FLATBUSH FARM SHARE

www.flatbushfarmshare.com a partnership of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, Hunger Action Network, and Just Food

NEWS
Start the season with Volunteer Hours! Outreach
2.2 / April 2010

Our goal this year is to fill all of our 200 shares. Many of us as members last year
Start the season off right with a jump start on
learned for the first time what a CSA was but there are still many people out there
your volunteer hours! We are looking for
that don’t know what a CSA is. We want to get organic fresh vegetables to as many
members to help Saturday April 17th between
people in the community as we can. Spread the word about Flatbush Farm Share to
10:30am til 5:30pm (a few hours or all day!) at the
your friends, your neighbors, relatives, school parents, anyone see in your daily life.
We Can Green Brooklyn Eco-Fair. Contact
If you’d like to help on a higher level contact our outreach committee
membership@flatubushfarmshare if you are
(outreach@flatbushfarmshare.com) for flyers and learn how you can spread the word.
interested.

Core Group
We are always looking for fellow members to join the core group and help with all the behind the scenes work that goes on to make the
CSA possible (it is a lot more than you would think!!) We meet once a month and have email conversations in between. If you are willing
to commit some time and help let us know! Contact info@flatbushfarmshare.com. Our next meeting will be Sunday April 18th.

Extra Shares
This season we’ll be working with the new-and-improved Breezy Hill Orchard fruit share. Breezy Hill
is partnering with some neighboring fruit farms and orchards to provide a greater variety of fruits
this season. In addition to the blueberries, apples, pears, apricots and peaches that we got last year, the
fruit share should also include delicious items such as rhubarb, cherries, red currants, and raspberries!
This year, a full fruit share is $220 ($10 per week) and a half share is $110 ($5 per week).

Breezy Hill will be offering the egg share again. A full egg share (1 dozen) is $82.50 for the season,
which is $3.75 per week, and a half share (a half dozen) is $44.00 for the season, which is $2.00 per
week.

An exciting addition this year from Breezy Hill is a pasta share! Last season we got a preview of their

Signup today!!
pasta which was delicious, and this year they are offering it for the season. There is just one price for
the pasta share, $93.50, which is $4.25 per week. The pasta share will consist of one 12oz prepackaged
container of pasta. The pasta comes in various shapes and flavors.
www.flatbushfarmshare.com
The Extra Share agreement can be found on the last page of the newsletter. Extra shares must be
paid in full. Contact membership@flatbushfarmshare.com with any questions.

Flatbush Farm Share Fundraiser

Saturday May 15, 2-6pm
@ Sycamore
1118 Cortelyou Road
With a $15 donation to support our discounted shares, you’ll get delicious food, great drink specials, and raffle tickets.
Raffle prizes include a FREE half-share! (That’s a $315 value!)

Raffle Prizes Needed

We are holding a raffle (the drawing will be held at the spring fundraiser at Sycamore). Do you have any items or services that can be
raffled off ? Do you know any sympathetic businesses (restaurants, boutiques, cafes) that might donate items or a gift certificate? If so,
please write to fundraising@flatbushfarmshare.com (and include the contact information for the donor).
News from The Farm at Miller’s Crossing Interview conducted by core group member Lisa Maya Knauer
...continuation from previous newsletter
When do you make purchases of equipment?
At this time of year. We’re just getting started, and so we think
about what we’re going to do differently. If we are going to make a
purchase, this is when I tend to do it. If yiou change one thing on
your farm it affects about five other things, so you need to leave a lot
of time.
When do you start planting?
Tomorrow we are going to be seeding onions and leeks. Later in the
week we’ll be doing celery and celeriac. Those are things that we
only plant once. We have to put them in right away because some
of them take as long as 10-14 days to germinate. We put them on
the heated floor in the sun and they germinate in about 10 days.
Otherwise we’re just making arrangements, buying equipment, and
getting all the tractors and other equipment ready for the spring.
Now is the time to take things out, grease them, and repair them so
that the first day of plowing you are actually plowing and not fixing
equipment. Sometimes when you are about to take a piece of equip-
ment out you remember that when you put it away back in Novem-
ber there was something that needed to be fixed. So we are trying to
get more organized.
Are you trying out any new vegetables this year?
We did a joint seed order with some other farms to get volume
discount. Seed is one of our bigger costs. We make this order every
year, so we look at what we ordered last year and see what we want
to keep and what we might want to change.
Sausage and Vegetable Stew
adapted from Food Nework Magazine Recipe
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 large red onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, smashed
1 tablespoon paprika, plus more for garnish
Kosher salt
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock
6 ounces italian sausage, cut into pieces and cooked
3 medium carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks
2 parsnips, peeled and cut into large chunks
14 ounces small red-skinned or new potatoes (6 to 8), quartered
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
Freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup fresh parsley, roughly chopped
3/4 cup sour cream
Crusty bread, for serving
Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven or heavy pot over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic; cook, stirring occasionally, until soft and glistening, about
6 minutes. Add the paprika and 1 teaspoon salt; cook until the oil turns deep red, about 1 minute. Add the flour and cook until just toasted, 30 more
seconds. Immediately whisk in 4 cups stock. Add the sausage, carrots, parsnips, potatoes and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt.
This year we are going to be doing a new red pepper, it’s a
smaller variety, very sweet. Growing organic sweet peppers to
maturity is a hard thing. There is an insect that often bores a
hole into the peppers when they are very young, and then when
it grows to maturity it’s very squishy inside. This new variety
– I think it’s called Carmen -- is very disease resistant. Other
farmers around me have used it so we’re going to try it out. We
should start picking it around mid to late August. We also placed
our potato order and we have a lot of similar varieties to what
we had last year, but we have a new baking potato, which is a
russett. You want a nice big potato if you’re going to make baked
potatoes.
We are also going to plant more melons, so that we have a longer
window of time for the melon harvest. With melons you have to
be careful about when you plant. Getting 300 melons together on
the same day to New York was challenging. I would rather have
extra than not enough. We never had enough last year. There are
two types of melon plants: determinate and indeterinate. With
the determinate plants, you seed them at the same time, they set
all the same time and then they mature at the same time. The
indeterminate variety has staggered picking. So we’re think-
ing about how many to plant and when they will mature. We’re
increasing our acreage on cantaloupes. We’re planting two va-
rieties, so that when one is picked, the other one is available. It’s
a tough thing to do, because you can plant things 10 days apart
and they mature at the same time. It’s feast or famine.
We’re also hoping to a little bit more cabbage. Last year our
cabbage got flooded. This year we’re going to try to plant a little
more. We are thinking about planting a spring crop that would
be available in the summer and then doing a second planting that
would be available until November.
How do you know how much to plant?
The planting period of the off season is when you try to pick the
right number. It’s expensive to grow the thing and the last thing
you want to do is work really hard and then have to leave plants
in the field. But we grow so many different things that you hit it
right some times. You get one crop right one year and then the
next year you get another crop right.
Signup today!!
www.flatbushfarmshare.com

Bring the soup to a boil, then reduce to a simmer; cover and cook until the vegetables are tender and the broth has thickened, about 20 minutes. Add the
vinegar and season with pepper.

Combine about half of the parsley with the sour cream in a small bowl and season with salt and pepper. Ladle the stew into bowls; top with the remain-
ing parsley, a dollop of herbed sour cream and a sprinkle of paprika. Serve with bread.
 Fruit/Egg/Pasta Share from Breezy Hill Orchard
Breezy Hill is located in Duchess County, about 2-hours outside of NYC. The farmers at Breezy Hill believe in
sustainable and humane farming practices, and rely on the patronage of engaged consumers like us to do
business.

EGGS: A full egg share (one dozen) will cost $82.50 or half egg share (half dozen) $44.00 for 22 weeks. Full or
half dozen will be delivered with your vegetable share. The eggs are not certified organic, but the chickens are
hormone-free, and have free range - so they mostly eat grass and bugs. These eggs are competitively priced with
what you would find at a farmers market, will be super fresh, and much tastier than anything you can get at the
supermarket.

FRUIT: The farm is offering two options – $220 for a full share or $110 for a half share for 22 weeks. Weekly, that
works out to $5 or $10 for a half-share or full share respectively. The fruit is not organic as it is very difficult and
complex for small-scale farmers to get official organic certification in New York State. Breezy Hill's farmers are
very responsible about what they do put on their fruit.

PASTA: The pasta share will consist of one 12oz pre-packaged container. Pasta comes in various shapes and
flavors and will vary from week to week. Cost per share is $93.50 which works out to $4.25 a week.

Payment: To join the Fruit, Egg or Pasta Share please make your checks out to: Breezy Hill Orchard. Payment
must be made in full. Food stamps will be accepted for extra shares and will be paid each week at distribution.

Fruit/Egg/Pasta Membership Agreement for the 2009 Season

Please check which shares you would like:

____ Eggs Half Share ($44.00) ____ Eggs Full Share ($82.50)

____ Fruit Half Share ($110.00) ____ Fruit Full Share ($220.00)

____ Pasta Share ($93.50)

Name: ___________________________________________

Address: _________________________________________

_________________________________________________

Phone: ___________________________________________

Email: ____________________________________________

$______ Total Amount Enclosed -- Payment towards CSA Extra Shares

_______ I would like to pay with food stamps.

Member Signature: ______________________________________________ Date:________________

Please send payment and agreement to: Flatbush Farm Share, 416 Ocean Ave. #75, Brooklyn, NY 11226

If you have any questions please contact membership@flatbushfarmshare.com