Looking ahead: Ready for start of CSA season – Rising Phoenix Community Farm

Despite a cold, wet spring, we have managed to get thousands of plants into the field and are eager to share our vegetables with our CSA members and at our roadside farmstand, which will be open on Fridays this year at our Prairie Lake location just south of Floodwood.

This past Saturday, we looked out across the rolling farmland and realized that it felt like summer. There was a light, humid breeze blowing. The grasses that would soon be cut for hay were interspersed with daisies, hawkweed and other wildflowers. The tree swallows and bluebirds that nest in boxes built along our fence line were skimming the rolling terrain like surfers, catching insects to bring back to their nesting young.

Summer.

How did that happen?

Heather-Marie tills the ground using a wheelhoe to prepare for planting a bed of kale. We have thousands of plants in the ground that, despite a cold, wet spring, are now exploding with growth.

The busy weeks had stacked up, one on top of another. Before we knew it, we were a week away from our first delivery of the season. On a thankfully rainy Sunday, we took some time to reflect on all the has happened on the farm as we have prepared to deliver an exciting selection of vegetables to our CSA members and at our roadside farmstand this season.

It feels like just days ago that we were anxiously checking the temperature gauges in the greenhouse on cold, snowy spring nights, hoping that new seedlings were warm enough to make it to the growing season.

Slowly, the season transitioned from starting seeds to transplanting — moving plants from the greenhouse to the field and the high tunnel (a large, plastic-covered space where heat-loving peppers and tomatoes grow). As the cold spring lingered, the trays of plants began to stack up on the tables inside and outside of the greenhouse as we waited for the soil to be dry enough and warm enough to plant.

Now, the greenhouse is almost empty. The germination chamber, where seeds are started, has been shut down for the year and our attention has turned to getting our plants into the field and the high tunnel so they can benefit from the long Minnesota days.

Our workdays on the farm start early and end late in May and June as we start seedlings and then slowly transplant in our field and high tunnel to take advantage of the long northern Minnesota days.

This is Heather-Marie’s ninth year as a farmer; this is John’s first full season on the farm after joining Heather-Marie to close out last year’s season. Throughout May and June, we have put in countless long days, often ending the workday only after the setting sun and biting bugs have chased us indoors around 9:30 or 10.

Our “to do” lists for each day never seem to get smaller. We are sore, sunburned and tired, and we couldn’t be happier. We love working together as a team and in knowing that we are producing food for our members and for our neighbors.

A workday planting onions
Transplanting scallions
Planting tomatoes in the high tunnel
Contributing members came out to the farm on three workdays in June to help us with planting.

On three weekends in June, we were joined by many of our Contributing Share members, who save money on their shares by agreeing to work hours on the farm. We are grateful to those members. They show up ready to work, and we delight in showing them how we do things on the farm.

A snowstorm in mid-May is part of the farming life in northern Minnesota. It’s hard to believe that inside the greenhouse on the left are thousands of seedlings that will soon be planted in our field.

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Heather-Marie watches as a thunderstorm looms behind the tinyhouse and field in the background. June has brought little to no rainfall, meaning we spend a lot of time watching radar and weather forecasts and hand watering thousands of gallons of rainwater collected in barrels.

What we are growing

Farming is a risky business, and we hesitate to make promises about what will be available and when it will be harvested. However, we are very excited about what’s happening in the field. This year’s slow, cool spring has delayed growth for some plants. For the first deliveries of the season, CSA members can expect smaller deliveries, with mostly leafy greens. We will likely have Napa cabbage, baby bok choy and, of course, plenty of kale. We also hope to have radishes and chives.

Napa cabbage is likely to be one of the first vegetables that CSA members will receive this year.

As the season progresses, so will the variety of vegetables. This year, in no particular order, we have planted onions, scallions, parsley, sage, basil (two types), dill, cilantro, kale, broccoli, bok choy, cabbage, Napa cabbage, cauliflower, collards, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes (11 varieties), peppers (12 varieties), head lettuce, lettuce mix, salad mix, braising mix, beets, radishes, turnips, carrots, potatoes, rutabagas, parsnips, chard, eggplant, peas, melons, cucumbers, pumpkins, winter squash, summer squash, spinach, arugula and garlic.

Some highlights from the growing season:

Tomatoes: Always a favorite of farm members, this year, we are growing 11 different varieties of tomatoes both out in the field and in the warmth of the high tunnel. In total, we have more than 330 plants in the ground and hope to have tomatoes starting in late July/early August.

Basil: Members have told us they will buy as much basil as we can grow, so we have planted two varieties this year: traditional Genovese basil and Thai basil. Altogether, we have 135 feet of basil plants growing.

Potatoes: We have done three plantings of potatoes: russet, Yukon gold and red fingerling. We put more than 125 pounds of potatoes in the ground, stretching down rows totaling 1,000 feet. The first of those potatoes will hopefully be in deliveries in August. Some will be available for fall share members.

Brassicas: The brassica family includes many varieties of vegetables that are popular with our members. We have almost 1,800 feet of field space filled with brassicas: kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, cauliflower, broccoli and others.

Peppers: Heat-loving peppers are hard to grow in Minnesota, but that hasn’t stopped us from planting 12 varieties. We devote some of our valuable real estate in the high tunnel to these late-season delicacies and also plant them in the field.

Garlic: Heather-Marie grows legendary garlic. Last fall, we planted 25 pounds of the extra German hardy variety (10 pounds of that is for CSA members), and it is growing beautiful and tall. Soon, the flowering scapes will rise from the center of each garlic and be trimmed off (and eaten!) so that the plants can focus their energy on producing big, juicy bulbs that should be available to members sometime in September.

CSA deliveries: What to expect

Next Tuesday, we begin our CSA season with the first delivery of the year. Many of you are longtime members of the Rising Phoenix CSA, but we are also welcoming a few new members this year. We will be sending out an email with more details on the pickup site and delivery process soon.

We love eating our vegetables almost as much as we love growing them. We ask our CSA members and friends of the farm to share their own images and ways they are preparing their vegetables. We often find the best ways are simple ones, like throwing kale on top of pizza crusts on the grill.

Newsletter and sharing recipes

Each week during the CSA season, we will be distributing an online newsletter with updates from the farm, what to expect in that week’s deliveries and some suggested recipes.

One of our goals at Rising Phoenix is to build a community of people passionate about growing and eating good food. We need your help to do that.

A question we often get from our members when they get their weekly shares is this: What do I do with this vegetable?

It’s a great question (the short answer is eat it!). We love eating our vegetables almost as much as we love growing them, so we make sure that we share our favorite recipes for the vegetables in each week’s delivery.

We also hope that our members will share their recipes with us. There are a number of ways to do that:

Email us your recipes (and your photos) at our email address [email protected]. Feel free to keep it simple (Example: “I sauteed my kale with olive oil and garlic and put an egg on it!”) or be more specific. Don’t forget to take pictures. We can then include your recipes in our newsletter to share with others.
Post your recipes on our Facebook page. Simply go to the farm Facebook page and post a photo with a brief description. We can then share it with the group.
Tag us on Instagram. We love this social media platform for sharing ideas and images. Simply take a photo and tag us. Make sure to follow the farm on Instagram: Risingphoenixcommunityfarm.