Grand Street CSA

Provider Farm Beef and Veal Available

2012-05-18T21:38:00.000-04:00

Provider Farm has lots of ground beef and steaks from their very own pasture-raised jersey cows available now for order. Jersey cow beef is higher than other breeds in monounsaturated fats (the good fats that help lower cholesterol!) Provider Farm cows are raised in the sun and fed on grass, naturally.

Use the order form below. We'll be collecting payment during our first distribution on June 5. Beef and veal will be delivered along with our regular shares for our third distribution on June 19.

Sold Out for 2012

2012-04-30T13:31:00.002-04:00

Well, folks, that's it -- we're all sold out for 2012. If you know anyone who is interested but just couldn't pull the trigger this year, make sure they put their name on our waitlist for 2013.

We will keep our maple syrup orders open for another day. Information is here and the order form is here.

LowLine Fundraiser Thursday at Donnybrook

2012-04-25T14:12:00.000-04:00

CSA members may be interested in the curious Delancey Underground project -- aka the LowLine -- that's been getting some attention recently. Basically the idea is to turn the unused trolley terminal underneath Delancey Street into a public park, with innovative solar collectors that would bring sunlight below ground, enabling grass and plants to grow.

One member has asked us to share an invitation for a fundraiser taking place Thursday evening at 7pm at Donnybrook (owned by another CSA member) on Clinton and Stanton.

Lower East Side Friends of the LowLine
cordially invite you to attend a fundraiser in support of
the Delancey Underground project (aka ‘LowLine’)

Please join us as Delancey Underground founders
DAN BARASCH & JAMES RAMSEY
will present their visionary concept for an underground park beneath Delancey Street

WHEN: THURSDAY, APRIL 26 at 7:00 PM
WHERE: DONNYBROOK 35 Clinton Street (corner of Stanton Street)

Suggested donation is $50 (cash or check only, please)
$20+ donation gets you one glass of wine, beer, or well drink compliments of Donnybrook
Checks should be made out to: “The Underground Development Foundation”

Please RSVP: Friendsofthelowline@gmail.com

Can’t make it but still want to support the project? Donate online at delanceyunderground.org/donate

This invitation is transferable and can be forwarded to any interested parties.
Delancey Underground is a registered 501(c)(3) organization. All donations are tax deductible.

April News from Provider Farm

2012-04-23T08:33:00.003-04:00

If you want to receive updates from Provider Farm in your own mail box, subscribe to their newsletter here.

Dear Friends,

It is with great pleasure that I sit down on this rainy day to write this newsletter! I have been watching the radar and checking the forecast for what seems like every hour for the past few days in great anticipation of this much needed rain

It couldn't have come any earlier since for the past two weeks we have been busy planting broccoli, cabbage, chinese cabbage, scallions, lettuce, chard, kale, kohlrabi and beets out in the field. Two long season crops, our onions and leeks also went in this week. By far two of our favorite crops, we grow almost an entire acre of these pungent staple crops to ensure that your peppers aren't lonely, and you have leeks for your potato leek soup! It is kind of funny to be thinking about fall in the first few weeks of spring but in order to ensure that our harvest buckets are full all season, we always keep an eye on the horizon.

Max has been busy putting seeds in the ground, including peas, greens, carrots, spinach, radishes and spring turnips, rounding us out to about 2 acres planted so far. When he's not driving the seeding tractor, he's been out preparing the land for planting and spreading our back pasture with compost to get it ready for the cows.

I have been scurrying about setting up irrigation, trying to keep up with the sun and drying winds that refuse to quit. Even our wet fields have been looking dry, our dry fields look like desert and the swamps have been getting lower by the minute. Without irrigation, we would not have been able to plant, end of story.

Still, most growers would agree, if you have a good irrigation system, a dry season is preferable to a wet one. You can always add water but you can never take it away. Excessive water can cause all kinds of problems, transmitting disease, drowning plants, and making it impossible to get tractors into the field. Too much rain can literally bring farm operations to a standstill.

We have inherited a great system set up at the Bailey fields that has been hard at work watering in all our broccoli and cabbage. However, as some of you returning members know, water has been an issue at our far fields in the past. Well not this year! Through the countless hours of dedicated hard work and a bit of much appreciated familial financial assistance from Larry(Kerry's father), it looks like we will have an ample water supply for all of our crops this year. Larry has been hard at work designing, assembling and implementing a very practical, functional irrigation system for all of our previously, unirrigated land and we thank him for it!

The past two great big weeks of work wouldn't be possible if it was just Max and I here on the farm. We are grateful to welcome our two wonderful apprentices to our farming family. Kara is a real local girl, hailing from Waterford CT. She has a degree in horticulture from UCONN and managed the gardens at the Mystic Seaport Museum. Tana has come all the way from the Pacific Northwest to join us here at Provider Farm. Last season she was the assistant grower at Overlook Farm in Rutland Mass. Our apprentices are really the back bone of our farm, we couldn't do anything with out them. They have been undaunted by every task we have thrown at them, from picking rocks the size of our hatch back, to transplanting literally thousands of transplants in just two days.

Victory with baby Vinny.

By far the most exciting news of the week is the arrival of our two baby boy calves. It sure was refreshing to see some new life when everything else looked like it was ready to shrivel up. On the two hottest days in a row this spring, we came home from the fields to find Mamas Victory and Juno deciding it was a good time to calve. Juno was the first to go. Her progress was slow, but after two hours and with a little final coaxing from us, she was up and cleaning off her new calve Joe-baby. Victory, continuing to prove herself as a fine cow, popped Vinny out in just over a half an hour and was up and caring for him right away. We have one more calf to go . With the rain, we hope to see some good pasture growth and have the cows out grazing soon.

That's it for now folks, we will see you all in about five weeks for the first share! I hope you enjoy this rain as much as I am.

On behalf of our farm crew,
Tana, Kara and Larry

Your Farmers,
Kerry and Max

Become a CSA Chef

2012-04-21T07:57:00.000-04:00

Just Food is the non-profit group that helps to set up CSAs throughout NYC. Part of your membership fee ($5) goes to support their CSA in NYC program for expanding food opportunity throughout New York and supporting existing CSAs (like ours).

Their CSA Chef Program is designed to teach CSA members "how to conduct cooking demonstrations about local, seasonal eating and cooking; fruit and vegetable identification; and food storage and preparation." Trained CSA chefs are then expected to offer cooking demonstrations at their CSA distribution sometime during the season.

There are two possible 1-day training sessions you could join, June 2 or June 9. Each session lasts from 9am to 5pm and is conveniently located at the Whole Foods on Houston and Bowery.

Each CSA is allowed to send only one member each year for training, so please email info@grandstreetcsa.org if you are interested and we can work out the details.

Maple Syrup Available for 2012

2012-04-18T14:17:00.000-04:00

Maple Syrup from Circle C Maple Farm was a big hit last year, so we're happy that Joseph and Cathy Cicero have a new harvest for us to enjoy. The funky spring weather (is it 80°? is it 30°?) was not ideal for maple sap, but enough juice was flowing to leave some inventory for us.

This year we have plenty of Grade B Quarts available for $21, and a small amount of dark amber and medium amber in pints ($13), quarts ($21), and half gallons ($35).

Sign up right now online to make sure you don't miss out.

We're asking members to pay for their syrup at our first distribution on Tuesday, June 5. Syrup will then show up a week later, on June 12.

This Maple syrup is all natural, organically processed from a family-owned farm in the Shawangunks Mountains.

Did you know? Sap is mostly water. Starting with approximately 2.5% sugar, the sap is boiled down to 67% sugar to make maple syrup. It will take 42 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.

The Ciceros do not use a vacuum to suck sap from the trees -- they don't overtap or damage the trees. Sap just drips out of the tree one drop at a time ... over 46,000 drops to get 1 gallon of sap.

Sign up right now online to make sure you don't miss out.

April Updates

2012-04-18T07:06:00.000-04:00

If you're on Facebook, be sure to Like Provider Farm to get their updates directly as the season approaches. They've got two new calves on the farm, and have moved their first plantings from greenhouse to ground. Max and Kerry are dancing around like crazy to get some more of those April showers.

Also, we'll have a big email going out shortly to let you know about limited supplies of Circle C Maple Syrup available again this year.

If you haven't yet signed up for your work shifts, please do so soon -- you are required to help out during two distribution shifts sometime during the season. Pick your dates now at VolunteerSpot. (And please sign up with the same email you used to register for the CSA, so we can credit your membership accurately.)

Finally, we have three shares left to sell, so if you have a friend or neighbor who's been dithering, now's the time to sign up.

March News from Provider Farm

2012-03-18T07:32:00.001-04:00

Kerry writes in from the farm:

Well here it is 65 degrees outside and its only the middle of March. This has got to be the earliest spring we have ever seen here on the farm and we are making good use of it. Last week we started all of our onions, leeks, scallions and the first lettuce in the greenhouse. We are just starting to see the first onions poking up out of the ground. We grow all our own seedlings and over 60% of our crops get started in the greenhouse so we have many hours of seeding still ahead of us. This week we will be seeding beets, chard and cabbage.

Our greenhouse adventures began with a late Saturday afternoon recovering of our greenhouse. Every four years, the plastic on greenhouses needs to replaced as it is weakened by the sun and light does not transmit well through it. We had plans to cover the greenhouse early on a Sunday morning (calm mornings are important when you are pulling a giant heavy piece of plastic over a structure. Don’t want it to end up in the trees with one gust of wind!) but after sitting on our duffs all day at an organic agriculture conference, we were energized to get started on a Saturday afternoon.

We started by detaching the old plastic from the frame. By 5:00, we were ready to pull the new pieces onto the greenhouse. We debated it knowing full well we would be working in the dark if we started but decided to go for it since it was calm. So one by one, we pulled the sheets of plastic over the greenhouse (greenhouses are typically covered with two layers of plastic. A fan blows air in between the two layers to create an insulating bubble which helps keep the heat in the greenhouse). To get the plastic sheets over the greenhouse we tied ropes to the plastic (using a tennis ball to keep the rope from pulling off the plastic) and then all three of us grabbed a robe and pulled it over the greenhouse, hard! By nightfall, we were reattaching the new plastic to the frame and completed our project in the truck headlights. Not bad for an evening of work.

Max has started plowing up our early fields, getting the ground ready for peas, carrots, early greens and lettuce. It is still too early to seed anything but it is nice to get into the field and get things started. It is incredibly satisfying to turn over new ground at the beginning of each season. It feels great working late into the evening with the sun still out and a warm breeze blowing.

Our cows are not quite sure why we're feeding them an hour earlier, I guess they don't know about daylight savings time. Our girls are watching the pastures with interest, waiting for the first flush of new green grass. We have three pregnant heifers on the farm right now. They should be having their calves in the next month and we are looking forward to the new additions to the farm.

We have also started pulling some of the bigger rocks out of our field. I've heard rocks referred to as 'New England potatoes'. They are always the first crop we pull out of the field in the spring and the last crop we pull out in the fall. We are in the process of organizing a rock picking party. Many hands make light work and it will give us a chance to share a meal together and enjoy some time in the fields together.

Members: Please Remember to Sign Up for Your Work Shift

2012-03-14T13:43:00.000-04:00

All members are reminded that they are required to work at two distribution shifts at some point during the season. Please pick your dates and times at VolunteerSpot:

There are three shifts each Tuesday:

Set-up, from 4:30 to 5:45, requires lifting trays of vegetables from the delivery truck and/or fine penmanship.
Bridge, from 5:30 to 7:15, requires a friendly demeanor and a passing familiarity with a broom.
Closing, from 7:00 to 8:30, requires wiping, bagging, and stacking skills, plus a little carrying.

When you go to VolunteerSpot, you will be allowed to choose your own two shifts on whatever available dates are most convenient for you.

(IMPORTANT: Please sign up to volunteer with the same email address you used to sign up for the CSA.)

If for some reason you find it impossible to set aside two distribution shifts during the summer, you can fulfill your CSA work requirement by volunteering twice at the Our Lady of Sorrows food pantry on a Wednesday or Friday during the season. If you want more information about this option, please contact us at info@grandstreetcsa.org.

Tell Your Friends to Register Soon

2012-03-09T17:01:00.001-05:00

We still have some room for 2012 but we're filling up fast -- now's the time to sign up! Tell your friends!

REGISTER NOW FOR THE 2012 SEASON.

Especially if you know anyone from the now-defunct LES CSA, please make sure they know the Grand Street CSA is their only chance for fresh, local, organic produce delivered to the neighborhood.

Sign up today!

The Lo-Down: What a CSA Offers and What it Doesn't

2012-03-06T20:57:00.001-05:00

A nice piece today on our favorite local news site:

There are plenty of reasons to participate in a CSA. It’s lovely to get fresh local vegetables every week. It’s fun to figure out new things to do with some of the more exotic or abundant ones. Eating seasonally is hard to argue with, too. And it feels good to know you’re part of a community supporting a local farmer. When the weather cooperates it’s also a good deal. But CSAs aren’t meant to be a deal, and some years your biggest reward for participating will be the knowledge that you made a tough year a little bit easier for a local farm.

Read the whole thing at the Lo-Down.

Hello from Provider Farm

2012-02-25T09:34:00.000-05:00

Registration is now open for 2012 season. Click here to sign up online.

Max and Kerry send this update from the farm in Salem, CT:

Hello Grand Street CSA,

We hope winter in the city is treating you well. Things are good here on the farm. We have been taking advantage of this unusually mild winter and are getting ready for spring. We have to remind ourselves that is the end of February because these days it really feels like the end of March. We are enjoying our last bit of down time on the farm before things really kick into gear. Our greenhouse is all set up and we will be firing up the heaters next week! Onions are the first thing we start in the greenhouse and they go in March 5th. After that Kerry and I will be spending many long days starting our seedlings waiting for our apprentices to get here April 1st.

Our cows are in pretty high spirits these days. I am sure they can't wait to get onto lush spring pastures but they seem content to munch on their hay in the barn. I am not sure if their optimism is rubbing off on us or vice versa but it seems like spring is right around the corner. We will be plowing, planting and seeding in the fields before we know it!

We really want to thank all of you for your continued support of our farm. Your share deposits are helping us purchase all the seeds, supplies and equipment we need to have the best season possible! We really couldn't do this without you. We hope that Manhattan has been as warm as South Eastern Connecticut this February and we are counting down the days till June!

Your Farmers,

Max and Kerry

P.S. Don't forget to check our facebook page for lots of photos and updates from the farm @ facebook.com/providerfarm

Registration Now Open for 2012 Season

2012-01-30T20:30:00.000-05:00

Registration Open for All at 8:30 pm

2012-01-30T14:36:00.002-05:00

Our Meet the Farmers event tonight is your chance to meet our new vegetable growers, Max and Kerry Taylor, ask questions about how our CSA works and what Max and Kerry are planning to do to make the most of their farm, and register for the 2012 season.

Please join us at 7pm in the Seward Park Co-op Community Room at 268 East Broadway. (If you don't know where the room is, please ask the security guard or follow the signs posted inside.)

We'll have laptops set up so you can fill in our online registration form, and we'll be accepting your checks and credit cards to pay for your CSA membership.

If you can't make the meeting, you'll be able to register online right here starting at 8:30pm.

(We don't have the same limit on shares that we've had for the past three years, so we are opening up registration to everyone at once -- old members, people on our wait list, the whole community -- and we will not need to turn anyone away. So don't worry about logging in exactly at 8:30, you are not going to lose your spot.)

Beef and Veal Available at Meet the Farmers Meeting Monday

2012-01-24T09:43:00.000-05:00

Kerry wrote to tell us that she and Max are looking forward to our Meet the Farmers meeting on Monday, January 30 at 7pm in the Seward Park Co-Op Community Room.

She also wanted to let us know that she can bring down some Provider Farm grass-fed beef and veal for anyone who would like the makings of a hearty mid-winter meal.

They're offering a beef and veal box special composed of 6 lbs of beef steaks and beef and veal sausages at $50 a box.

Or you can order by the cut from the price list below.

Email Kerry at kerry@providerfarm.com with your order, and you can pick it up and pay at the Meet the Farmers event on Monday.

Meet the Farmers: January 30 at 7pm

2012-01-18T14:02:00.001-05:00

The Grand Street CSA has new farmers, and they want to meet you and answer your questions.

Registration for our fifth CSA season will open after the meeting.

Tell your neighbors! We're hoping to make 2012 our best year yet!

Our New Farmers: Max and Kerry Taylor

2012-01-13T15:31:00.000-05:00

We had a very impressive meeting this week with Max and Kerry Taylor, who have taken over the operation of Woodbridge Farm*, the source of all our organic vegetables for the past four years. The core group was particularly interested in hearing from Max and Kerry whether they could evaluate why the farm's yield over the past two seasons had been so poor, and what they thought could be done to improve the situation. What we heard made us feel very comfortable -- and excited -- about welcoming them to our CSA.

They plan to increase the amount of land being farmed from 3.5 acres to 11 acres while growing for the same number of shares. (Actually, they will be growing for more shares than they are planning on selling, giving them a buffer during their first year to make sure they have the right amount of food for their customers.) Additionally, they will be planting the fields in a tighter, more efficient pattern, adding to the yield they expect.

Finally, they will be making a big change in the makeup of the soil. Our old farmer, Julia, practiced biodynamic farming, which essentially meant that there were no outside nutrients brought to the farm. Max and Kerry believe that even organic farms need a fertilizer that includes nitrogen, and will be adding that to the land. The farm will still be organic, but not certified biodynamic.

Max and Kerry have looked at the records from last year and were genuinely critical of the amount of food we were provided with, and expect to bring us much more food this year.

But please don't take our word for it -- we've invited Max and Kerry back to New York so that everyone interested in the Grand Street CSA can meet them and ask questions before committing to the season:

Monday, January 30 at 7pm

Seward Park Co-op Community Room (268 Broadway)

We will begin general registration for everyone during this meeting.

Max and Kerry have years of experience growing organic produce for CSA farms in New England. You can read more about them on their new website, and follow them on Facebook.

*Woodbridge Farm is the name of the land. Max and Kerry have renamed their own business Provider Farm, which is how we'll be referring to them from now on.

Preparing for the 2012 Season

2012-01-06T12:17:00.001-05:00

The core group will be meeting with Max and Kerry, the new farmers up at Woodbridge Farm, next week to make sure that we are ready to maintain our relationship to the farm even though the farmers have changed.

Max and Kerry both have years of experience at other, larger CSA farms in New England, and we'll be looking to hear more about their approach. We'll also want to ask them something they may not actually have a direct answer for: why our yields from the farm have been so low the past two years, and how they expect to get better results.

Paula Lukats from Just Food will be joining us -- Just Food is the organization that help set us up, and continues to offer support to CSAs throughout NYC. We'll be looking to Paula to help us during this transition.

Then, assuming we're going to forge ahead, we'll be setting up a meet-the-farmers event in short order (hopefully on Jan. 24 at 7pm, but that's not yet confirmed) for our full CSA membership and wait list. It's important to get that to happen soon so that everyone can make up their minds about joining for our 2012 season.

In the meantime, if you're on Facebook you can check out Max and Kerry's new page: http://www.facebook.com/providerfarm. (For boring incorporation reasons, the land is still called Woodbridge Farm but Max and Kerry's new business is called Provider Farm.)

Much more news soon.

Woodbridge Farm is Changing Hands

2011-11-23T11:28:00.001-05:00

There's a big change coming for the Grand Street CSA in 2012 that you should be aware of: our farmers for the past four years, Julia and David (and Heather), are moving on from Woodbridge Farm and handing the farm over to another couple.

It was a difficult year for Julia and David -- he took a job in Delaware to help with the family finances, and she gave birth to their second son in March. The result, in Julia's own words, was that she was "not able to fulfill my obligations on any level." So she's moving to join her husband and bring the family back together. She wrote to us earlier this month, saying, "while this was probably the most difficult decision a farmer can be asked to make, our departure from Woodbridge Farm should be for the good of both the farm and ourselves."

(And Heather, it should be noted, who was managing the farm this year and delivering our shares every Tuesday, is also moving on -- getting married, in fact.)

Woodbridge Farm will be handed over to Max and Kerry Taylor, experienced farmers from CSA farms in Massachusetts. Their expectation is to continue working the farm for our CSA, but before we make that commitment there are a few steps we need to take. First, Just Food will be talking to Max and Kerry to make sure they fit into the CSA in NYC program. Second, the core group from our CSA will meet with Max and Kerry to make sure that they are aware of the issues we have had the past two seasons, and to make sure we all get along. Third, we will want to schedule a meet-the-farmer earlier than usual to make sure our members are fully involved before making the decision to join again in 2012.

So there will be lots more details about all of this as we move forward, hopefully with a clear path set before the end of the year. In the meantime, we hope you're keeping your CSA herbs watered and sunned, and we hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Oh, one more thing -- if anyone is interested in joining the CORE GROUP, please write back and let us know. With these changes coming up, we would welcome some help keeping the CSA running.

Thanks!

Season's End: Last Distribution

2011-10-28T20:00:00.002-04:00

We've been a little slow to broadcast this information, but hopefully everyone picked up on it at Tuesday's distribution: end of October means end of CSA. Well, almost. Vegetables and cheese were delivered Tuesday for the last time this year; but fruit (I mean APPLES), eggs, and pasta have one last hurrah this coming Tuesday, November 1. After that, it's see you next year!

We will try to have our annual members survey up in the next couple weeks, so try to remember all your complaints and compliments. If you can't hold it in that long, feel free to email the core at info@grandstreetcsa.org. Feedback is important, and helps us steer the CSA in the right direction (when we can).

Grand Street CSA and Time/Food

2011-10-10T11:01:00.008-04:00

Time/Food @ Abrons Art Center is a temporary eatery open now through October 16, Thurs-Sunday 12-8 (Serving lunch from 1-3).
Grand Street CSA Members can participate in this unique event in a few different ways:

1) donate a portion of your share: drop a bunch of greens or one apple in our box going to Creative Time for the Time/Food eatery.

2) come to the exhibit for a $-free lunch and to learn more: Oct. 13-16 (Thurs-Sun), 1-3pm.

3) Volunteer to assist cooking at 52 Ludlow Street (buzzer BG): Contact Julie Brown (jeb570@nyu.edu/ 518.424.8487)
SHIFTS AVAILABLE: 10/13-10am-3pm, 10/14-10am-3pm, 10/15-10am-3pm, 10/16-10am-3pm

WHAT is TIME/FOOD?
time/bank is a collaborative project between Anton Vidokle (head of local e-flux) and Julieta Aranda. time/bank was created to serve as a platform "where groups and individuals can pool and trade skills, bypassing money as a measure of value." time/bank is based on the premise that everyone has something to offer to develop and sustain an alternative economy. To live out this ideology, Anton and Julieta are opening a temporary restaurant called time/food in the Lower East Side that will operate on the time/bank economic system. Artists are both creating menus and cooking, including Bik Van der Pol, Carolina Caceydos and Anton Vidokle himself!

Currently on this banking website, people post services they can offer, or things they need. By responding to these requests or offering services, you can complete a transaction and all the time you spent turns into credits. There are currently several arts organizations in NYC and Berlin that accept this time currency as money. Through the website for the NYC branch of this banking system, you can "bank time" as opposed to money.

We're happy to have the opportunity to partner with this exciting project taking place in our community. Visit http://creativetime.org/programs/archive/2011/livingasform/schedule.htm to learn more about Time/Food and LIVING AS FORM.

Woodbridge Farm Meat Shares Available

2011-09-18T22:00:00.001-04:00

Woodbridge Meat is available for the fall — see below for options, and then please email the farm directly if you are interested: woodbridgefarmonline@gmail.com.

Our herd of Milking Devons and Jerseys is at the heart of our biodynamic farm producing the gold that maintains the fertility of our land: cow manure. Our cattle are raised on pasture, which are managed in a rotational grazing system. Their diet consists of a daily piece of fresh pasture, hay, and small quantities of certified organic grain. We are nourishing the pastures with our own biodynamic compost, wood ashes, lime stone and compost teas.

American Milking Devons’ meat is recognized by the Slow Food Arc of Taste for its outstanding flavor.

We keep the horns and tails on our cows, allowing them to fully exhibit natural cattle behaviors such as establishing a hierarchy in the herd and swatting flies. They are given the ample space that their horns claim, are allowed to graze on diverse, tall pasture where they can pick and choose what suits their dietary needs best.

Our calves are raised out on pasture nursing on and learning to graze alongside their mothers - never confined, never isolated, never fed any GMO's or milk replacers.

Option 1: 15 lbs Beef Variety pack -- $145
All 15 lbs Variety packs will include 7lbs of ground beef and the remaining 8 lbs will include a variety of steaks, roasts, and various other miscellaneous cuts including short ribs, sirloin tip, London Broil, brisket, and stew meat cubes. All packages will be equal in value; the specific cuts will vary.

Option 2: 15 lbs Veal Variety pack -- $155
5 lbs of ground veal, 2 lbs of rib chops, 8 lbs of a variety of stew meat, roasts and shoulder chops.

Option 3: Ground beef Special -- 10 lbs Ground Beef -- $70

Option 4: Ground veal Special -- 10 lbs Ground Veal -- $70

Option 5: Organ Meat Special -- 10 lbs of organ meats -- $35

Option 6: 10 lbs Pork Fatback -- $12

To place your order please contact Julia: woodbridgefarmonline@gmail.com

Today's Vegetables

2011-09-13T15:26:00.000-04:00

Lettuce
Swiss Chard
Carrots
Onions
Parsley
Peppers OR Tomatoes OR Eggplant
Garlic

See you later!

Today's Vegetables

2011-09-06T06:44:00.003-04:00

This week's share will include:

Lettuce
Tomatoes
Peppers
Cucumber/eggplant
Potatoes
Acorn or delicata squash
Garlic
Basil

See you later!

Notes from Woodbridge, After Irene

2011-09-06T06:43:00.000-04:00

I'm quoting in full from Woodbridge Farm's Facebook page, because there have been a lot of questions about how they weathered last week's storm:

Hope everyone has made it through last week's storm okay... We are receiving emails and notes from fellow farmers who have lost almost everything, and the stories and pictures of the devastation to crops and livestock in some areas are shocking. We are thankful here that we sustained no serious damage, and that all animals and people are safe.

We have been out of power for almost a week, and are just getting back online. Luckily, here at the farm, we have a generator that enables us to keep our meat frozen and cheese properly stored so that a storm like this doesn't take out an entire season's worth of work. It does, of course, put a large and unexpected dent in our budget, but we are thankful that the year's work of hay stacking, milking, pasture set-up, cheese making, and especially, the sacred lives of our valuable animals have not gone to waste.

Our entire farm staff has been working incredibly hard, coming to work for harvests, especially last Tuesday, from dark homes, without showers, flushing toilets, hot meals, or laundry. Despite living in powerless homes all week, our apprentices, harvest helpers, and staff have showed up every morning, still ready to go.

Here at the farm, most damage has been relatively minimal. We have many large trees down on the pastures, knocking down fences and making areas unsafe for cattle, but all of our animals survived unscathed, and buildings and infrastructure sustained relatively little damage. Despite being so close to local rivers and streams, we had no flood damage in the fields and most of our crops just looked a little wind-worn.

The crop sustaining the most damage in the field were the tomatoes, so expect that their season will be ending very soon. We were already seeing blight on the plants, although they looked as if some healthy new growth might have continued for a few more weeks. But the already weakened plants did not survive the harsh winds very well and seem to be loosing their steam.

Luckily, we also managed to get many other fruit crops out of the field in an early harvest to prevent more serious damage, including a great-looking winter squash crop. Judging by the looks of the winter squash field after the storm, we are lucky we did.

We were glad to hear that NYC also survived relatively unscathed, and hope the same is true for all of you.

Thanks for your patience and well-wishes as we weathered the power and internet loss and started to clean up the farm.