Winter CSA 2011

Greenhouse

This winter Wishing Stone Farm is offering a Winter Share program in three locations in Rhode Island. They will be in Barrington, Providence and Little Compton. The program will start in November and go to the end of March with pickups occurring every other week. Along with our fresh organic produce, there will be a Bread Share, a Meat Share and a Babbettes Feast Specialties Share. Our goal is to become the first CSA farm in Rhode Island feeding its members during the Four Seasons of the year.

How will we do this?

Wishing Stone Farm has been growing greens year round for the last three years in preparation for attempting a "deep winter CSA program". We have also been training our attention on specific vegetable varieties to grow to get the most out of our storage crops; a key component of winter CSA food distribution. For example, we are growing Napoli and Bolero Carrots not only for their sweetness but for their ability to store well and keep their freshness. We are also growing specialty carrots to overwinter in the ground so they can be harvested in the first winter thaw and served to our members in mid March. Cabbages, Brussel sprouts, Leeks are already growing beautifully and promising a tasty meal when delivered to our members. In our four winter greenhouses, we will be planting winter tested cultivars that will meet the riggers of low light and low temperature winter growing. To meet this challenge, we have already seeded different types of spinach, miners lettuce, winter lettuces, BokChoi, Swiss Chard, Mache, Mizunna, Red Giant Mustard, Komatsuna and others too esoteric to mention. We are only five days into our potato harvest and yet we already have over 4 tons of potatoes and, we are storing them in a specialize winter cooler. This attention to detail will pay back dividends when you sit down to enjoy fresh potatoes that taste like they were just picked even though it is the middle of February.

We will have conventional apples from Old Stone Orchard of Little Compton. Our honey and eggs will be available but on a limited basis for those interested. The egg production will stop in early December as we need to rebuild our chicken coop to make it more mobile so it can take advantage of other fresh pastures around us.

Other Share Types: Add-ons

We will be offering a Bread Share "add-on" this winter. It will cost $6.00 a pickup and will be mostly favorites from our summer collection and we will be offering a few guest bakers of some repute to introduce you to their talents.

We will also be offering a Meat Share. Consisting of locally raised beef, pork, chicken with some sausage. It will also include two shots of the outstanding frozen untreated Scallops that we have been offering since September.

Babbettes Specialties add-on: This will be steady supply of our most popular Babbette's Feast quick breads, soups, stews, quiches, Salsas, Pickles and the like. It may also have a block of cheese from some of our associate artisan cheese makers who cheese you maybe familiar with from our summer markets.

The add-on shares will be published in our news letter on the Monday before pickup so you folks can prepare for what you will receive on Thursday.

Pick Ups and How They Work

For those picking up in Little Compton, we will be setting up our site in Peckhams Greenhouse. It will be closer for many of you coming in from Tiverton and Dartmouth and it will also free up the farm for the much needed heated space of the Summer CSA room for winter squash and sweet potato storage.

Off-campus/Out of town: pickups in Barrington and Providence will be setup "self serve style" in a host CSA members house in Barrington and for the Providence crew we will be back in the basement of the Friends Meeting House. Please remember there is a $30 fee for the "Off-farm" pickups to defray the cost of additional labor and fuel.

Registration:

There will soon be a signup sheet available on our website and for pickup at our "Debit Card Markets" for the rest of September and October. Our current 2011 CSA members will get first access to our limited offering. However, this will only be till October 15th at which time we will open the membership to anyone interested. We will be accepting checks, and will allow our present members the gesture of reserving their spot with a $225.00 check and a signed contract. The full payment, however, will be due by November 15th. This year we are only selling 150 shares so be aware that we probably will sell out by Mid October. So reserving your spot is a timely move.

Locally Grown Food Tastes Better

Food Grown in your own community was probably picked within the past 24 hours. It's crisp, sweet and loaded with flavor. Produce flown or trucked in from California, Florida or Chile is quite understandably much older. Several studies have shown that the average distance food travels is 1,500 miles in a week long (or more) delay from harvest to dinner table, sugars turn to starches, plant cells shrink and produce loses its vitality.

Local Produce is better for you.

A recent study showed that fresh produce loses nutrients quickly. Food that is frozen or canned soon after the harvest is actually more nutritious than some "fresh" produce that has been on the truck or supermarket shelf for a week. Locally grown food, purchased soon after harvest retains its nutrients.

Typical Winter share pickups:

11/03 --- 1# Yellow Onions, 1 Bok Choi, 1 head of Lettuce, 1 bunch of Radishes, 1bn Turnips, 1bn Summer Jean Greens, 2# of Potatoes or 1# of fingerlings, 4ct Apples, 2# of Carrots, 1 Winter Squash, 3 Green Peppers, 1# Broccoli

12/1 ----1# Sweet Potatoes, 1# Yellow Onions, 1/2# Red Onions, 1bn Hakuria Turnips, 1# Broccoli, 4# Carrots, 4# Beets, 4# Potatoes, 6 Apples, 4 Leeks, 2 Stalks of Brussels Sprouts, 2 Winter Squash, 1/2 dozen eggs.

01/05 ----- 1bn Kale, 1 Kohlrabi, 1 Celeriac, 1# of Leeks, 2# Yellow Onions, 1 Rutabaga, 2# Beets 2# Carrots, 4# Potatoes, 6 Apples, 1# Spinach, 8oz Honey, 2 Stalks Brussels Sprouts, 2# Leeks, 1# Sweet Potato.

02/02----- 1# Yellow Onions, 1/2# Red Onions, 1ct Celeriac, 1# Leeks, 4# Potatoes, 1bn Arugula, 1bn BokChoi, 4# Potatoes, Pint Jar of our Sauerkraut, 2# Carrots, 2# Beets, 1head Storage Cabbage Red/Green, 1#Parsnips,

03/01-----1 # Yellow Onions, 1/2# Red Onions, 2 Stalks Brussel Sprouts, Bag Spinach, 1bn Komatsu Greens Red/Green, Bag Baby Swiss Chard, 4# Potatoes, 1# Sweet Potatoes, 2# Carrots, 2# Beets, 1 Celeriac, 1bn Turnip "rapini"

If we have extra veggies in April, we will be having more distributions over and above the 12 pickups you are signing up for. We are excited about fine tuning our winter growing with you as our audience. We hope the intrigue of eating local all winter has some attraction for you.

Signed: Skip Paul, Liz Peckham and Silas Peckham-Paul and our whole farm crew.

If you have any questions, Please call 401-592-0285