER CSA'S
We are happy to announce that this year we will continue to offer other CSAs here at the farm. Last year's survey indicated that members really liked having other producers here at the farm. We like it, too! We also relish the opportunity for us to increase the viability of our local Foodshed. Here are the other CSA, they make up a tidy little list:

Wide Awake Bakery - Bread - A fantastic local bakery that uses all locally grown, organic flour in their bread. The bread is mind blowingly good. Their share will follow the dates of our farm share and costs $120 ($5/week for 1 loaf of bread). You don't have to wait for our CSA to begin - they are selling shares right now and have many distribution sites. Go to www.wideawakebakery.com for details and to join.

Hemlock Grove CSA - Apples - Remember those delicious organic apples and cider here last year? We'll they're coming again in the fall. We are very proud to have Hemlock Grove here because they are one of the only sources of certified organic apples around these parts. They will start selling shares sometime in the summer.

Wolf Tree Farm CSA - Pasture Raised Chicken - Wolf Tree is a local diversified pasture based farm that will be offering organic, pasture raised chicken to Sweet Land members. More details at www.wolftreefarm.com, We ate some of their chickens last year and they are to die for.

Understory Mushroom Farm - Mushrooms - This is an exciting new farm that will be offering a mushroom CSA in the fall through Sweet Land. Cool! I am super excited to be part of a mushroom CSA. You can visit www.UnderstoryMushrooms.com for more details. Way to round out a local diet in haute cuisine fashion.

So there it is - a bunch of CSAs here at Sweet Land. I hope that this sounds fun. I still am surprised by the wealth of fabulous food options we have in this area. We are lucky. As the time to sign up for all of these CSA approaches I will send out reminders and links to their farms. (Remember, Wide Awake is taking shares now!)

Ok Everyone,
We truly hope that you join us for another year of food adventures. We are here because of our members.

Evangeline and Paul