CSA Week 1, 2020!!!

Normally I would write about how excited we are for the first pick up,and don’t get me wrong, we are. But, not surprisingly to anyone (hi, this is Earth, have we met?) this Spring has been filled with anxiety over things not just to do with the weather (frosts, freeze, hail, too much rain, too little rain…) but with how we are going to accommodate all our regular CSA members, AND the so many who were looking for a safe, local source of produce. CSA will surely be different this year, but IT IS happening, and that’s what counts! We have lots of fun things planned to keep it interesting, fun and healthy. We will be keeping it safe too, so you will receive emails from me from time to time asking if you feel safe and what you would like to have happen.

The first pickup is so exciting! Actually, it is somewhat filled with angst here at the farm: there is the organizing the membership for the season (over 650 of you), making a massive excel sheet to keep track of who is picking up where, separate sheets for each location, etc, etc, all of which creates a certain stress level in the office. BUT, to be honest, the planning Glenn, your farmer, puts in to having wonderful produce week in and week out, getting it picked and packed and on the right truck – it’s a lot! And, of course, there is the constant worry about the weather, which is 100% out of our control, yet we worry none-the-less.

Yes, it’s a lot, but we love it! Not the stress and worry, but the growing and sharing of great fruits and vegetables with you and also the challenge of growing the perfect head of lettuce, harvesting early potatoes, hearing from you how amazing the such and such was… I think it is important to try to understand some of the things that go on behind the scenes so you might be more empathetic when something doesn’t go quite as planned or when we cannot accommodate a special request.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way…

It is so hard to know from week to week what will be in the box. For planning purposes, it is best to treat your CSA bag/box like a grab bag and be delightfully surprised when you unpack it and THEN mastermind your your menu for the week. There will never be any bananas or avocados, so you will never be overwhelmed with them 😉

The first few weeks are generally fairly light in weight and offerings, but you will find everything so new in the season that you will delight in the freshness of the greens and that they actually have flavor. Some of you are already spoiled (lol) because you have been getting weekly bags from us sourced not only by us but from our local farmer friends. Every week I will try to let you know what you MAY have in your bag, but there are no guarantees. Too many times I find the harvest has split the week which means whatever I have written about might not be relevant. For example, the mustard greens may not have been ready when I wrote the letter, but a little hot weather and suddenly there are bunches going into the CSA! Sometimes I don’t even hear about this until after the fact, so I end up writing about it the following week. To remedy this a little, we have a beautiful online reference with pictures and recipes; if you get something you do not recognize, feel free to reach out right away, email or any social media is perfect, and/or you can check out this page.

This week you MAY have strawberries, PEAS (check for variety) lettuce, kale, mesclun, garlic scapes!

We grow a lot of lettuce: Believe it or not, we seed about 5000 lettuce plants every 10 days to ensure a summer long supply for CSA and markets. AND NOW we even have the hydroponic lettuce too!! Over the course of the season, you may see Boston (aka Butterhead), Romaine (classic smooth oval leaves with crunchy rib), Red Romaine (dark burgundy), New Red Fire (very frilly red leaf), Oakleaf, French Batavia (a wonderful red tinged summer-crisp), Simpson (light green, very tender wavy leaf) and a frilly green leaf called Tropicana. In general, you can count on lettuce most every week, though even with that, there’s bound to be a week or two when there is a gap (back to that unpredictable weather thingy).

Disclaimer: I cook with The Force. Many of my personal “recipes” are ideas to run with, not carefully measured out. I will endeavor to persevere and try to actually write down what I did for those who are less confident with “whipping something up”. Hey all you foodies out there, please send me your recipes to share!
There are lots of recipes and ideas right here on this blog; you can do a search by name; ie: cucumber, beet, salad, etc.,.by clicking on the magnifying glass in the top menu or in the blog “archives”.
Do you have your own food blog? Let me know so we can link you.

The initial purpose of the weekly letter (22? 23? years ago) was to include a recipe or idea for what’s in the box. Those recipes appeared on a half of an 8.5×11 🙂 Clearly this concept has expanded to include more, BUT, the purpose of the recipe section remains: EAT WELL BY USING WHAT’S IN THE BOX! My goal is to keep it simple so you do just that.

Lettuce wraps

Simple dressing for greens:

2 Tb vinegar (your choice), s & p, and 1 tsp Dijon whisked together or shaken in your cruet; then whisk in 6 Tb olive oil (or shake until well mixed). Alter to fit your mood. If you are new to our farm, you will realize that our greens have flavor and are interesting without heavy dressing. By all means, use your favorite dressing – I’ve got at least one Ranch loving grandchild and a couple who put Caesar on everything, so it’s all good!

Faith and Glenn Stillman…Who is YOUR farmer?

Farm Dirt is the section I try to include a little bit about what is going on at the farm. This is also where wildlife sightings and other musings appear. If you are new to the Stillman’s family: Glenn is your farmer, I am the desk jockey/writer of this letter/farmer’s wife, daughter Kate, the farmer at Stillman Quality Meats, and her two boys Trace and Jaide who might be anywhere, son Curtis and wife Halley, the farmers at Still Life Farm (welcome young Kipling!), youngest son Reid who  is a senior in College next year,  and youngest daughter Faith, now a sophomore in high school  who you will see in many pictures involving amphibians. We all work together to have one of the best CSA and market offerings in Massachusetts!       

We are cutting garlic scapes, those freaky curled green things in your bag. In spite of an extremely cold wet April and now a dry Jue, the corn is in tassel and onions, peppers, eggplants and looking strong right now. I don’t have a handle on the strawberry crop this season…but I will know from the farmer by next week. I guess you will know too if you get a second batch of them.

Wildlife: It’s about the birds! Glenn is super excited about all the barn-swallows in the barn and now carriage shed. He grew up with them at his father’s dairy and loves their flying skill and striking appearance. The first Bluebird nestlings have fledged and the second nesting us underway. Evidence of the expanding families is found in the pepper field where the Bluebirds perch on the name-stakes while hunting. Unlike the gorgeous Cedar Waxwings which seem to know where to plague the choicest fruit, in the summer Bluebirds are mainly insectivores. In the Fall, they eat a lot of fruit and I am sure many of you have seen the pictures I post of them eating the Ilex Winterberry right outside the kitchen door. New this ear are the Catbirds going to town on the suet in the feeder – never witnessed that before, but it’s now a thing 🙂

We encourage you to become part of the farm and be connected to your food and farmer; visit, check out the crops, sample in the field, picnic, watch the birds, amphibians, and insects!    

Eat well, Geneviève Stillman
Next week: strawberries, lettuces, radishes chard, kale, maybe chard and beets