 We are officially half way through the CSA season! The zucchini and cucumbers are winding down, the tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers are just getting started, and the fall cabbages and winter squash are starting to size up. All of these are sure signs that we are half way through the season! This past week was poultry processing week. The broiler chickens plus some older laying hens and mean roosters went to the processors to be butchered. We keep the laying hens and roosters for ourselves to be ground and used to make sausages and jerky. The broiler chickens are frozen and ready to be sold to CSA members and others alike! To order chickens from us, simply email me and I will bring to our CSA pickup location. We are proud to raise top-quality chickens in a sustainable and ethical manner that taste fantastic. We have received feedback from many who say that they are the most flavourful chicken they have ever eaten. Our chickens are housed in a hoophouse in our pasture, which allows them access to sunlight, grass, and insects as they choose. To supplement, we feed them 100% certified organic grains sourced from a local farmer. We sell our chickens in two ways: whole, frozen roasting chickens (sizes range between 4 - 7lbs) and pieced chickens. The whole chickens are $5/lb with organ meats included. The pieced chickens are sold with 2 chickens per package and are $75. The pieced chickens have like parts packaged together (ie. all breasts together, all wings together, etc.) for ease of preparing certain recipes without thawing the entire package. All of the chickens are vacuum packaged to maintain freshness in storage. While most people don't need a recipe to use up the potatoes in their shares, I thought I would tell you a little more about the different varieties of potatoes we grow. This year we are growing 5 varieties of potatoes: an early red, an early white, some fingerlings, and a storage yellow and storage red. We tend to include potatoes much more frequently in our shares than many other CSA farms and every year I think about cutting back but never do! There are many good reasons that small-scale farms choose to grow little to no potatoes: organic seed potatoes are quite expensive (our seed potatoes this year were one-third of our entire seed costs), potatoes take up a lot of space and are in the ground for the entire season, and most of all, potatoes are back breaking to harvest when all you are using is a digging fork and your own strength! I know at every year I dread potato harvest time and have a perpetually sore back for the duration. This year I will be harvesting 3200 feet of potatoes - wish me luck! Despite these really good reasons to grow less potatoes, I still continue to grow a lot. First, our soil grows really great potatoes. While not completely fool proof, I typically don't worry about our potato production nearly as much as other crops. Secondly, we try to store as much food as possible for ourselves to eat throughout the winter and potatoes are a big part of this plan. And, for some reason, I find the lowly potato to be one of the most beautiful crops to harvest. It's a bit like a treasure hunt as brightly coloured jewels pop from the soil! For those that are looking for some new recipe ideas, check these links out:
Our 20 Best New Potato Recipes Crunchy New Potatoes Comments are closed.
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