2012 CSA Sign-up: We Still Need Members!

5:14 PM Adrian 0 Comments

Yep, CSA Signup is still going on! It's great to see many of you return for the new season! Spring is on its way, and we're beginning our crop planning and seed-starting. We already have tons of little babies in flats, getting bigger by the day. We also need a good idea of how many members we're going to be growing for! So the sooner you sign up, the better. And the sooner YOU sign up, the more sure you'll be that you'll get your local-organic fix this summer. If you know anyone else who would be interested in signing up, spread the word. So bustle on over and stake your claim....our sign-up deadline looms....

Thank you to all of you who filled out our Member Feedback survey. Your input will be really helpful and has already given us insight!

From out of the sludgy hibernation of winter, we at Echollective are feeling the beginning of a new farming season start to wake up. Time to dust off our rusty cogs and grind our stiff joints a bit. Time to get back into motion! Work to do out here is beginning to pick up. In the wake of last week's mild days, we've been going through our cold frames of dormant vegetables and starting to roust 'em up, and get them clean for picking again. A lot of our stuff looks good! Some stuff needs dead or diseased foliage removed, and a good dose of water...and before you know it, we'll have a new set of delicious young leaves! It was a pleasant surprise to find a lot of enormous, bright green spinach, lookin' happy and perky in our cats. Kale and tat soi have recovered from when we've cut them back earlier, and they look fresh, big, and ready to sell. Our lettuces look like they've been hammered, but many of them have healthy growth points, and pretty juicy looking pink and green rosettes.

So, what I'm trying to say is: we are simply raking in the greens! Mostly spinach, but plenty of braising mixes and salads. Yeah, we want to eat it all here at the farm too (it's always great to have extra for ourselves!) but we have more than we know what to do with. We're able to sell some of it to New Pi and a few restaurants. Come check us out at Grant Wood Farmers Market, and help us take some of these greens off our hands!

We have been fortunate to obtain a rather large, new walk-in freezer and cooler. It took us an entire day, and then some, to set up in the barn. Pretty useful though! Our smaller one we have can get to overflowing during real busy times, it's nice to have more room to store produce. The roof and door haven't been officially attached and the contraption isn't running yet, so the barn cats pace around inside of it, sniffing, and probably thinking "Hey thanks! Ok, this is ours now."

This week is also the MOSES Organic Farming Conference (Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service) which a few of our farmers and farmer friends are attending. Certainly sounds like an awesome event! There will be loads of workshops and events. Derek will be gone to attend the conference until Sunday.

That's all, folks. Hope to see you during this upcoming season for market or CSA!

Echollective CSA 2011 Season Member Feedback Survey!

3:12 PM Adrian 0 Comments

Hey folks, we just created a survey geared toward those who participated in our CSA over the 2011 season. Scroll down and you'll see it in the window below! It shouldn't take long, and your thoughts and opinions on how we do out here are tantamount (a big word for very, very important!) to our work.
Do you have feedback? Hangups or praise? Here's your chance to get that to us. We value what our members think, and we want to bring the best products to your table, while making it fairly convenient for you to get them. If you have any feedback or comments that do not fit in with the survey somehow, please email us! echocsa@gmail.com, or echofarmers879@gmail.com If you participated in our Fall or Winter CSAs that occurred not that long ago, you may of course take the survey as well. If you were a 2010 member and would like to leave feedback a little late, that's ok, too.

A big reminder to you all that our 2012 Season Sign-Up is now open! Fill in a membership slot while you can! Just click on our CSA Sign-Up page at the top.

In the meantime, take care in the cold weather out there, and remember that Spring is coming soon!

 It may seem like the survey below doesn't want to scroll down.  I don't know how to fix this, but to make it scroll down, hover your cursor over the "down" arrow button, and eventually it will "highlight" or turn blue when placed in a very particular position on the box.  You have to keep the mouse from moving at all, but it will let you scroll down.  I apologize for the problem and not being able to fix it.