F24 (W12): Last Week of 2024 CSA!

Nov 18

Dear Farm Community -

The weather has finally taken a turn for the chillier! Temps are dropping, our fingers are getting achey during morning harvests, and we’re begrudgingly welcoming back the gigantic pile of coats on the farm (guess how many coats 20+ farmers who work outside can amass - your mind would be blown.) We’re prepping our plants for the cold weather too - there’s finally some frosty evenings to be anticipated. While a little pep-talk to the plants is certainly a part of their preparation, more important is the row cover and hoops that are set up to provide protection against the frost. We’ve had plenty of extra time to prepare this year, so we’re feeling pretty ready for the shift into winter and the routines of covering and uncovering that are in store for us. We hope you're feeling equally prepared for the chilly months ahead!

The big news this week, of course, is that this is our last week of 2024 CSA! If you are currently a weekly-pay member this means we are “cancelling” your subscription, about which you will receive a notification - but please still be sure to come this week and pick up your final share which was covered by last week’s payment!

It was such an awesome time hosting those of y’all who could make it out to the farm for the CSA potluck. There’s nothing quite like sharing food together around a blazing fire. We’ll be including the recipes we collected via a link in next week’s newsletter!

We have come such a long way with our CSA program this year and can’t help but get a little emotional seeing it come to a close. It’s pretty wild to think about just what a journey this year has been looking back. This was our second year running our own CSA program, and we’re excited to see it all really flourishing. We expanded our membership this year and are grateful to all of our new members and super grateful to all of our members that have been on board both years! This year we hit a huge milestone - 100 CSA members! For a small farm, this milestone and our ability to meet it with confidence means that what we’ve got a good thing going. We’ve got aspirations and plans on how to be even better, but it's evidence that we have a great foundation, a great crew with great organization, and a great community supporting us. To our CSA members - thank you for being a part of that. It’s really such an integral part of our farm’s operation. To our non-CSA readership, we value all of the other ways that you support our farm, and hope one day to serve you as part of the CSA gang :)

It’s mind0boggling to think about all of the meals that our veggies have been a part of this year, and the craziest thing being that each one of those vegetables was planted by hand, cared for by hand, and harvested by the dedicated crew here. There’s something a little bit magic about that connection! Sometimes though, the numbers can really drive home the impact of this connection. To cap off this CSA season I’d like to offer some crazy stats about 2024. This year our CSA program…..

Ran for 38 weeks, spanning all 4 seasons!
Held 152 pick-ups!
Packed a whopping 3,244 veggie shares !!!!
….and arranged 648 bouquets for flower shares!

Holy moly.

We WOULD like to ask our CSA members one small favor as we close out the season ;) To help us serve you even better next year we would love if you would fill out our 2024 CSA End-0f-Season Survey. This survey asks all about what you loved and what you didn’t love. We take your feedback to heart and it really does inform the conversations we have as we plan out the 2025 CSA program (our planning meeting is next week!). If you loved everything and have no notes - we want to know! If you have some strong opinions about the contents of your share, pickups, newsletter content, communication etc - we also want to know!

This week in your shares we’re including a kabocha squash - a hardy winter squash that has a sweet, nutty, earthy flavor. We made sure to include this in your final share because it’s a wonderful storage crop - one that will last up to 5 months if stored in a cool dry place away from sunlight. This means that, if you want, you can keep it around for a rainy day in the off-season when you’re missing us <3 How to cook it you ask? I don’t know about you but whenever a recipe calls for miso it makes me feel unbelievably fancy, and this recipe for Roasted Kabocha with a Miso Glaze is no different. If that doesn't feel exciting enough maybe you want to go crazy and add a veggie to your dessert in this Creamy Vegan Kabocha Squash Pudding. If you’re having reservations let me reassure you that the best desserts I’ve ever had involved a kabocha squash. But if you want to just keep it simple, consider simply roasting it in the oven!

We hope you enjoy your last CSA share of 2024, and further we hope you’re looking forward to all the promise that CSA 2025 holds!! See you back in the new year! We will be continuing to send out our weekly newsletter with farm updates, and the off-season provides an awesome opportunity to get deeper into some of the inner workings of the farm. We hope you’ll keep reading along, following what we’re doing at the farm, and looking out for what’s to come in 2025!

THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!
Diamond Hill Farmers

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