Dear Farm Community -

Holy moly folks, spring made quite the entrance this week, giving us harvests of both asparagus AND strawberries! What’s more, our tomato seedlings (remember this newsletter way back in January?) are looking great and we got a ton of them in the ground this week. It’s wild to know that handful of seeds pictured is now dozens and dozens of healthy young tomato seedlings. They grow up so fast :’)

It’s exciting to be at this brink of bounty, with nature emerging from her slumber and our young crops fast becoming ready for harvest. The fennel we planted in our new high tunnels in late January is looking luscious with bulbs nearly ready for market, and the field of brassicas we planted that same day are now large enough that we’ve begun incorporating them into our harvest schedule (helloooo kale!) Good things now and good things ahead!

A few small reminders relevant to this week before I dive into your CSA shares this week:

We will be participating in a Spring Pop-Up Market at Buvez (585 Barber St) TOMORROW Tuesday 3/26 from 2-6pm! We will have loads of flowers with us, and local artist Sierra K Ceramics will have handmade ceramic vases available for purchase to make those flowers look extra dazzling! We predict a very charming afternoon with lots of flowers, art, and good vibes!
FREEDOM FARMERS MARKET will be back in full swing this weekend 3/30! We will be bringing a tremendously huge selection of flowers with us to all of our markets, so grab those Easter blooms and celebrate SPRING!

Now let’s get to the good stuff ~ this might be one of the best weeks yet for CSA with asparagus in both the standard and large shares, and strawberries included for large-share members. Perhaps the best way to eat asparagus is the simplest - oven-roasting and enjoying as a side dish! Our homegrown asparagus is slightly more delicate than you would find in a grocery store, so keep an eye on those roasting times. For the pasta lovers out there, try this springy lemon asparagus pasta or this celebrated NYT Cooking recipe for fettuccine with asparagus. If you’re feeling soupy, this garden-fresh asparagus soup also makes use of the scallions in your share. For those of you with strawberries in your shares - if you’re like me I’m not sure they’ll even make it home! I’ll be curating some strawberry recipes later on, but for now who can resist a big bite of a juicy sweet strawberry in its purest form?

Before I sign off, just a quick reminder that our CSA can be joined at any time by anyone in the Athens area! If you want to hop on board just in time for strawberries, fennel, asparagus, and more - sign up today!

sign up for CSA

Happy Eating!
Diamond Hill Farmers

P.S. This week’s frog count: 3