winter regrowth is always a lot slower to harvest than the late fall growth, to avoid the deep winter damaged leaves… you can see the discoloration on some of the claytonia… but we harvest around all that, and it all looks great in a bag! photo by Adam Ford

CSA Balance Due

If you haven’t already paid, your balance is due. You can:

Pay online through your account with a card or e-check
Mail a check to Evening Song Farm at 48 Nice Road, Cuttingsville VT 05738
Send money with Venmo @eveningsongcsa (our profile has our logo pictured)
Email or call us to pay with EBT
Leave a check in the CSA cash box at the barn.

It’s very cool to pay in smaller chunks, just let us know what your payment plan is.

Important note: the new software system shuts off the ability for folks to order a delivered bag when payments are a couple weeks late.

The “balance” display on your CSA dashboard isn’t as intuitive as I would hope. If you have questions about your balance for the season at any point, just reach out.

This Week’s Availability

This week we will have spinach, green curly kale bunches, rainbow chard, claytonia, mesclun mix, parsley, red beets, yellow beets, chioggia beets, carrots, onions, daikon radishes, green cabbage, watermelon radish, kohlrabi, and red and yellow potatoes.

*carrots, onions, and beets are now sourced from Juniper Hill Farm, also certified organic

Click here to order your veggies for a delivered bag

Ordering closes at noon on Tuesdays for Wednesday bags, and at midnight on Wednesdays for Friday bags.

You do not need to fill out the form if you plan to come to the barn on Wednesdays or Thursdays to pick out your items yourself.

CSA pickup and delivery days and times

Community (and some Farm) News

You can count on me to take over the “farm news” section with issues in the community that I care about. Two things are coming up that are worthy to be reminded about:

First, go vote in your town this Tuesday for whatever issues and town positions are important to you. If you vote in Shrewsbury, consider writing in Stephen Abatiell for the school board. He has board experience, connections with the elementary school leading outdoor education programs with little cost to the tax payer, and will support continued diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in our district.

Second, make a comment to the US Forest Service about the proposed 11,800 acre “Telephone Gap” logging project in the Green Mountain National Forest. The public comment period closes on March 13th. Because I am so exhausted that national governments aren’t effectively working together to address the climate crisis by now, I can’t even figure out how to succinctly write about how this particular proposed cut feels like a bad idea in 2023: a time when the collapse of the Thwaites Glacier could cause catastrophic sea level rise, top climate scientists are saying we need to study geoengineering as a last resort to save the earth from overheating, the drying of the Great Salt Lake could expose people to toxic dust, and the list of dystopian chaos goes on and on in relation to climate collapse. Ideally we can avoid clear cutting mature, old forests and let them keep capturing carbon for us. And I know that responsible, climate-focused logging is a part of life in Vermont: We use lumber for projects, wood to heat our home, and pellets to get our tomatoes planted a few weeks earlier. (This article is a great read on the nuances and balance of conservation and logging.) It’s just that this particular project does not strike me as part of the climate solution, so if you feel called, make a public comment, and hopefully we can protect this particular carbon sink.

In more fun, upbeat stuff, Ryan was interviewed this winter about our rotational no-till practices for the No-Till Market Garden podcast, and it’s a really fun listen! I just finished listening to it myself, and if you are curious about the research Ryan has been doing with his involvement with the Northeast Climate Adaptation Fellowship through the University of Maine, I recomment putting it on next time you clean your house. (Just skip to the 30 minute mark if you know our farm’s history.) And perhaps there is a theme here, but my own fun news is that I just got selected to particpate in this year’s Farmer Climate Cohort through Vital Communities. This is a project for farms to collaborate around our shared goal of addressing climate change through farming, as well as get paired with professional artists to help visually tell the story of farming and climate work. It’s a two year project where farmers and artists attempt to more clearly market the work that small farms do to address climate change to the wider public…. highlighting the importance of supporting a local food system. (Which you do by being a part of a CSA!) I often consider selling all these organic veggies as the by-product of our main goal: addressing climate change. So stay tuned for some cool farm and climate related art that will probably arise from this opportunity.

Galen and K2 started more seeds this week: greens, beets, husk cherries, peppers, more tomatoes, etc, so the grow room is beautifully packed with little baby plants. Our new pellet furnace to heat the propagation house is on it’s way, so we can get the larger space ready for all these plants soon. Ryan spent two days making plumbing repairs to our hot water system in that propagation house because we didn’t get it drained on time last year. Oof…. When the to do list is too long, and we drop the ball on some basics, it makes for more work in the future. But it’s back in action and our first lettuces have been moved from the grow room to the propagation house, soon to be transplanted in between the kale plants in the BFG. And Ryan continues to seed new planting in spaces in the tunnels as they become available from harvest. It’s really fun to work in the tunnels this time of year, espcially on a sunny day. With the cold and snowy weather outside, it’s a sweet little oasis to be in the sun-warmed tunnels, smelling dirt and growing plants, and feeling like spring is right around the corner among all the bursting green life in there.

Have a great week,

ESF Team: Ryan, Kara, Cindy, Taylor, Katie, Galen, K2, (and Sky and Soraya)