CSA SPRING SHARE WEEK #13 Wishing you and your families all the best in the New Year! We thank you for your support of our farm thus far this season. This is the last box of the Spring Share. With the beans and tomatoes starting to appear in the boxes, summer produce is truly here! We look forward to continuing filling boxes in this next season!!

Please remember, next week's delivery returns to a Wednesday. Farm pick up returns this week to FRIDAY 2 January 2-5pm and SATURDAY 3 January 8-11am.

With several families being away over Christmas and several un-collected boxes, the farm donated quite a bit of food to families around the peninsula. It is wonderful to be able to offer extra produce to the community. We are lucky to have contact with Lorraine whom works with 'Second Bite', the local Brotherhood centre, and 'Connections', an organisation training disabled people to work in commercial kitchens. We will continue to have some surplus produce that we can pass on to these organisations. We will be hosting a "gleaning" harvest day. With the summer push of growth upon us, we do not have the time to do extra harvesting. With your help, we could harvest surplus produce for these organisations. Please let us know if you are interested.

There are extra zucchini and cucumbers this week as well as extra items that were ready for harvest. The half share boxes have 13 items and the full share 17. We hope that you can take advantage of the extra produce. We have included ideas below as well as preserving ideas.

NOTES ON WHAT'S GROWING

The growth in the patch is incredible! The corn has begun tasseling and ears are forming. Soon the pollen will fall, hopefully pollinating each kernel so that they fill out forming succulent ears of sweet corn. There are baby pumpkins and the vines have started running. The first sunflower is blooming. There are baby eggplant and capsicums. All of the plants are taking full advantage of the daylight hours with growth in almost double the time of early Spring.

We are harvesting the last of the Summer broccoli. Some of the heads are enormous!! The population of white cabbage moths has increased. This is unsprayed broccoli - do check it for green caterpillars.

We still have plantings of English Spinach coming on for next week but the peas will falter as the weather heats up. This is the last of the Sugar snap peas. We hope the snow peas will avoid the powdery mildew which plagues late pea plantings.

The beans have started. The first crop was stunted by the late frost-there are still beans but it is not a huge harvest. The second planting looks much fuller and healthier. We have seeded planting five of the beans and the sweet corn...we hope to be harvesting these in March! We have also begun the seeding in the greenhouse of Autumn crops.

NOTES ON STORING THE HARVEST Please check out our Vegetable & Fruit page on the website to find tips on maximizing the life of your veggies. We envisage that many of the vegetables you are receiving this week will last for two weeks with careful attention to storing upon arrival. Although we do wash all the greens after harvest, we are washing to take the heat out of the plants and wash away some surface dirt, not to prepare them for consumption. We also spray a seaweed/herb brew about every ten days. While this will not harm you, it does have a taste. We do suggest washing your produce prior to eating.

WHAT’S IN THE BOX The following are the items harvested this week. Items and quantities in your box may vary depending on your harvest day and the total harvest of each crop. The boxes are completely governed by what is ripe and ready for harvest and how much of it there is. We endeavor to divide the harvest fairly. 1/4 share: 5-7 items 1/2 share: 8-10 items Full Share: 10-12 items

Basil Beans – Green and yellow French beans. Broccoli Carrots – Bunches of heirloom multi-coloured carrots. Cucumbers Garlic – 'Australian White'. We put the smaller bulbs in the boxes first as the larger ones store better. Lettuce Peas – sugar snap peas or snow peas. Wonderful in a salad or a stir fry! Radishes Rocket – Great for salads and pizzas Spring Onions

Tomatoes

Zucchini –

Extras Romanesco Broccoli – These are best cooked more like a cauliflower then a broccoli. They do not have the size of the Autumn heads. Cauliflower Celery Squash – 'Golden Crookneck' and/or 'Bennings Green Tint'(also known as Patty Pans - We like them baked. Here is the recipe.)