Spring CSA Begins!

7:03 PM Adrian 0 Comments

Spring CSA will last for 6 weeks, starting this week and lasting until the end of May. Sign-up is on a contact basis, please contact Derek Roller for a box! Phone, email, and Facebook are great. Couples share pays $20 per box as you want it, Family share pays $30; or you can pay ahead, $120 for 6 Couple boxes, $180 for 6 Family boxes. Derek has already been driving into town for the last few weeks and selling boxes to people on an on-call basis, and arranging pick up times and locations. Popular sites have been the Grantwood Farmer's Market or at Tim's Daycare on Fridays. Our Spring CSA is pretty much the same deal, although our selection will become wider, our vegetables' quality more mature. People have already been getting asparagus, kale and radish bunches, salad and braising mixes, fresh winter spinach, green garlic...we've gotten some pretty positive feedback on giving out early shares! It gives you something to get excited about until summer produce comes in. Everyone should get on board. We've been eating pretty well out here!

Summer CSA 2012 Signup is still open, but we will apply a $30.00 late fee at this point. We now have two new pickup spots available for selection during signup: one is at the Cedar Rapids Farmer's Markets on Saturdays. We aren't sure yet about dropping off there Tuesdays, since that may conflict with our Tuesday packing schedule. The other drop-off is available at Tim's Daycare/Kirkwood School for Children on Fridays, around 5.

We are happy to announce the arrival of some of Echollective's first farm animals! A small chicken tractor has been completed, and is now housing five fledgling meat chickens....and our two young pigs have finally arrived! One is a red barrow (castrated male), one is black gilt (unbred female). We're all still confused about what their names are? Dr. Caporkian and Merlock? Cinnamon and Strawberry? Or...Mulder and Scully? We gotta straighten this out. They seem happy! They get to root around like crazy and eat all our leftovers! We like it when animals are happy.

We've also encountered and welcomed some new wildlife....just today we found a nesting pair of pheasants! We had to put a stop on our mowing operation for a little bit to get our heads around what we were going to do about pheasants having a family in the middle of our field!

The start of the farming season is always busy...we're still plugging in baby plants and planting more seeds in flats...our tomato starts have become huge and will need to get in the ground soon. Our baby beets and peas are getting bigger! And as always there's lots lots lots to do, lots of yummy food to look forward to.

Keep on having a happy spring!