Archives for May 2016

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What’s In The Boxes For Next Week?

Yo, What’s Fresh and On Sale?

I have to say that I love the first week of June. By June 1st all of the summer plants are in the ground. When you get too far into June, any long season plants like tomatoes and melons will have a hard time producing before the nip of Jack Frost will kill their momentum. So we really use the first week of June as the end of our summer planting.

It is an interesting time psychologically as well because it is the time when your planning is over. Optimism runs into the wall of reality. Talk to any farmer in January and February and they are beaming with optimism. By June reality starts to set in and you hear, “Stinking flea beetles killed my new seeds and weeds swallowed my carrots.”

In your life, you will never meet anyone more optimistic than a farmer. And you will never meet anyone more used to suffering loss than a farmer. They say that people who are addicted to gambling actually get a bigger high off of losing than they do winning. It makes me wonder if farmers are addicted gamblers with dirty hands??

With all of that said, we are experiencing a pretty good year so far. Greens and roots have been rocking and we are just dipping into the summer squash harvest. Cukes will be next. So I cannot complain of loss too much right now. Hopefully this bounty will continue. Fingers crossed.

This is a good time to talk about summer squash actually. We are growing some really crazy looking squash this year. Most of them look like they came out of Roswell or seed created by an alien life form. These squash, most of them in the patty pan variety, are perfect for grilling. They have a little denser flesh than most zucchini types so they grill up very nicely. Regardless of how you cook them, use them in a similar fashion as you would any zucchini.

My other love of the first week in June is it being the week that we launched the CSA in 2003. We began as a CSA farm and still today operate as a CSA farm. We have never been a Farmers’ Market or wholesale driven farm. From the first harvest until now, we do what we do for our members. Sure our model has expanded and we raise 150 pigs a year (never thought I would be a pig farmer), but our roots are still the exact same as when the farm broke ground.

My favorite statistic from our history happened in the first week of our CSA, 2003. At the time, they was only one CSA in the community. So the idea of supporting a farm (besides going to the farmers’ market) was foreign to most folks. Because of that, I was only able to bring 17 members to the table by our first week. Someone not so lovingly called my farm and dream of a CSA “A Lemonade Stand.” Another local (farmers’ market) grower literally laughed in my face “You think a CSA can work here? Haha.”

But then by the second week, an amazing thing happened, our CSA doubled to 34. Our members loved the food and this new CSA idea so much that they told their friends/family and viola, the Lemonade Stand was running.

And there is no time of your life when you will feel as vulnerable as you do when you say, “Hey, folks, this is my dream, please support it/me.” So when people get behind you and help support/push your dream, the feeling is right up there with watching the birth of your child. There is that same sense of responsibility and of working hard (and smart) to not let your babies down. Now, our little baby is in her Testing Teen years and I have never felt better or more confident in what we have raised together.

It is crazy for me to see too that the little kiddos who used to come to the farm and ride their tricycles around are sending me graduation announcements and going on to great things. They are a reminder for me that people change, families change, and yes, even we have changed a lot. But what has never changed is our commitment to our members and bringing you the best and healthiest food. Thanks for sharing this wonderful journey with me.

Farmer Monte

Check Out Next Week’s Harvest Boxes

Take Me To Log In

What’s Tasty and On Sale?

First off, I would like to take a moment to welcome our Phoenix members to the farm. This past January, some of you may recall, we began home delivery in the greater Tucson area. Over the last 4 years, the number of growers we have partnered with in Arizona has become very strong. Our winter producers are almost all in Arizona. It is funny, we are ramping up in our fields and they are heading into the last month before their “off-season.”

It gets too hot to grow much food during the summer, but the winter temperatures are perfect. Additionally, we are neighbors. So as we shared the idea of our home delivery distribution model with our partner farms, many of them said the exact same thing– man, that would be cool if we had that. And after hearing that repeated so many times, the seed was planted to see if we could make this work.

So we welcomed Tucson to the family in February and are now happy to bring Phoenix to the party as well. With Phoenix on-board, our distribution map looks almost identical to the map of our growers. Honestly, this type of collaboration has been and will remain the vision for this farm’s future. These partnerships among growers and producers will be our compass moving forward.

We have to broaden our scope of work and not be stuck in a myopic view that one farm has to bring everything to the table. We cannot be everything to everyone. So I truly believe that the next phase of cultivating a local and regional food landscape must be deeply rooted in collaborative partnerships. We have to get rid of this Us v Them mentality that still plagues agricultural markets.

For this food movement to truly be sustainable, it must be realistic and it must work 12 months out of the year. You cannot put forth a food model that is only viable in July and August and then turn around and say it is sustainable. Our community’s farm food model must feed people every week of the year. No exceptions. And that is what we have put together: a partnership of healthy producers, who grow and make incredible foods, supplying you with food throughout the entire calendar.

I realized early on that we are stronger together than we ever will be alone. As I wrote about a few weeks ago, the food landscape is no joke right now. Huge national chain stores are seeing decreasing sales for the first time in years. And when the big box stores get spooked with falling numbers, look out. There is going to be a showdown outside the saloon coming up folks.

And those fights between the big stores means unrest for the small mom ‘n pop growers like us and many other artisan producers. None of the small producers, farmers, or ranchers is strong enough financially to engage in price wars with the big boys and girls. We cannot afford lost leaders on our shelves. Everything that we produce must be profitable and help stay afloat financially. So how the heck can we make all of this work?

The greatest thing that we have on our side is the elimination of the middleman. We have fired the middle man. Working directly with farms means that we do not lose money to outsiders. So besides having the freshest food you can find, we can still bring you amazing value for your money. All while supporting family farms and producers throughout the Southwest. To me amigos, this is what the face of a sustainable food system should look like.

So look forward to some tasty additions to our already awesome line-up of producers. Thank you for supporting us and again I welcome all of our neighbors to the party, Farmer Monte

Next Week Tasty Boxes

Log Me In Please

What’s Hot in the Sale Barn?

Hey folks, this week has been an absolute burner of a week, so I will have to run a new newsletter next week.

Tons of plants hitting the ground this week. Okra, melons, eggplant, second round of tomatoes, peppers, and more. It’s a beautiful site to taste.

Here is some stuff that we had going on recently from last week’s newsletter if you missed it. Have a great week….

Meats. We have finished our Spring harvest of animals for you. 2 grass-fed local Angus steers and 25 pigs that we raised from infancy on our fields in the South Valley. All in all, I could not be happier with the quality and the quantity of meats that we have in our freezer right now. You will not find a better fed, more humanely raised group of animals than we bring you. Now comes the fun part of needing to transfer the meat from us to you.

Please help us out and try to stock up on some meats at your homestead. It really alleviates a lot of pressure from our overstocked warehouse. We want to continue to bring you the best quality for the lowest cost that we can. When we have to start building (buying) storage space, the price of the meats gets passed to you. So be a doll and take some of these amazing meats home with you.

But what is coming through in spades are the greens from the farm. Just a gorgeous harvest time for lettuce, kale, chard, and radishes right now. This window between when the weather goes from warm to hot (mid-June) is our time to shine with greens. Enjoy for the next 4 weeks. After that, the sun hammers the greens too hard and we have to wait to bring them back in the fall.

Orange honey dew. So excited about this melon. No this is not some genetic freak grown in a lab. It is just a perfectly grown melon at the beginning of a yummy long summer for melons. We first started growing these crazy colored dews like 9 years ago and I loved them. To me, they have a hint of orange sherbert, or maybe that is just what my eyes tell me to taste. Do me a favor though and do not eat these melons chilled.

I think that refrigeration, although necessary, can really kill the true complexities of some fruits. Strawberries, peaches, and melons are on my short list of things that I like to eat at room temperature or even better yet, warmed in the sun. It is similar to why you don’t want to drink a complex red wine cold, all the flavors get locked up. So try it with these Orange Dews and eat them on the warmer side.

The Skarsgard Juice Bar. No we are not starting another business, but we have opened a new juice bar on our web site. Recently I have gotten back into drinking juice blends and I have to say that my old body feels great. We are all so busy and try like heck to do as our moms told us to do and “Eat your veggies.” But sometimes life doesn’t allow us the freedom to eat your veggies, so I want to make it easier to drink your veggies. We are working with some really great juice companies and bringing you incredible Organic produce, in the convenience of a bottle.

Folks, our bodies eat for two reasons. One is needing calories to fuel our engines to keep our bodies going. But two, and this is the one most often overlooked, is that we need nutrients. When you eat fast food, you get calories, but no nutrients. So then the body feels hungry (for nutrients) but is not in need of more calories. People then eat more food trying to satiate this hunger, but will never feel full without the nutrients to make the body happy.

This leads to obesity etc. The juices hit your body with the nutrients you need to not feel so hungry. Obviously getting all your nutrients from food is ideal, but I encourage you to play with these juices too and see how your body feels.

Farmer Monte

Next Week’s Harvest Boxes

Yo, Log Me In Please

What’s Fresh in the Sale Barn?

Plant Sale, all I can say is wow. Biggest turnout ever, selling 1,600 plants in the span of 3 hours. Thank you to everyone who came out. I think we got through it without too many snags. Definitely a lot to learn from moving forward, but we are getting better every year with it. Next year I think we are looking at expanding it out over two weekends to accommodate all the interest. Thank you!

Meats. We have finished our Spring harvest of animals for you. 2 grass-fed local Angus steers and 25 pigs that we raised from infancy on our fields in the South Valley. All in all, I could not be happier with the quality and the quantity of meats that we have in our freezer right now. You will not find a better fed, more humanely raised group of animals than we bring you. Now comes the fun part of needing to transfer the meat from us to you.

Please help us out and try to stock up on some meats at your homestead. It really alleviates a lot of pressure from our overstocked warehouse. We want to continue to bring you the best quality for the lowest cost that we can. When we have to start building (buying) storage space, the price of the meats gets passed to you. So be a doll and take some of these amazing meats home with you.

Looks like the blood oranges from San Diego that I wrote about last week will be pushed back a week and we will try again next week. Weather did not help us out this time.

But what is coming through in spades are the greens from the farm. Just a gorgeous harvest time for lettuce, kale, chard, and radishes right now. This window between when the weather goes from warm to hot (mid-June) is our time to shine with greens. Enjoy for the next 4 weeks. After that, the sun hammers the greens too hard and we have to wait to bring them back in the fall.

Orange honey dew. So excited about this melon. No this is not some genetic freak grown in a lab. It is just a perfectly grown melon at the beginning of a yummy long summer for melons. We first started growing these crazy colored dews like 9 years ago and I loved them. To me, they have a hint of orange sherbert, or maybe that is just what my eyes tell me to taste. Do me a favor though and do not eat these melons chilled.

I think that refrigeration, although necessary, can really kill the true complexities of some fruits. Strawberries, peaches, and melons are on my short list of things that I like to eat at room temperature or even better yet, warmed in the sun. It is similar to why you don’t want to drink a complex red wine cold, all the flavors get locked up. So try it with these Orange Dews and eat them on the warmer side.

The Skarsgard Juice Bar. No we are not starting another business, but we have opened a new juice bar on our web site. Recently I have gotten back into drinking juice blends and I have to say that my old body feels great. We are all so busy and try like heck to do as our moms told us to do and “Eat your veggies.” But sometimes life doesn’t allow us the freedom to eat your veggies, so I want to make it easier to drink your veggies. We are working with some really great juice companies and bringing you incredible Organic produce, in the convenience of a bottle.

Folks, our bodies eat for two reasons. One is needing calories to fuel our engines to keep our bodies going. But two, and this is the one most often overlooked, is that we need nutrients. When you eat fast food, you get calories, but no nutrients. So then the body feels hungry (for nutrients) but is not in need of more calories. People then eat more food trying to satiate this hunger, but will never feel full without the nutrients to make the body happy.

This leads to obesity etc. The juices hit your body with the nutrients you need to not feel so hungry. Obviously getting all your nutrients from food is ideal, but I encourage you to play with these juices too and see how your body feels.

Salud, Farmer Monte