Winter CSA, Week 5

Wake County deliveries 1/29/25
Chatham County deliveries 1/31/25

Farm News Update: Moving to the Blog
Thanks to thoughtful feedback from our CSA members, I’ve decided to move the Farm News section of our weekly CSA newsletter to the blog! This way, anyone interested in what we’re up to—CSA member or not—can follow along. For our CSA members, the newsletter will now be more streamlined, focusing on store links, recipes, storage tips, and key updates, while the blog will dive into our behind-the-scenes happenings.

Where to Share Recipes?
One excellent suggestion we received from a CSA member was to create a recipe archive for everyone to access. Do you have a favorite app or platform for organizing and sharing recipes? I know Pinterest is a popular option, but I wonder if there’s a more streamlined or organized tool out there for this kind of collection. Let us know if you have any recommendations!

A Break That Wasn’t Exactly a Break
We took a week off from CSA harvests, washing, packing, and deliveries due to the extended below-freezing temps. That said, we didn’t exactly slow down. While it looks like this Monday will bring harvesting in the rain, it’ll be a balmy 51°F (or closer to 45°F in the morning).

During our “break,” Ben and I stayed busy wrapping up crop plans, coordinating with for 2025 Open Door Farm (we’re excited to source broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, potatoes, sweet potatoes, savory potatoes, winter squash, and more!), working on payroll and other paperwork, and placing seed orders for the year. In case you’re wondering where we buy our seeds, here’s the list, while I have it handily in front of me:

Seasonal Changes & Member Feedback
We’ve been reading through CSA member feedback (keep it coming – the link is in the CSA newsletter), and one recurring comment is that some of you wish we grew year-round. While we can’t quite stretch to all 52 weeks of the year, we’re thrilled about the updates to our CSA schedule.

In 2025, we’ve shifted from two 10-week seasons and one 5-week season to a 14-week Spring/Summer season and a 12-week Fall/Winter season. This change effectively extends our Spring season into summer. Instead of wrapping up in June, we’ll now deliver through July, which means we can finally grow more summer favorites like tomatoes, okra, green beans, and eggplant! These are crops many of you have requested in the past but weren’t feasible with our previous schedule. And don’t worry—we’ll still offer a winter season of produce, just a slightly shorter one.

If you’re interested in viewing our exact dates for our spring and fall seasons, you can find them here:

Why We Don’t Grow Year-Round (Though We Do Grow All Seasons)
It’s worth sharing why we don’t aim for year-round production.

If you’ve visited the farm, you know we’re growing on just 2 acres. This season alone, those 2 acres have fed 85 families (and this spring it was 130 families)! To keep our soil healthy and productive, we need time to let different sections rest—like putting them into cover crop or tarping to suppress weeds. If we tried to crank out produce from every inch of space all the time, we’d deplete both the soil and ourselves.

We truly appreciate that you love our produce enough to wish for it year-round. But we hope you’ll understand that part of our commitment to responsible farming means making time for these important, behind-the-scenes efforts that ensure the long-term health of the land and our ability to keep growing for you.

Join Us on the Farm
If you’re interested in hearing Ben wax poetic about soil health (or diving into all the other aspects of farming beyond seeding, planting, cultivating, harvesting, etc.), we’d love to see you at one of our farm events. Come talk with us, work with us, and break bread with us.

This CSA is more than just a way to access fresh, organic produce. It’s also an opportunity to connect—with the people who grow your food and with the land itself. We love sharing our farm with our CSA members!