Category: Newsletters

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Klesick now serves Shoreline & Inglewood Communities

We have exciting news! We are expanding our delivery zones to serve Shoreline and Inglewood communities next week!

Let your friends, co-workers, and family know that we are now offering a box of good to the Inglewood/Bothell communities to 116th St. on Wednesdays and to the North Seattle/Shoreline communities down to NE 145th St. (Hwy 523) on Thursdays.

As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, due to the disappointing vote from The Snohomish County Council a few weeks ago, concerning farmland preservation, I am now working on a different strategy. If the county won’t help us preserve farmland, we will have to do it ourselves – one intentional bite at a time. The strategy is simple: deliver more fruits and vegetables from local farms to local eaters.

Throughout this last year we have been preparing to expand our delivery service and areas in order to build strong bonds between local farmers and local customers.

In October we moved into a new packing facility in Stanwood, nearer to our farm and to other farms that we work closely with in the region. At that time we added more infrastructure to better serve local farmers and you, our customers. We added additional cooler space and freezer space as well as expanding our packing capacity.

Last month we expanded our delivery days from 4 days to 5 days.

Last week we updated our shopping cart to be more mobile-friendly than ever. Ordering organic, local, and GMO-free produce just got easier.

This brings you a fun referral opportunity: For every person you refer from anywhere, you will receive a free bar of Theo Chocolate and your name will be entered for a chance to win a free two-night stay at the beautiful La Conner Channel Lodge.

Farmer Tristan

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Newsletter: La Conner Channel Lodge & Local Farms!

As a part of Klesick Farms’ strategy to grow, source and deliver more locally grown organic and GMO-free fruits and vegetables, we have teamed up with the La Conner Channel Lodge to have a fun summer campaign. Joelle and I consider the La Conner Channel Lodge our go-to get away. Sometimes it is in the middle of winter and other times it is in the middle of summer! With the all the craziness of life’s comings and goings, when I see a break in the schedule, I check with Joelle and if it works I make a reservation. We love that the lodge is beautiful, peaceful, serves a great continental breakfast, and that it is in nearby La Conner!

After the disappointing vote from the Snohomish County Council a few weeks ago, essentially caving to developer’s wishes (you can read more about it on our blog), I shifted gears and began working on a different  strategy. It is a simple strategy – deliver more fresh fruits and vegetables from local farms. If the County won’t help us preserve farmland, we will have to do it ourselves – one intentional bite at a time.  And with the La Conner Channel Lodge offering Klesick customers a chance to win a two-night free stay, it makes this strategy even more fun!

 

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How the campaign works:

♦ Refer your friends to a box of good. The more people who eat intentionally, the stronger our local food infrastructure will become! For each friend (or co-worker, or family member!) you send our way that signs up for produce deliveries, we’ll enter your name in the drawing!

♦ Buy more local food. Each week in our specials email, we’ll highlight one item grown in the Northwest that you can purchase for a bonus entry.

♦ Share about Klesick Farms on Facebook and Twitter! Be sure to tag us in your post, so we can see your post and credit your share with another submission! For an easy way to share, visit our blog and share the post titled “Preserving Food and Farmland with La Conner Channel Lodge.”

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Preserving Local Food Options & Farmland, Part I

Week of June 14, 2015

Last week, Klesick Farms and you, our Good Food Community, teamed up with Kristin Kelly, the executive Director of Snohomish County Futurewise, and the Pilchuck Audabon Society to encourage our County Council to “preserve local food options and farmland.” In 2012 the County Council voted 5-0 to implement the current Transfer of Rights Development (TDR) program. Last week the Council voted 4-1 to essentially gut the TDR program and give the development community the “green light” to build more single family homes. So now the County Council has “caved” in to the developers’ wishes, meaning our urban areas will still receive most of the incoming population growth.

If the Council would have stood on their decision to support TDR, that growth would have still gone to our urban areas, but we would have been able to preserve, forever, thousands of acres of farmland at the same time. The Council, except Dave Somers, didn’t want to hold the line and require the development community to use TDRs. Council members Ken Klein, Terry Ryan, Brian Sullivan, and Stephanie Wright voted against TDR. So now Snohomish County residents will still get the extra growth, but the developers will get more profits and no farmland is protected. That is not a win-win; it is a windfall profit for a few landowners and developers.

Also, in 2012, Council members Brian Sullivan and Stephanie Wright voted for the TDR program. If they would have voted the same way this time or committed to stand with TDR, I wouldn’t have had to ask for your help. Ironically, Council members Brian Sullivan and Stephanie Wright were not running for reelection in 2012, but they are this year.

What really bothers me is the lack of integrity that exists in our political process. This change to the TDR program “came out of nowhere” and was timed to limit public participation and placed into legislation where there is no repeal process. Where is the transparency in that!

This week Kristin and I will be asking for your help again to send one final email message to the County Council expressing our dissatisfaction with their vote and a desire for more transparency in the process. Please join us in sending a strong response for the Council to preserve our local food options and farmland by implementing wise growth policies going forward.

Kristin Kelly and I both believe that the Snohomish County can balance the need to accommodate the future growth with protecting our farmlands. It is more than doable. Click here to send your response to the Snohomish County Council.

Respectfully submitted,

Farmer Tristan


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Summer is Busy

Even if you are not a farmer, summer has got to be one of the busiest times of the year! From September to June the routine is fairly stable, but when school gets out – ALL BETS ARE OFF. Moms everywhere go from chauffeurs to program directors. Maybe the year ‘round school concept would make more sense in our post agrarian society?

Why do we send our children to school from September to June? Primarily because summer break was once needed to grow food, put up food, mend fences and cut firewood. A productive summer meant a comfortable winter! With the shift to a non-agrarian based calendar, maybe school should shift as well – just a thought. As a local farmer, a year round schedule would open more markets and more locally grown food could find its way into the school system. And that would definitely be a good thing for our children, local farmers and the health of our nation. Since that isn’t happening anytime soon, Klesick Farms and their band of local growers can save you some time by letting you skip at least one trip a week to the grocery store. This time of year, when the kids are running the asylum, time is definitely high on my families list.

Next on my list is eating well. I know you would think that eating well is more important, but truth be told, most moms (& dads) wouldn’t mind a little “me” time (just a little). Your box of good is almost as fresh as a garden (even I can’t beat a garden for freshness), and even if you have a garden, it probably wouldn’t hurt to supplement with peaches, melons, beans, cherries or other family favorites you aren’t growing.

For those of you who have chosen to skip the garden, Summer arrives every delivery day with your box of good. We make eating healthy – simple, fun and affordable. We do it all year long, and especially during the summer when we are showcasing the bounty of our local growers. A box of good is also convenient! If you love watermelon or grapes or basil, you can add that to your delivery every week and it will arrive at your door. Imagine, the next time you “go shopping” you simply pull out your phone, order what you like at klesickfarms.com and then we hand pick it, hand pack it and hand deliver it to your door.

I have been working with the same growers for almost 20 years, we know what we are doing and we like to do it. We like farming and helping you feed your family well is about as satisfying as seeing plump, juicy sugar snap peas or ripe red raspberries ready to harvest.

Enjoy your box of good, we enjoy getting it to you!

 

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People Matter II

A few weeks ago, our family took a vacation/work trip to San Diego. I attended the Dave Ramsey business conference called The Summit while Joelle and kiddos hit the beach. For me, it was three powerful days of intense business encouragement. Of course, Dave and his team taught several sessions, but I also got to learn from John Maxwell, Dr. Henry Cloud, Patrick Lencioni and Rabbi Daniel Lapin. Oh my word!

If I could be so bold as to sum up three full days of sessions, I would have to say the theme was “Build Culture.” What a commission! I am pretty sure that every business owner there left with the encouragement to build their team’s culture. Why focus on culture? Because as a small business it is your competitive advantage and it is the right thing to do.  Most businesses focus on measurables like productivity, mistakes, sales per hour, etc. These are necessary, but they absorb a far greater percentage of the company’s focus. And quite frankly, it is easier to focus on something you can measure.

The benefits to building culture make the measureables more easily attainable. Why? Because it is your culture that accomplishes the goals of your company, when your team is treated with respect and valued, it spills over into how your customers are treated.

The other day I was talking with a friend, a local business that we both frequent came up and the conversation turned “south” quickly.  He had received poor and indifferent customer service, not once, but twice and now he won’t shop there and went as far as to say, “I don’t think the owner (he used his name) cares anymore.” I tried to defend the owner, but the lack of care extended not once, but twice, has turned my usually mild mannered, care free friend into a negative advertisement. Heart break .

From my friend’s perspective, the culture of that business has shifted. Building culture and maintaining culture is vital to the success of any business – it spills over into every area.

At Klesick Farms, our team is important and you are important. Our team can always accomplish more working together, so whether we are packing your boxes of good or delivering them, we are focused on making your experience with us friendly, efficient and enjoyable. We know you are busy and our goal is to help you and your family eat well and live well.

One of the best ways that I can serve your family well is to continue to build our team culture; to do that I have to get better as a leader (which is why I made the investment to go to this conference). I have to lead by example, continue learning, and also train and inspire my team to serve you well.

Thankfully for me, my team already wants to serve your family well!

 

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People Matter

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Last week we sent an email to each of you asking for you to partner with us in our Neighbor Helping Neighbor program. Thanksgiving and Christmas are the big traditional pushes to rally around homelessness and hunger, but just because the calendar has changed doesn’t mean the need has changed. The volunteers who serve at the food banks are a part of the equation to solve this issue, but so are you. Your generosity in caring for local neighbors is also a part of equation. When we as people care for the physical needs of other people, what we are saying is that we want our neighbors to be whole.

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It is so humbling to get to serve the Klesick Farms community because “you get it”. You get that blessing others, caring for others is the right thing to do, and in the process, you too are blessed. Last week we sent 46 high-quality nutrient-rich boxes of good to eight different food banks. Your tangible generosity provided hope and nutrition to those less fortunate and inspiration to those who are on the front lines extending that hope and nutrition. Thank you.

 

Two weeks ago we were working double time on the farm to get potatoes, sweet corn, winter squash, and Maleah’s flower garden planted so that we could head off to San Diego for a Dave Ramsey EntreSummit business conference the following week. While in San Diego, I mostly sat in the conference and the kiddos enjoyed the sights and sounds of Southern California.

This conference was incredible: three days of practical business teaching perfused with a customer focus. Being in business is about serving people, about meeting a real need in your life, about partnering together to do something bigger than ourselves, and about building community. You and Klesick’s are doing this together through your support of our box of good.

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I used to farm with the Gentle Giants: Belgian draft horses, which are big, beautiful, and powerful animals. One Belgian horse can move 12,000 pounds – more than 5 times its weight – and two Belgians that are just randomly put in harness together are able to move up to 30,000 pounds. However, by working together they can pull and additional 6,000 pounds! That synergy is impressive. What is even more impressive is when you take a matched pair of Belgians that know each other, have worked together, and trust each other; this team, when it “leans” into the harness can move not 24,000, not 30,000, not 36,000, but they can move 48,000 pounds!

Together, you and Klesick Farms are like a matched pair of Belgian draft horses. Our synergy, created by a desire to feed our families good food and extend tangible compassion to others is as equally impressive. By working together, we are making a bigger impact in our local communities, in the lives of our less fortunate neighbors and the lives of the local organic farmers.

Together, we are creating something special!

 

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The Story of Bandit and the Cows

Week of May 10, 2015

It never fails! No matter how much I plan, farming never seems to happen at a leisurely pace!  You spend all winter preparing, all spring dodging rain storms and waiting for the ground to dry out, and then when it does, inevitably it is either Easter or Mother’s day weekend! The nerve! One would think that “mother nature” could time the farming season to be a little more hospitable.

Actually, nature has a lot more things going on than farming. Spring time is an amazingly long season from crocuses to daffodils to lilac and apple blossoms. Nature has to provide a lot of food and shelter for all the other critters in our local communities and the Klesick Farm is as a welcome and hospitable place as they come. One of our friends just told me he saw a river otter traveling across the road by our farm! I’m thinking that this could explain why Bandit, our collie/lab puppy, has been hanging around the river more lately.

The other day when I was coming out of the house I about tripped over Chungo, the older lab, and Sapphire, the kitten, who were lounging around in the sun on the front porch! Now I always make the mental note of how many animals are out in the yard, so I start counting: 1, 2…where is Bandit? I start my usual whistle and call and wait. No Bandit. Usually, no Bandit means only one thing: MISCHIEF! A little more whistling and a little more calling and walking and as I turn the corner around the house, 3 football fields away I saw him!  He was running in circles around all 30 COWS! The cows had been here for a few weeks and today he finally discovered them.

Stephen and I head out to the cows to get Bandit. Oh boy was he ever happy to see us: tail a-wagging and tongue a-flopping. The next day I turned Bandit out in the morning and headed out myself an hour later. I started counting: Chungo, Sapphire, and…where’s Bandit? This time I skipped the whistling and calling and walked to the back of the house (Bandit is not the only one learning new tricks around here). As sure as my name is Tristan, I saw him 300 yards away. This time all the cows had moved to the upper part of the pasture; Bandit had 29 all balled up and there was one rogue noncompliant cow about 40 yards off the herd. Bandit was equally positioned between them with his head switching back and forth, back and forth looking from the 29 to the one.

All of the sudden, he bolted towards the noncompliant cow, moved him toward the herd, and then moved them all back to where they were the last night! That is some serious natural instincts. This time I get the breakfast bowls and start clanging them together. And Bandit comes bounding home, tail a-wagging and tongue a-flopping.

 

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The Orchard, the Rain, and the Race

Week of April 26, 2015

I really enjoy being involved in my kiddo’s activities, so whether one is playing ball, running track, or at play practice I am “moving mountains” to make it to their events! And this time of year, when farming is pressing it literally feels like moving a mountain! I am sure most of you can relate! Who isn’t busy?! I find myself farming between games and practices and at night! I am hoping to get more peas in the ground next week in between rain events this and get a good chunk of potatoes planted. I remember thinking “Who needs headlights on their tractors?” A farmer who has active kids, that’s who needs headlights on their tractor!

Well the other night, Stephen and I had just returned from little league practice and as is our nightly custom, we wandered out to the orchard to check on the mason bees, blossoms, gold finches, sparrows and tent caterpillars.

I love the orchard this time of year; the trees are waking up and the blossoms smell incredible and look amazing. I love all the activity from the birds to bees. Stephen at the ripe old age of 8 has a good eye for the orchard and often beats me to our usual check points. Bandit our new lab/collie puppy (being a collie and being a puppy) is usually out ahead looking for moles, voles, or field mice while Chungo, our old timer lab, takes his time to get out with us. In fact more often than not, Chungo and I are traveling together and Stephen and Bandit are out in front J.

For this mission, the clouds were foretelling a wet adventure and we knew it. As the clouds were getting darker and filling with water, and as night was encroaching, the natural progression looked to be a downpour! We were busy hunting hard for those defoliating caterpillars, working to remove them from the trees, when one big drop hit, followed by another big drop and another until it was going to be a soaker of an event. Before us in the branches, there was one last caterpillar nest to pull off the trees, and then another and another! At last Stephen says, “My sweatshirt isn’t very good in the rain” and in an instant, he takes off for the house!

Since I have an equally strong desire to not get any wetter and also have longer legs, I was able to catch up and get back to the house first. Now, if truth be told, I had a little help here:  as soon as Stephen took off running, so did Bandit our mostly collie puppy, who quickly caught up to Stephen and then began to herd him towards the barn and not the house. VICTORY was mine as I arrived at the house first – marginally drier than Stephen, Bandit and Chungo!

 

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Apple Blossoms

I love seeing blossoms on my fruit trees. It means that I have a chance to harvest fruit this fall. It means that there will be food for a whole bunch of pollinators like Honey bees, Mason bees, Bumble bees. Now, I just need them to show up! Of course if they do show up in droves, I will be thinning fruit like crazy because there are a bazillion flowers this year, and if all of them set fruit –WOW!

Ideally, from a farmer’s perspective, about 50% pollination would be great. It would take less time to hand thin and the fruit would be able to “size” up quicker! Hand thinning takes a ton of time and is very monotonous; however, thinning translates to larger fruit because there is less competition for the nutrients!

This year our neighbor is no longer raising Honeybees and so I am trying Mason bees. Mason bees (from all the information I have been reading) are excellent pollinators. The challenge with this spring is that it has been really erratic and the blossoms on the trees are out in front of the pollinators. It will be interesting to see how much fruit actually sets, based on the earlier bloom time this season.

In our pear block, the Kosui Asian pears were way out in front of the Conference pears. Normally, they are supposed to cross pollinate each other. It looks like the Bosc Pears will be blooming with the Conference pears though – something else that normally doesn’t happen. These last two might cross pollinate each other which rarely happens.  Farming!?!?!?!

It is the most beautiful and disheartening thing to see all the blossoms but not have pollinators out in force. As a farmer, I really have very little control of the environment. I can prune on time, I can fertilize, I can even plan for my neighbors exit from beekeeping, but in the larger picture, I humbly submit to you that my part is very small. I tend to roll with what nature brings me, I do plan and I will mitigate, but for the most part I am working with nature and its natural laws.

Really, no matter what I do and probably what you do, we shouldn’t put too much emphasis on our part, but do the best we can with what we got and leave the rest to the Lord.

May there be fruit to harvest this fall!

 

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Molly The Green Sea Turtle

Maleah Klesick wanted to contribute to the newsletter this week, and give Farmer Tristan a break! Here’s a story she wrote after learning about sea turtles and the impact our environment has on their life cycle.

Hi I’m Molly, a green sea turtle from Florida. I will tell you a little bit about myself. From the start I had to fight to survive, I think that many of my brothers and sisters got eaten by foxes or raccoons before they hatched. After I hatched I had minutes to get to the sea before I was eaten by birds and crabs. When I reached the sea the waves greeted me, in a not so friendly way. I will always remember this beach, in a couple of years I will come back to lay my eggs.

About 4 years later, I am full grown, being a curious turtle, I saw a fishing boat and floated a little too close. By that I mean got caught in the fishing line. I washed up on shore, my heart was in my ears, but luckily a lady saw me and called Clearwater Marine Aquarium. (C.M.A.) the volunteers got there a couple minutes later. They untangled me, put me in a stretcher and drove to C.M.A. I got my name after the lady who found me.

My cuts and gashes weren’t life threatening injuries so I was able to be released into the wild. My diet was mostly squid, capelin, and leafy greens, honestly though I preferred the greens. After fixing my injuries the C.M.A. staff set a date for me to be released. On July 26, 2014 I was put on a stretcher and was driven to the beach where I had been rescued three months ago and I was released back into the wild.

Maleah Klesick

 

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Democracy in the Grocery Isle?

One of the more interesting takeaways from the state-based battle to enact GMO food ingredient labeling has been the deluge of money that Monsanto, their biotech allies, and Big Food corporate interests have been willing to spend to drown out your right-to-know about what you are putting in your mouth. Cornucopia’s research reveals that these supporters of ignorance have collectively showered more than $100 million on the four state referendums to date, in California, Washington, Colorado and Oregon.

Ever since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Citizens United, whatever constraints existed on corporate spending in elections have evaporated. Although state referendums are a different electoral animal, the willingness of corporate power to spend all that they need to prevail has been fully demonstrated. They have juiced the system and tilted electoral power in their direction.

While Monsanto and their allies have thus far proven successful—albeit narrowly in three of the four states—the handwriting may be on the wall. Good food activists are growing increasingly aware that they hold power in the marketplace that even the corporate behemoths must respect.

It is somewhat ironic that democracy may break out in the marketplace while it is being squelched at the ballot box. Clearly, the biotech forces and Big Food need us to buy their products in our consumer society. Yet in spite of their sophisticated, expensive advertising and packaging, increasing numbers of conscious consumers are doing their own food and product research (fueled by help from organizations like Cornucopia).

Using their heightened awareness and their focused purchasing power, these savvy eaters are forcing companies like Kashi (owned by Kellogg), WhiteWave, Organic Valley, Kraft, and Stonyfield to make healthier changes to products. Why? For the most part, these companies are terrified of how their investors and/or Wall Street will react and punish them for unresponsive arrogance and diminished sales.

Amplify your power as a conscious eater. Investigate our various food and commodity product scorecards (visit www.cornucopia.org), and then share this information and the related web links with your social network. This research is regularly updated so that you and your friends can make the best “vote” in the marketplace.

This story originally appeared in the spring issue of The Cultivator, The Cornucopia Institute’s quarterly print publication. Used by permission.

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Playing with Water

We are 70% water, so it’s no mystery why it is one of the most necessary nutrients our body needs. But why is it so hard to drink the recommended 8 glasses of water a day? We know the endless benefits of drinking water: heart circulation, metabolism, joint health, digestive health, clearer skin, etc.

Think of a dried prune; it’s all dry and wrinkled. Now, think of a fresh prune; full of hydration, smooth and healthy. As much practical sense that this all makes, I have to admit the idea of sipping on the same thing all day long can get boring. So lately I have been experimenting with Infused Water. Spring brings us bright, beautiful, and colorful produce that can naturally enhance the flavor of water. Infused water can be any combination of fruits, vegetables, herbs and even flowers. Why infuse water? The answer is simple. By improving the flavor with a healthy option, it’s an easier way to achieve your recommended daily amounts but also include essential vitamins into this healthy drink.

Although there are many flavored waters on supermarket shelves, producing a homemade option is cost effective and far healthier. Most infused waters available at supermarkets include preservatives, artificial sweeteners, and refined sugars. All of these are bad for your short and long-term health, in addition to being an enemy of your skin health.

Everyone has their favorite fruit infused water ingredients, but some are more popular than others. Lemon, lime, strawberries, apples, and oranges are the most popular fruit ingredients, while cucumbers, mint, basil, cinnamon, and ginger are the most popular vegetable ingredients. I think it’s time to produce your own, so I’ve included a basic method to follow. Have fun with it; the rest is up to you! To make your fruit-infused water, simply wash and slice a combination of fruits, vegetables and herbs. Pour cold filtered water on top. Cover the jar and store in the refrigerator. The flavor will get stronger after a few hours. You can replenish the water throughout the day.

Some of my favorite infused water combinations are: Lemon with Strawberry and Cucumber, Cucumber with any Citrus, Apple with Ginger and Cinnamon, Watermelon with Mint, Pineapple and Berry…sounds refreshing, doesn’t it? Here are 3 more tips I follow to ensure I drink enough water throughout the day:

  1. Set a specific goal for the day: Mine is to drink at least 32oz a day, I am working my way to 64oz but for now, 32oz is the goal!
  2. Get a bottle you will actually use and keep it close: My bottle requirements are: absolutely no dripping, BPA free plastic and it must fit in the car cup holder.
  3. Use a straw: I notice that when I use a straw I drink more and faster.

Here’s to a more hydrated you!

Sara Balcazar-Greene (aka. Peruvian Chick)
Peruvian Food Ambassador
peruvianchick.com
instagram.com/peruvianchick
facebook.com/theperuvianchick

 

Asparagus Soup                              

Growing up we had soup as the first course almost every day, this soup made it to our family table at least once a week. Enjoy!

Ingredients

2 lb. asparagus, trimmed, cut in ½ in pieces

1 onion, finely chopped

1 leek (white part) chopped

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon oil

5 cups chicken or vegetable broth

¾ cup milk

Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

Melt butter and oil in a medium size saucepan at low heat. Add onion and leek and cook until golden brown. Add asparagus and season to taste. Cook stirring for 5 minutes. Add broth and simmer covered for 20 minutes or until asparagus are very tender.

With an immerse blender blend mixture until creamy and soft. Return cream to pan and add milk or cream. Serve with bread croutons if desired.

Asparagus

Uncooked asparagus will stay fresh for three to four days in the refrigerator. The secret is to keep the vegetable cool and damp. Store spears upright in a container with the stems wading in an inch of water, then cover loosely with a plastic bag. Easier still: Wrap the ends in moist paper towels and drop the bundle into a plastic bag.

Use: cooking asparagus takes only a few minutes. The goal: Preserve the bright color and delicate flavor. Broiling or roasting the spears intensifies their inherent sweetness. Steamed or boiled asparagus is great for salads.

 

If you boil, forget the fancy equipment. Just launch the spears in a skillet full of lightly salted boiling water. The pan should be large enough to fit the spears in one or two layers, so that they cook evenly and quickly. Don’t cover the skillet; otherwise the asparagus will go from bright green to army drab. Start testing for doneness after two or three minutes by piercing the ends with a knife. They should be barely tender, with a slight crunch. Asparagus will continue to cook after you’ve removed it from the pan. If you like asparagus with snap, drop it into a sink full of cold water to stop the cooking.

Tips from thekitchn.com

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Hold Your Horses!

That saying is so universal and it stems from another era, but the message still resonates and is applicable today.  When I farmed with Belgian draft horses, “hold your horses” took on a deeper meaning. Those “girls” of mine were big 1,700 lbs. of muscle and single-mindedness; gentle giants, for the most part.

However, getting them to stand still and wait could be a challenge. Shoot, getting me to stand still and wait is a challenge, and I don’t even have a bit in my mouth! Conversely, waiting and learning to wait is a necessary life skill for all of us.

This spring has been tough to wait! We have had incredible weather, warmer than expected and dryer than expected. I have had several non-farming folk in the community ask me how the farming is going: “Have you planted your peas yet?”  The look on their face is priceless when I tell them, “No”. They think I am joking with them, but I am not. I did work a little bit of ground to transplant some blackberries, but other than that, I am waiting.

I have learned to “hold my horses” and wait for April.  I remember a spring like this in 2005 and I had chomped right through the bit and started discing and plowing. I was appalled that my neighbors hadn’t started yet. After all the weather was perfect, but those 3 and 4 generational farmers who had farmed here for years were holding their horses.  I finally ran into one of those “slow out of the gate” neighbors. I asked him, “Why haven’t you started working the dirt?” His response was profound, “It is only March?” not a hint of superiority in his voice, his eyes, nothing derogatory at all. His answer was simple and, quite frankly, honest.

This year I was the one in the valley holding my horses, and all those multigenerational farmers got started early. Farming is akin to gambling and with the global warming as a new factor, it is hard to know if March will be the new April. And now? After a 1” rain event last week with more to come, I am glad that I have finally learned to hold my horses. After all it is only March!

 

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Fresh Spuds

Last November we ran into two issues on the farm; rain and storage. The weather had turned bad and we were harvesting more mud than spud. J We’d also run out of room to store any more potatoes. So we left them in the ground, anticipating that the rainy and freezing last winter would kill the spuds.  Last week we “opened up” a few fields with the disc to start drying out the soil. As soon as we started down those left behind rows of potatoes, it was like we hit a brick wall. Bam! The disc sliced through some of the whitest, rock hard potatoes. I was not expecting to see that.

As a farmer, I spend a lot of time building my soil and my soil biology (microbial and fungal populations). I earnestly believe that having healthy soil and microbial activity helps my produce grow better and last longer. However, to have those spuds overwinter and be in as good of a shape as they are was not even on my radar. I called a few farming friends and shared what I discovered – radio silence. So I sent them a picture of the inside and then their responses came in as “WOW!” or “Nice!”

Of course we had to cook up a few and yes, they are good! So we geared up, got the digging equipment set up and headed out. Bummer! It turns out that the winter weather has caused our soils to pack together so tightly around the potatoes it is almost impossible to dig them. Ugh! As we ran the digger through the soil ever so carefully, we were cutting through more than we were harvesting! We have had to resort to hand digging to get the potatoes out. That is really the epitome of slow food!

Needless to say, what was going to be a pretty good harvest and a little extra profit has produced fewer high quality potatoes, which means I could only put them into a few boxes this week. That is painful for me! I love to grow food and love to get it to you.  We will keep digging, but it will be more of a slog than a jog!

I have definitely learned that digging potatoes in the spring is not going to work, but it was sure fun to find this buried treasure.

From local spuds to local speaking!

Last year, our team added a goal to have me spend more time out in the community sharing about organic farming, eating healthier and just visiting! I have spoken to Rotarians, preschoolers and at large farm conferences, and I have been to health fairs and community meetings.  So if you need some entertainment at one of your local meetings or events, just call the office and we will do our best to come and share about the importance of local farms and healthy eating. I will even bring a box of good to be raffled or auctioned off with the proceeds going to your group’s favorite charity.

The farm is waking up!

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There is a New Superfood

I can’t quite get my mind around it, but Lettuce is the new super food. It is a new variety of lettuce created by a team of researcher breeders from Rutgers University. Nutritional breeding is the newest frontier, where in a lab a single plant cell is selected and “grown out”. From these single cell lettuces cultures, the cultures with the most desirable traits are selected and re-grown and re-selected until the Nutritional Breeders get what they are looking for. From there it is grown out as a plant to produce seed for the vegetable growers. While this new lettuce variety is not GMO, it is produced in a lab.

This process has the potential to really speed up the hybridization of vegetable breeding, shaving years off the process of bringing new varieties to market. And this new lettuce called Rutgers Scarlet is supposed to have as much nutrition as blueberries, quinoa, almonds and kale. Those are some hefty claims! Lettuce was chosen as the first vegetable to work with because it is the second most popular vegetable behind potatoes that we eat. And unlike blueberries, the season for lettuce is much longer, thus adding a nutritionally potent fresh food source available for a longer season.

I am still on the bubble on this concept of nutritional breeding. In this discussion, no one is talking about the soil, sunshine and the environment it is grown in. I believe that the soil is everything. I spend a lot of time focusing on my soil health, striking a delicate balance with nature and the ecosystem on my farm. I am hypersensitive to getting the soil as nutritionally charged as possible so that the food we grow can “do its thing”. I am not sure that food grown inside a laboratory can ever compete with food grown outside.

However, if the nutritional breeders can really produce a super food through speeding up the genetic selection within a lettuce plant and I can grow it in my organic system – I can make the mental leap to accept it. As long as the plant breeders are staying with lettuce to lettuce, carrot to carrot, apple to apple etc.

However if they start to add non lettuce traits to lettuce, I am out! I would never consider any crop that has a transgender component, which is what GMO technology uses.

I have other concerns about being so gene selective: vegetables are very complex and selecting certain traits will limit our genetic diversity of our seeds going forward. I understand the debate and the need that they are trying to meet, but maintaining a genetically diverse seed stock is also important for future generations to meet their nutritional needs.

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The Story Behind a Box of Good

After my last article about the changes on the farm and at the business, I received a few emails encouraging us to keep up the good work. Back in the 90s (yes, we have been at home delivery for that long) we started out using paper grocery bags, lined with a plastic T-shirt bag for the “wet” produce. While that was a good solution for 50 customers, it wasn’t the best way to pack fragile items like tomatoes or peaches.

So we moved on to waxed boxes with a liner and put all the extra items purchased into plastic bags. Those waxed boxes lasted for 20 or 30 deliveries, which at that time seemed like an environmentally friendly decision, simply because we were buying less boxes. However, there was always this nagging feeling every time you had to dispose of one because it had to go to the landfill.

We were sensitive to the waxed box, plastic liner and plastic bag issues. We knew that there were companies in California in the home delivery industry who were using plastic bins to deliver their produce. The idea of using bins did eliminate the need for plastic bags, but it also supported the plastic industry quite a bit more than we were comfortable with, and we would have to make a very large investment upfront. For us there were a few apparent issues with this option: where does one store all of those plastic bins (1000s), all the damaged/unusable ones would still go to the landfill, and how much water and sanitizer would you need to use every week?

That last item was the kicker for us. Having to wash and sanitize every bin every week seemed like an incredible waste of water, soap, and bleach-type products. I would still feel like I would need to use a plastic liner because it wouldn’t feel sanitary enough for me to put your produce in a plastic bin. I still shudder when I think of this – yuck!

Mind you, we were a growing company with lots of little ones running around the farm (a.k.a., we were sleep deprived), but in one of our more lucid moments, we decided to go with a cardboard version of our box and stay with a liner and the plastic bags. This decision allowed us to recycle the boxes at the end of their usefulness, often using the older boxes one last time to send produce to the food banks.

One of our core principles is to be good stewards of the land and our natural resources. Because of this we are constantly evaluating our processes to better serve you as well as to benefit the environment. With those principles driving our discussion, we decided that using the recyclable cardboard boxes with a liner saves on landfill waste, plastic, water and chemical usage, and is a sanitary option. Is it perfect? No, but it has a minimal impact on the environment and is a sanitary way to distribute fresh produce.

Next week, I will go into our reasoning on plastic and how our company uses less than buying produce at the grocery store.

Thanks for supporting our good food network!

 

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Change

Change is afoot here at the Klesick Family Farm. The first change happened last weekend. I was blessed to walk our oldest daughter, Emily, down the aisle! Making that walk is an incredibly emotional moment in a father’s life. In the last two summers, Micah got married, Aaron got married, and now Emily is married. It is a little different, giving away a daughter than it is receiving a new daughter into our family. After all, this is my little girl, who I’d always known would find the love of her life and decide to get married, but it happened way faster than I ever imagined! Joelle and I are very excited for Keiran to join our family and to hand over to him one of our greatest treasures, so that they can begin their journey together.

For those of us who are parents, our children are our most precious crop. We pour our lives into them, teaching them, giving to them, and believing in them. A wedding is a culmination of all of these AND you get a new family member. Emily’s wedding was pretty special.

Another much smaller change that we have made at the Klesick family house and on the farm is to cut out plastic wrap. It has taken a little adjusting, but we are making it work. It is just so easy and efficient to use plastic wrap. But here we are, three weeks into the New Year, and voila, the trash is less full and we have discovered there is life after plastic wrap. Who would’ve have known!

We have located all of our bowls that “had” lids and purchased a set of silicone lids and a few sets of the clear plastic bowl covers. We have mostly used the clear plastic bowl covers because most of the larger main meals like soup or roasts already have lids for the pans we cook in. The silicone lids are excellent for covering salad type bowls. One thing I have noticed is that we rarely cover anything on a plate anymore, whereas before we would routinely use plastic wrap for covering a plate of leftovers.

We are also switching to a re-useable pallet wrap for our business. This move alone will save one garbage can of plastic going to the landfill a week. Another environmentally friendly move we are considering is switching to emailed invoices.

Let us know how your family or business re-uses every day items to benefit the environment.  You can email us or share your ideas on FB, twitter or Instagram!

Thanks for supporting our good food network!
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