Week 15 is all about salads!  We're harvesting salad greens, small crisp radishes, adorable little tomatoes and carrots, which are great mandolin sliced or grated for a salad.  The weather is warm this week so it's been good for ripening tomatoes and fruit in general, but it's also good weather for big outdoor salad lunches.  I've been making salads in the biggest bowl I have in the house and eating it at our picnic table or in the hammock.  Nothing like eating salad in a hammock!  Favorite dressing ingredient at the moment is nutritional yeast.  I use a simple olive oil and vinegar dressing plus the yeast sprinkled on top for a salty cheesy and very satisfying salad. 

This week everyone is getting:
Lettuce
Eros escarole
Carrots
Red radishes
Grape tomatoes
Kale
Florida brown rice

Large shares also get:
Choice between hon tsai tai or rainbow chard
Cabbage
Choice of a fresh herb: oregano, parsley, chinese leeks

Eros escarole forms a large tightly packed head of leaves that look like lettuce and can be used in place of lettuce or with lettuce for a salad.  But escarole is way more diverse than lettuce.  I just found an awesome recipe section in Martha Stewart's website with 22 very different and very simple recipes; things like escarole and apple salad, sausage and escarole pasta and escarole heart with lemon-pumpkin seed vinaigrette.  Check it out for some serious dinner inspiration. 

 Carrots and radishes are both beautiful and fun salad additions.  Thanks to the cool weather recently, both of these crops developed nicely and should be very crisp and sweet, better enjoyed fresh rather than roasted or stir fried. 

Last time we included cabbage in the shares I wrote about a roasted cabbage wedge recipe I had been recommending since last season.  Here's a link to the actual recipe; the pictures alone will make you want it.  I like that it is something a little bit different than what usually comes to mind in terms of turning a cabbage into a meal.  The prep time is just a few minutes and the combination of vinegar, mustard and sharp pecorino romano cheese is perfect.

Folks had so many questions at our farm open house a few weeks ago that we've decided to host a nursery open house to show off our demonstration garden and answer questions about home gardens.  Come buy plants straight from the nursery tables and stroll through our small backyard edible garden to see how all of the plants we sell grow together in a garden setting.  We'll be hanging around to give advice, answer questions and recommend organic fertilizers as well as pest management strategies.  

Where: 115 ne 76th street
When: Sunday March 1st
Time: 10am-1pm

We want to encourage home gardeners, teachers with school gardens and restaurants with gardens to come by for advice and to restock on mid-season seedlings.  At the farm we replant almost weekly to maintain a continuous harvest and you should do the same.  We'll have plants, seeds and a selection of organic fertilizers as well as freshly sifted compost for sale, but most importantly, we'll have advice!

Hope to see you there!

Last week I took a trip down to Homestead with Muriel and her daughter, Bimini Rose. We had a few errands to run for the farm and our CSA shares. At the Little River Cooperative we are growing a majority of what goes into our members CSA boxes, but we are only three acres and occasionally need to supplement with produce that may be ready to harvest on other local farms. On our list of things to accomplish for this trip were: hunting for strawberries, picking up banana plants, finding waxed boxes, and looking for inspiration in a few farming system setups.

For our readers who aren’t so familiar with the Homestead area, here is a bit more of a description. South of the greater urban Miami epicenter, but still a part of Miami Dade County, Homestead lies between two large national parks, Everglades National Park and Biscayne National Park. It was named for the original settlers of the area who were setting up homesteads at the beginning of the extension of Florida East Coast Railway to Key West. The area had gone unnamed aside from the understanding that it was “homestead country.” With materials coming from the area and heading south, the name was shortened to “Homestead” by engineers mapping the region. Some form of agriculture usually accompanies homesteading, so as the population grew in both Homestead and Miami, so did the agricultural community.

This past summer with the Driving Food Home collective, I came to realize that there is no one type of farmer or homesteader. I grew up in Miami, but have been traveling for many years;  being back longer than a couple months for the first time in 6 years has been an eye opening experience to rediscover places that had seemed so familiar, but were still complete mysteries. Homestead was one of these places for me. Not only did I not think people were still homesteading in Homestead, but I associated Homestead with big Ag, not small bio diverse systems.

A majority of the farmers I have met in my recent visits to Homestead have been retirees or individuals that have decided to move south of Miami and out of such an urban setting. Don, of Going Bananas Nursery, is a Miami transplant; a pilot turned banana farmer. He showed us around a portion of his 5 acre banana grove and two of his green house structures, that he and his wife manage. They are firm believers in natural practices in their approach to life and growing bananas.

Then there are places like LNB Groves, which is now being run by second-generation young farmers with a new outlook on their families land and farming practices. This certified organic family farm is one of the more beautiful fruit farms I have ever seen. While there is plenty of fruit to go around, their peak season is not until the summer months so it was exciting to see so many crops thriving through the winter. We discussed fruit to be shared with our CSA members as we harvested and ate jaboticaba, leaving with full bellies and lovely gifts!

While Miami is a part of the continental US, being surrounded by farmland in the humid subtropics was a charming reminder of how different this place is from anywhere else in the country (except maybe parts of southern California and Hawaii). In fact, this area is almost the exact opposite in terms of seasons. We are in our peak growing season as the rest of the country freezes and we'll be transitioning into our off season as the rest of the states are contemplating tilling in cover crop to prepare for their growing season.

As with other agricultural communities in the US, there is a surge of interest in farming, especially from young people who want to be a part of changing the way people think about and relate to food and consumption. It is exciting to see and even more rewarding to be a part of.

We are freezing our butts out there!  But we're not complaining, it's awesome.  Welcome to week 14 of the CSA guys. 

This week everyone gets the following:
Kale
Green beans
Kohlrabi
Onions
Daikon radish
Lettuce
Loquats

Large shares also get:
Baby arugula with edible flowers
Choice between scallions or parsley

We've had our eyes on the many public loquat trees in the farm's neighborhood.  Today we finally drove this crew around to collect enough fruit for you guys.  They are a local delicacy and you will never find these rare fruits at the store, so count your blessings that you are a part of this CSA.  They have a super short season and an even shorter shelf life.  Eat them right away and watch out for the 2-3 seeds in the middle.  If you have room for a tree at home, plant those seeds; they'll produce fruit in under 10 years.  We have a tree at the farm that we started from seed only 6 years ago and it's given us it's first tiny crop this year.  

Our friend Chris French has been growing the most beautiful produce on his acre in Redland this season.  In the past one of our most reliable crops has been kale, but this season we've had a couple of issues with it (which we have have now finally overcome!) so Chris' awesome kale has been a life saver.  This week Chris will be harvesting kale for you guys in the freezing night air (since hes has a day job and works at his farm after hours by head lamp!). 

Kohlrabi again!  We took a little break from growing kohlrabi, but we're glad it's back.  What a cool looking crop to grow.  Kohlrabi and all the other brassicas really like this cold weather and you'll notice the difference it makes when you taste it.  Sweeter, milder and crispier flavor.

Sorry for the photo tease, we're only getting green beans this week.  Did you know that green beans are one of the biggest industrial crops produced in south and central Florida all winter long which are shipped all over the US.  We provide a huge percentage of the countries fresh produce (summer squash, tomatoes and green beans for the most part) during the freezing months.  Just as the midwest is considered the countries bread basket, we are the veggie basket right now. 

Large shares are getting baby arugula (bagged with edible flowers!).  We tried an experiment with growing our arugula under row cover for the first time, although growing tender greens under cover is nothing new in agriculture (row cover is a breathable, water permeable agricultural fabric used to protect crops from pests, weather and many other things).  Our goal was to protect it from mites, a tiny almost microscopic bug that deforms leaves, but also to shade it a bit from the sun because our arugula in the past has shown signs of sunburn, especially after we let it grow back over and over for multiple harvests.  The extra work has paid off because this arugula is looking PERFECT.  Enjoy.

This week may be the most colorful share of the season!  Literally.  Rainbow carrots from Three Sisters Farm and rainbow chard from French Farms will add lots of multicolor meals to your week.  We're also including bright nasturtium flowers to your salad mix and instead of a boring bunch of cooking greens, we're making a bouquet with three different colored crops from the farm. 

Small and large shares:
Rainbow carrots
Dandelion greens
Calabaza pumpkin
Stir fry bouquet (tatsoi, rapini, mustard)
Lettuce mix with edible flowers
Grapefruit

Large shares also get:
Sorrel
Fennel
Rainbow chard

It's peak citrus season in Florida guys!  We got a hold of organic grapefruits from a smaller grove in Central FL.  The fruits are huge, so juicy and delicious.  Enjoy.  We'll try to get more citrus in the next few weeks to take advantage of what our state is producing.  Some of the smaller groves grow very unique varieties that you can't even find in the stores.

Meet Rachel, she grows food at Three Sisters Farm in Redland right across the street from the Fruit and Spice Park.  This week we are including their perfectly bright rainbow carrots in the shares.  My personal favorite way to eat carrots lately is halved lengthwise and roasted with oil, salt and pepper.  So simple and so satisfying.  These rainbow carrots will be awesome shredded in a salad or a slaw too.

This is Calabaza, also from Three Sisters Farm.  It's a type of pumpkin that grows really well in our South Florida climate and soil.  The flesh is super bright yellow, almost neon, and the flavor is very rich; it makes a mean pumpkin soup or pumpkin bread; you can also roast it in pieces with your rainbow carrots to bulk up your meal. 

We are harvesting a beautiful multicolor salad mix for you guys this week and the best part is the nasturtiums.  You can use this salad like any other baby greens with your favorite dressing or maybe you'll get inspired to try a totally new dressing.  Maybe something with grapefruit in it?  I found this yummy recipe to put over a bed of baby greens, pistachios, a little red onion and gorgonzola cheese. 

This week is all about choices!  You guys are a big group and sometimes it's hard to grow enough of the same crops for everyone so we are letting you choose between a few varieties of kale, two different radishes and three very different kitchen herbs.  It's a win/win situation because you get a chance to have preferences and we get to give everyone in the CSA a bounty!

Over the last few weeks we have harvested lots and worked hard to replant all of the newly freed up space at the farm, but we are experiencing a small production gap in our greens department. The same seems to have happened at the two farms who contribute to the CSA the most, Verde Farm and French Farms, so this week everyone will have a bit of a greens break and we will focus on roots and fruits instead.

Large and Small shares get:
Kale (choose between Lacinato, Red Russian, Curly, or Rainbow kale)
Salad turnips with tops
Carrots
Radishes (choose between Watermelon radish or Shunkyo Long radish)
Herb (choose between Oregano, Parsley or Cilantro)
Strawberries
Bananas

Large shares also get:
Frisee
Poblano peppers
Spicy mustard sprouts

By now we are all familiar with using radishes in many ways, this week we will have two varieties for you to choose from: watermelon and shunkyo. Watermelon radishes are great for those of you who don't like a super spicy radishes, or who prefers a meatier radish for roasting. If sliced into thin rounds their bright pink interiors add a beautiful touch of color and flare to any salad, but we think their flavor really shines when slow roasted in the oven with just olive oil and salt. Shunkyo are bright fuchsia on the outside with a white interior, and raw they are super spicy! If halved lengthwise they can be sautéed in butter just like a french breakfast radish, or if you're up for the spice they can be eaten raw.

Turnips, although less familiar, are just as versatile. They can be sliced thin and eaten raw in salads, or roasted, and it seems that their most common preparation (according to my internet searches) is a mashed turnip dish, which sounds really delicious and comforting. Check out this recipe, for roasted parsnips and radishes, it looks great and it is winter after all, time to eat hearty roasted things like the rest of the country. Turnip tops, like radish tops, are a bit prickly raw but are delicious and healthy when cooked, so don't forget to take advantage of those tops. To make veggie storage easier and keep the roots fresher, its best to remove greens from your roots when you get home, and store them separately in a plastic bag or wet cloth.

This week you will also get a chance to pick an herb of your choice: we are harvesting oregano, cilantro and parsley. If you feel very strongly about your herb selection we suggest you show up early, as certain herbs may be completely gone towards the end of the day. Last week you got parsley but if you're like me and love parsley and think cilantro smells like soap, then there's no shame in picking it again! You can use the oregano fresh for a healthy and spicy flavored anti fungal tea (it also aids in digestion), or hang it to dry in a cool area with good air flow, and save it for your pantry.

And now, on to the fruit! Since it is strawberry season, and South Florida is a large strawberry producing region, we have found them again, freshly picked from a homestead farm for us all to enjoy. We figured no one would mind getting strawberries a few times through the season.  Last time we included them in the shares we almost had a riot on our hands from the market customers who desperately wanted to buy the CSA strawberries. This week we ordered a few extra quarts so that everyone can share in the sweetness. Last time we included strawberries in the shares Muriel and I got to take home the mushy ones; we both made fresh jam which we used for homemade pop tarts and for topping morning bowls of greek yoghurt.  They are amazing fresh or jammed!

All of a sudden three large bunches of bananas ripened at the farm so we can give everyone a bunch this week.  Bananas are such a staple and it's really cool that we can grow them so easily in South Florida year round.  Lucky us.  My favorite way to eat em is dried, as an easy snack on the go.  Having a dehydrator, even a small one, is a really good idea in this town which is so plentiful of fruit.  For just over $100 you can get a small counter top Excalibur dehydrator (it's the size of a tiny toaster oven).  Check out www.excaliburdehydrator.com

We grew sprouts for ya'll in our greenhouse!  This week we are harvesting spicy mustard sprouts and hopefully in the following weeks we'll get to try a few different varieties.  These are so fun as a garnish on anything from tacos to avocado toasts to cooked dishes like pasta or soup. 

It's the peak of the growing season in South Florida and the farm is looking spectacular so we want to show it off.  No, really, we want to give our CSA members and everyone who has been wanting to visit the farm a chance to come out on a Sunday for a day of field tours, lounging and refreshments.

Where: 360 ne 154th street
When: Sunday February 8th
Time: 10am-2pm

We'll have some light refreshments and picnic blankets to hang out on.  There is lots of shady lawn space and greenery to get lost in.  Bring your friends, kids, cameras and snacks.  If you're a local chef or someone who has inquired about volunteering on the farm this will be a great opportunity to see the farm and speak with both farmers about working together in the future.  We have found that the best working relationships start with a face to face conversation! 

Hope to see you there!

Dear CSA members we are some of the luckiest people in this country right now, blessed with the most beautiful weather while many other states freeze.  Our Miami skies have been breath taking lately and I'm particularly thankful for being able to spend my days at the farm soaking it all in.

Here's what we are harvesting for the 11th week of the CSA.  You'll notice we are including a grain in this week's share.  How cool is it that central Florida produces organic rice?  We thought it'd be a fun thing to include in order to add variety and help you round out your meals with totally fresh local plants.  Let us know what you think!

Small Shares:

Carambola aka starfruit
Large heirloom tomatoes
Kale
Baby spinach
Scallions
Kohlrabi
And local brown rice!

Large Shares will also get:

Parsley
Watermelon radishes

Kohlrabi is not commonly found in most supermarkets here, which is a shame because it is such a cool veg.  The main edible part is the bulb; once you peel the tough skin you'll have a snow white ball of crunchy, juicy kohlrabi to eat.  It tastes like a cross between broccoli and apple!  I like to cut it into strips and snack on it as an appetizer; it'd be great on a cheese platter or as an alternative to baby carrots for dipping into fondue or a cold dip.  The leaves can be cut off and used like you would kale.  They are best cooked; the chef at Zak the Baker Cafe once made a delicious tomato based stew/ sauce type thing served over rice which included chopped up kohlrabi leaves and it was great.

Heirloom Tomatoes are a bit of a sore subject for us only because we've had a hard time producing them on our farm for the past couple of years.  They are a magnificent crop and we will continue to try, but in the meantime, we're getting these beauties for you from a local Homestead farm you may have heard of, Teena's Pride.  Enjoy, they are amazing!

Week 10 is the halfway mark of the growing season.  It's a big accomplishment for us as the farmers and a reminder for you the eaters to enjoy the fresh local bounty while we still have it.  The growing season is a fleeting thing! 

This week the small shares are getting:

This week the large shares are getting:

Beets
Cabbage
Lettuce
Rainbow chard
Carrots
Pac choi
Sage
Moringa
Edible flower mix

Beets and Carrots are the candies of the vegetable world.  They will sweeten your juices (if you are into juicing veggies, remember to the also add the tops of carrots and beets since they are very nutritious and delicious) as well as your soups, purees and roasts.  Store roots separate from tops to keep the roots from getting soft.  Peel them for an extra sweet treat (the skins can be a little bitter), but you'll see that roasted whole or simply cut in half, both carrots and beets are a delicious side dish or snack.

Rainbow Chard is in the spinach and beet family.  It's colorful stems are fun to cook with.  Try a simple stir fry and chop the stems to put them in the pan first, with a bit of garlic or onions until soft and then add the green part of the leaves at the end for a short time.  The leaves are best undercooked otherwise they get too mushy.  This cooked down chard is great for filling omelettes or quiches paired with a salty sharp cheese.  You can also try adding cherry tomatoes to the pan until they get squishy and soft and serve the whole mixture over brown rice (add a sunny side up egg for a complete vegetarian meal!).

Sage is a personal favorite and we can only grow it during winter and spring here in South Florida because it doesn't survive the humidity of our rainy summer season.  It goes really well with squashes, potatoes or meats. 

Moringa is a perennial short lived tree that grows in tropical climates.  It's also known as "miracle tree" because it contains so many vitamins and minerals and because it grows so fast, providing a reliable source of nutrients for the poor in tropical countries.  We've been growing it at the farm for a few years and we sell young trees at the farmers market.  We also dehydrate the leaves and sell moringa in a powder form that can be added to everything from smoothies to soups to increase nutrients.  The fresh leaves can also be added to smoothies, juices, stir fries, salads, grains, etc.  Think of moringa as a nutritional supplement that you can add to any meal.

Welcome to week 9 of the CSA!  We hope you're enjoying your veggies at the peak of the growing season. 

Grove Pick-up small:
starfruit
lettuce
kale
cabbage
carrots
dandelion greens
cherry tomatoes

Grove Pick-up large:
starfruit
lettuce
kale
tatsoi
carrots
dandelion greens
cherry tomatoes
baby arugula
lemongrass


Upper East Side Pick-up large:
starfruit
lettuce
kale
tatsoi
carrots
dandelion greens
cherry tomatoes
baby arugula
lemongrass

Upper East Side Pick-up small:
starfruit
lettuce
kale
cabbage
carrots
dandelion greens
cherry tomatoes

Rainbow Kale is one of the varieties of kale we love most.  It's a hardy plant that produces beautiful medium to large leaves for bunching.  This week you'll be receiving either Rainbow or Lacionato kale aka Dino kale.  We include this crop in the shares often because we know it's a staple in home cooking plus it's a super food full of nutrients, vitamins and fiber.

French Farms continues to impress us with the lettuces they are producing.  The variety pictured here is called Natasha and it's literally the size of my hat!  So beautiful it's hard not to want a fresh salad right away. 

Carrots are in season!  We'll be including them in the shares as often as possible before the weather warms up too much and it becomes impossible to continue growing them.  Carrots, like most root veggies, taste much better when the weather is mild or chilly.  The colder it is the sweeter the carrots.  If you ever have a chance to pull a carrot out of the ground in the snow, do it!  That will be the sweetest carrot you'll ever eat.  When you get your share home, cut the tops off your carrots and store the roots in a fridge drawer.  The tops can be used for pesto or soup stock, but if you're short on time this week, they make a great addition to the compost pile ;) 

Starfruit is a local treasure.  These fruit trees are common in urban South Florida yards as well as in small farms in agricultural areas.  It was featured in Tiffany's book, Forager which came out last year and is now itself a local treasure.  Starfruit are sweet and tangy, very juicy and so cool because they are shaped like stars.  Kids love them.  They make great garnishes for drinks.  Add star shaped slices to your green salads or fruit salads.  Enjoy!

Savoy Cabbage in the shares this week are coming from French Farms.  They are just like a regular green cabbage except for their texture, which is ruffled.  The term savoy refers to it's texture.  In the future when you come across another plant or vegetable that includes the word savoy in it's name, you'll find that it has a similar texture.  Cabbage lasts a very long time in the fridge if you keep it in a drawer or a bag.  It's crunchy and refreshing flavor is good raw in either a salad or a slaw, but it's good stir fried or roasted.  Try pairing it with curry powder and butter for a quick stir fried side dish.  Also worth while is a recipe I used a lot last season for a roasted cabbage wedge salad.  Here's what you do: quarter the head of cabbage, rub with a little oil and roast the pieces until they are tender and toasty on the outside.  Serve warm, drizzled with vinaigrette (olive oil, sherry vinegar, dijon mustard, salt) and freshly grated parmesan or romano cheese.  So easy and so comforting.  Try it!

Last but not least we'd like to talk about Dandelion Greens.  Although dandelion is common as a wild foraged weed, it is also cultivated in farms.  The cultivated varieties are a tad more tender and less bitter although be prepared for a bitter taste.  They are super nutritious, almost to the point of being medicinal.  We recommend you do your own research about this crop because there is so much interesting information about it on the internet.