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We are working in the greenhouse this week transplanting lettuce from the seedbeds to their individual pots. I cannot wait to eat lettuce again! This a spring time ritual for us.

The fields have been dry enough to get started on turning over the soil. This is done with a tractor. There is one more step with the tractor which makes the soil soft and fluffy. Then, it is either covered with ground cover which we then transfer theses plants into; or it might be seeded with a cover crop so that ground covering plants can grow. We rotate our various gardens each year in an attempt to outwit the insect pests!

We have CSA Farm Shares available for the 2020 Harvest Season! The garden is NOT closed. Everything will be okay . . . Happy Spring and Go Well . . .

We are working from home–as usual. As we know, a lot can happen in a week. For example, take a look at those tiny seeds that were just starting to pop up through the soil one week ago!

From the above photo, you can see they have grown tall enough to undergo the first transplanting into their individual pots where they will stay until they are large enough and sturdy enough to be undergo their final transplanting into the field gardens. Meanwhile, even more seedbeds are being planted and other seedbeds are awaiting transplant to individual pots. And so the manual labor process of CSA Farming begins!

Even these first baby steps require hard work and dedication, but it can be a “zen experience” where one gets “into the flow” of the work. Music helps me. Our plants like all kinds of music–from classical to classic rock and everything in between. Happy Plants equal Happy Vegetables!

CSA Farm Shares are available for the 2020 Harvest Season. Join us!

It is interesting how things have changed since we first started farming in the Cane Creek Valley over twenty years ago. There are more businesses dotting the surrounding landscape. There are many, many more houses in the area. And the traffic along Cane Creek Road has increased exponentially!

There are new and constantly changing vegetable varieties as well as changing Produce Safety Rules and requirements. Marketing has even changed. Today we see a shift to e-commerce and online shopping—what is being called the “Amazon Effect.” Our customers are getting younger—or perhaps, we are simply getting older!

On the flip side, much remains the same. The soil still smells sweet in the spring, the creek still flows, the daffodils still bloom in early March, the birds still build their nests, weeds proliferate, and insect pests abound! We continue to operate our small farm as a wildlife sanctuary and do our best to attract the beneficial insects and bees required for pollination. Robert and I are still growing vegetables on our family farm—just not asparagus, but that is another story entirely. We still have various CSA Box pickup sites located around Buncombe County and make home deliveries to various areas. Some of our families have been with us for fifteen years–but we are always looking for more new CSA Members.

As always our CSA Members are concerned about sustainability of food supply chains and knowing who, where, and how their food is produced. Today this is called “traceability” and the word “blockchain technology” is being tossed about. One thing for sure is when your family eats from our CSA box, there is no question about the source of the vegetables your family is eating!

Right now everything on our small, Fairview farm looks perfect! Seedbeds are being started in the greenhouse and transplanting the tiny seedlings will soon begin. The fields are a bit damp at the moment, but there is time for them to dry out before we begin direct seeding and transplanting into the gardens. We don’t know what Mother Nature has in plan for us this 2020 Harvest Season, but we are on our way with our ever present bright and optimistic outlooks.

We have farm shares available for the 2020 Harvest Season. Robert and I would love to have your family join our veggie lovin’ tribe!  Please submit the Join Our CSA form on our website or give us a call if you have questions not yet addressed.

CSA Shares are available for the 2020 Harvest Season!  We will be starting our first seedbeds just after this weekend so we can start filling our CSA Boxes in late May.

We don’t use a lot of pressure, hype, or pomotional marketing to get our customers.  We simply rely on our many, many years of CSA Farming experience!  We get most of our customers from word-of-mouth advertising.  We think the fact that some of our families have been with us for ten to fifteen years speaks highly with regard to the quality of our produce and our customer service.

We would love to have you join us!  Fill out and submit the form on our website, please!

You can control your destiny with your food choices. Preparing and cooking whole foods at home does require time, but your health is worth the investment.

With plenty of resources available, one does not need even to grow a vegetable garden in their backyard to eat in a healthy manner. Grocery stores carry fresh vegetables and frozen vegetables and fruits and nuts and many other foods which are not of the junk food variety. There are farmers markets. There are U-Pick farms. And there are CSAs where your family can have their own Personal Farmer!

Robert and I would LOVE to be your Personal Farmers! Join our CSA now for the 2020 Harvest Season!

Seed catalogues cover the counters and tables as Robert attempts to decide the best vegetable varieties for us to plant for the 2020 Harvest Season. It seems every company has some of our “must haves.” Therefore, we are placing multiple seed orders.

We are not going to “target” our potential customers with any “special marketing ploys” to get you to join our CSA.  But we do need to order and plant enough seeds now so that we are prepared to begin filling our CSA Boxes in mid- to late-May.

Robert and I have twenty years of experience in operating a CSA farm. Some of our families have been with us ten or fifteen years!

We grow using organic inputs, but we are not certified. We plant many different crops and varieties in “waves” in an attempt to always be able to fill our CSA Boxes with a good variety of vegetables each week.

We have various pick up locations and several limited delivery routes.

We are doing our best to make it easy for your family to obtain and eat fresh, local, seasonal food. Please let us know if you want to be a part of our CSA Community in 2020!

Faith rules our belief that we can plant microscopic seeds in our greenhouse which will grow into seedlings which we will be able to transplant into the gardens where they will survive the many elements of nature to grow into beautiful heads of broccoli, lettuce, cauliflower, etc. It may seem early, but if we are to have veggies to fill our CSA Boxes in mid-May, we must begin the work now.

On our family farm we start investing time and money without having “CSA payments in the bank.” Our decision to totally assume the financial risk sets us apart from most CSA Farms. We used to worry about selling enough farm shares to use all of the vegetables we grow. However, over the years, we have learned to let that same faith rule and believe:  If we plant vegetables, CSA Members will come!

Many of you told us last fall you wanted to be included in our 2020 CSA Membership.  We have your space reserved.  We always have room for new members so spread the word Cane Creek Asparagus & Company CSA is planning for the 2020 Harvest Season!

Robert was able to get the fall garden clean up accomplished much earlier than usual.  With all of his extra time and energy, he has been cleaning up the fence rows and tearing down climbing vines from the trees.  He is making huge, random piles of refuse in the process.  These piles will not be burned, but left in place for the wildlife to enjoy.  Two truckloads of trash were also gathered.  It seems the back country roads of Fairview are often mistaken for landfills. We much rather see a truckload of vegetables!

Interestingly, Robert did discover an old campsite deep in the cane section of our farm.  It appears one or perhaps two people were either living or hiding out there at some point in time.  Of course, this is concerning to us, but does prove just how dense the growth of cane is!  This property cleanup will not be finished in the near future, but it is a start on a job which will provide many days of vigorous exercise.

Now that the holidays are over we can all take a moment to catch our collective breaths.  I trust you and your loved ones will have a Healthy, Happy New Year in 2020!

Robert and I traveled out of state to visit my parents, extended family, and friends in December. We also found it necessary to replace a couple of major household fixtures. It turns out hot water and refrigeration are items one cannot easily live without in modern life!

My favorite Christmas gift this year (other than the hot water heater and refrigerator!) is this niffy little kitchen gadget. It will totally scoop up the used coffee grinds from a French press in one fell swoop and will work equally well with a blender or mixer.  I can say with a degree of certainty Santa found it at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, in case anyone is interested in obtaining one.

Anyone who reads my “Blog” knows by now that I am NOT a very frequent Blogger. It seems other projects always require more of my time and attention than sitting down to write. I trust that each time you pickup one of your CSA Boxes and delve into it, you realize that I spend the majority of my time managing seeds, plants, and produce!

The a fore mentioned groundhog has been vanquished, but not before doing damage to our storage area door. As I said before, he KNEW there was something inside that he wanted to eat and would stop at nothing to get at it! Wild animals are much smarter than we humans give them credit for being. Of course, this does not apply to those found flat on the road, but most are quite savvy.

Sweet potatoes are still coming up from the garden. Digging them is a laborious job which can only be accomplished with intermittent spurts of devoted energy. For the most part they grow vertically. Robert plants them on a mound, but you can see the length of some and I trust you understand why the potatoes sometimes are broken. The “wound” is not pretty, but it does no harm to the sweet potato flesh beyond the break. The largest thus far is just over four pounds! We have not measured lengths in inches. The bags of smaller ones are great for roasting–skin on or skin off as you please. They are even sweeter than the large ones because of the concentration of natural sugars.

Today a CSA Member questioned how to freeze spaghetti squash pulp. Our formula is to simply wash, cut in half, remove the seeds, and bake (skin side up) in a 350 degree oven until the skin begins to brown on top. By this time the flesh will be fork tender. Remove and let cool to the temperature where you can scrape out the spaghetti pulp. Go back to my September 4th Blog if you want to see photos of Robert doing this prep. I know this vegetable can be daunting to “get into.” But it is so worth the effort!

I let the pulp cool a bit longer before packaging it for the freezer. Use a quality freezer bag to get the full flavor when you defrost and eat the spaghetti squash later. If I use a “lessor quality, but still BPA free” bag for freezing, I then repackage into a vacuum sealed bag. TIP: This “double packing” means the vacuum seal bag stays clean and can be recycled. If you use them, you know they can be expensive. But if you “cut them long” and “double bag,” you can recycle many times as long as you cut it open in a straight line along the top.

I use spaghetti squash as a pasta substitute and put sauce and meatballs on top. Or sometimes I put sauteed green peppers and or eggplant on top. I have a spaghetti squash soup recipe on the web site under “W” for Winter Squash.” Recently I found an organic Sweet Carrot Ginger Miso salad dressing which is a delightful accompaniment to spaghetti squash. You can heat the squash or leave it cold and drizzle the dressing on top.

In the boxes look for sweet potatoes–some are beautiful specimens, some less so. Also, our specialty potatoes with the golden flesh which we think make the BEST mashed potatoes ever! (Yes, I even freeze dollops of them. Nothing goes to waste around here!) We still have plenty of spaghetti squash (they love our gardens and produce well). We have some acorn squash and carnivals left. Oh, and a few butternut which I have not even dispersed yet. There is still time before Thanksgiving Week! Our last boxes of the season will go out on Tuesday, November 26–the entire week in one day! I will email these details to each and every CSA Member in the near future so we can coordinate Thanksgiving Holiday schedules as needed.