FEB24 (W4): Marching Into Spring CSA

Dear Farm Community -

We’ve reached the last week of February! Shoutout to everybody in our February CSA who have helped us kick the year off right - we’ll see you at pickup tomorrow and hopefully much more throughout the year! Quick announcement before I let you know about all the good stuff happening on the farm right now:

The weekly-pay option for our 2024 CSA is live TODAY!
This subscription-based CSA plan is a great way to spread out the cost of your farm boxes and flower shares, and allows you a little more flexibility if you need to take a break and come back (though we hope you’ll love it so much you never leave ♥♥). You can begin your subscription at any point throughout the season but we encourage you to start soon so that you can experience the full range of what North Georgia local agriculture has to offer! We have three share options with a ton of expanded pickups and home delivery available. Check them out!

Our discounted-in-full spring veggie share, spring flower share, three season veggie share, and three season flower share will still be available until Sunday March 3rd at 5pm. These lump-sum payment options offer you a discount and simplicity in knowing you’ve got your veggies taken care of for the season or year!

Now that we have all that taken care of - the nitty gritty down n dirt farm updates! We’re entering an exciting period of the year at the farm - it’s the intersection of intense preparation and early results and boy is there a lot going on! The veggie crew has been planting like crazy with a full field of brassicas planted this past week - all the collards, chard, kale, and bok choy your heart could desire. We’ve got a ton of real estate in our fields still waiting to be planted and the weeks ahead are looking like we’ll do just that. And for those of you wondering how our drainage projects from last newsletter turned out - so far so good! We got some rain last week that let us “test the waters” (pun intended) and the problem area we had addressed is looking significantly better than before. The lisianthus we planted there looks quite happy too ✿

Speaking of flowers, they are taking off and we’re seeing hundreds and hundreds of poppies, ranunculus, anemones, tulips, and daffodils. The flower crew has been busy harvesting and bunching these for our markets and we’re happy to be working with our favorite florists again. We’ll be seeing y’all at the Athens Farmers Market so soon too! There’s been lots of joy in the recent afternoon warm weather and with blooms returning we’ve welcomed back our little tradition of decorating ourselves with imperfect flowers. A peek into the farm on any given afternoon and you’ll see poppies tucked into overalls, tiny bouquets adorning hats, and a bloom or two behind all of our ears as we do our field work. It’s a sweet little way we celebrate the joys of farm life.

Another spring-time delight we’re celebrating is green garlic, which you will see in your share this week! Sometimes called spring garlic or baby garlic, this is the young garlic plant harvested before full maturity. Some describe the flavor as brighter than regular garlic and slightly more mild in flavor, without the heat of a mature garlic clove. Eaten raw it has a fresh sharpness and mellows out when cooked. Just like green onions, green garlic can be sliced as a tasty and beautiful garnish for your main dish (perhaps this garlic pasta?) or used as a star ingredient like in this green goddess soup. If you’re still having trouble keeping the vampires at bay, try out this green garlic potato salad!

Storage tip: Green garlic lasts 5-7 days when stored in the refrigerator properly. Wrap it in a damp towel and store it in a plastic bag in the fridge, or keep it refrigerated in a glass with its roots submerged in water.

Check out the rest of this week’s share below!

Happy Eating :)
Diamond Hill Farmers

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P.S. We are still fundraising through our Share the Harvest Fund to remove financial barriers for those wishing to participate in our CSA. If you would like to contribute to this fund and share your abundance, head to our web store to donate. It would mean the world to someone! If you are someone who would like to participate in our CSA program but face financial limitations that prevent you from doing so, please reach out to us here.

This week’s share: arugula, green garlic, beets, collards, carrots, head lettuce