Week 3 - The THREE Week of FALL CSA 2021
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Opening Remarks
Hello Dear Supporters, Members and FaRmily!!
The newsletter is back 😁 and we are back to our regular bi-weekly schedule (and there's a TON in this one, so check it out and read on!)!
Phew😅, it's been a busy, busy month with all the high-holidays and the fall push. We hope that all who have been celebrating these Jewish High-Holidays have had a very memorable and loving holiday season. We know that our family has been truly blessed by this month and our holidays were amazing. However, quite frankly, it's been a little nuts to deal with so many schedule changes, vacations and weekly adjustments! As much as we absolutely enjoyed the holidays and the time with the family and lot's of recuperation, it will be very nice to get back to the hustle and bustle and to get ahead for the winter...cuz' there's a lot to do😝!
In the meantime the farm is looking awesome, the team has been absolutely crushing it and we are loaded with food for the fall season, and starting to prepare for the winter season (2022) already! We have hired a new team member, we will be saying goodbye to two team members, we have two greenhouses to build, tons of fall planting to do and we have finished most of the end of summer harvest with the last of the tomatoes, cucs and peppers coming out soon... <-- More on this below.
👉REMINDER: THE FALL FESTIVAL IS COMING UP! OCTOBER 17th (see more details below)👈
📢See below for event updates, new articles and announcements!📢
⭐Enjoy your share this week and don't forget to join the fun and share your recipes and pictures in the Facebook Community Group!⭐
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🥕👩🌾CSA Veggie-Share Program Update and Comments
The CSA has been looking amazing lately! The consistency of bulk, value and quality in our weekly bags has really been nice to see as we continue to improve and our program continues to mature and refine.
🙏We have received lot's of wonderful feedback from our members, and ask that you continue to leave it for us. Your feedback really gets us through the hard times and motivates us to do our absolute best for you. Thank you!🙏
The next few weeks of CSA will be the last of the peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes as we start to clear out those greenhouses and start transitioning to more greens and roots and we start to dig into our storage crops like onions, garlic and potatoes. We will continue to have loads of crops available with plenty of variety over the next two weeks including a large GREEN 🍅 tomato harvest (those of you who have been waiting a long time for this...here they come!!). You can expect these varieties to be harvested and available: Leeks, red and green tomatoes, turnips, peppers, cucumbers, cilantro, lettuce, fennel, radishes, basil, swiss chard, kale, microgreens, carrots, sunflower shoots, thyme (potted), chamomile (potted), mint, chives and more.
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2021 FALL FESTIVAL!
If you enjoyed the Summer Fest, you'll love the Fall Fest! Cooler weather makes for more opportunities and now we will be working off of a great success with this next one! We hope you can make it out - so plan now and put it on the calendar! October 17th, from 3pm to 8pm.
👈👈 This is a video from our Summer Fest. We had such a great time and we hope you did too! Thank you so much for everyone who came out and celebrated with us!
There were so many new faces and so many reunions! Thank you, thank you!!! What a blessing to see and hug on so many wonderful members of our community! The music, all the vendors, the food, the games and of course the fire and s'mores were AWESOME!
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VOLUNTEERING
Weeds, Weeds Everywhere!!! We need your help to pull them! Can you help us!?
We love our volunteers!
Our volunteers are the backbone of our organization and we couldn't do it without them...but we need more help. We need help with so many things, things like:
Weeding
Bag Packing
Construction Projects
Landscaping Projects
Composting Projects
Harvesting, washing and prep.
General farm cleanup
Event volunteers
and more...got a skill you want to share? Let us know!
Volunteering is Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm. Volunteers can receive extra veggies, free classes, a t-shirt and tons of benefits (like tax incentives and more!). Please let Beka know you are interested in coming out and we will welcome you with open arms!
Want to volunteer? Simply e-mail our amazing Administrator, Beka at aci@ahavahcommunity.org to get more information and to sign up!
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👩🌾Farm Happenins'👩🌾
A little tid-bit about what's happenin' around the farm this week!
Say "Hello" to Carl! Carl is our newest team member who we hired last week! We are so super excited about hiring Carl as we have known him for quite awhile now (as a volunteer and CSA member) and enjoy having him around. Carl has been a volunteer with us for at least a year and he's extraordinarily passionate about serving others and serving our planet through regenerative agriculture --> a perfect combination for a learning career with Ahavah Farm!
Carl just finished his certification with Dr. Elaine Ingham's The Soil Food Web School (one of the most highly respected names in Regen. Ag) and he is excited to start a career in agriculture and soil-science. To kick off his career journey, Carl will be working here, learning here, growing here and possibly partnering with us on some future opportunities and projects. For now, Carl will be working with the crew in the field and at the CSA locations, helping with the harvest and doing the Thursday deliveries to Denver. Please give Carl an uplifting and joyous "welcome to the faRmily" when you see him!
❤WELCOME TO THE FARMILY CARL!❤
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🥕🍅🥒🧅🌳🌵EXTRA VEGGIES and PLANTS FOR SALE - Every Week!🥕🍅🥒🧅🌳🌵
Please be sure to check out the extras table, available for all members and even NON-MEMBERS!
Simply come to any of the CSA locations on Thursday and Friday and pick up some of our beyond-organic veggies for sale!
And as always, remember:
DON'T FORGET: SNAP PARTICIPANTS ALWAYS RECEIVE 50% OFF!!
&
As always, all prices are
"Pay-What-You-Can-Afford."
👀GARDEN PLANTS ALSO QUALIFY FOR SNAP AND 2x DOUBLE-UP BENEFITS!!!👀
For Payment: Cash or Check at the drops or the balance can be sent via PayPal to contact@ahavahfarm.com or via Venmo to Ahavah Farm, LLC or by paying with credit card over the phone.
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⚠ ⚠ ⚠ BAGS! We need your bags (PLEASE🙏) !!⚠ ⚠ ⚠
Thank you everyone for recycling your LARGE bags with us! When we receive your bags we immediately quarantine them for 2 weeks before reusing them to ensure they are safe of any yuckies. Thank you for bringing them and any others you may have (we need any large PAPER-ONLY grocery bags you may have) - THANK YOU!🙏
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WINTER CSA -Registration Opens November 1st
Go to www.ahavahfarm.com/csa to learn more (and remember, SNAP members get 50% off, auto-renewals get 5% off and we offer flexible payment options too!)
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CSA/Veggie Share OR Microgreen Share REFERAL PROGRAM!
Refer a friend to Ahavah Farm's CSA OR to Ahavah Farm Nursery's microgreen CSA and you BOTH will receive $35 in credit to use ANYTIME you want! Use to buy extra vegetables, or take $35 off your next CSA purchase - your credit will never expire!
New members simply send an e-mail to contact@ahavahfarm.com to let us know who referred you and you BOTH receive your $35 certificate! It's that easy!😁
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DID YOU KNOW?
I still remember a few years ago when Ahavah Farm was still selling at the Farmer's Market. One time there was a woman who asked me if we were "Organic." I explained to her about how we went well beyond "Organic" and she laughed. No, really. She literally laughed out loud because she had never heard of such a thing and she believed with all her heart that "Organic" certification was somehow the gold-standard for purity... when in truth, it's so far from it!
This woman was not alone. In fact, millions of American's believe that "Organic" certification is the end-all, be-all, and it just simply isn't. This is why we continuously pound the table about the importance of knowing your farmer, and growing your own food and asking questions of your farmers-market vendors --> Until there is a better certification, it's the ONLY way to truly know if your food is pure!
Little do people know how sad the Organic certification has become and how little it resembles pure food because of all it's (believe it or not) low-standards.
Better than GMO? Yes - sure! But, in reality, the far-ranging standards of the "Organic" certification are really too broad to be worth much. Some of the practices that are "allowed" and some of the practices that are "optional" within the "Organic" certification standards may simply shock you!
Check out this eye-opening article that I came across from don'twastethecrumbs.com where it lists the top 14 things that the Organic Industry is hiding from you, the consumer:
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🔦 Ahavah Community Initiative SPOTLIGHT 🔦
Whether it is tours, kids classes, major events, educational outreach, donations or adult classes, our mission is to SERVE.
Founded in April of 2018, our mission is to connect people who are facing food insecurity due to financial struggles to locally-farmed, regeneratively-grown produce, and to provide education centered around healthy living and environmental consciousness.
We do this by offering donated memberships to a local CSA program and more. Memberships include a weekly bag of produce along with discounted (often free) farm tours, classes, and events.
We want to help participate in the creation of a local food-system-economy, build on a diversity of local and regenerative food education and provide activities and children's events centered around environmentally responsible agriculture and pure, beyond-organic, local food.
Ahavah Community Initiative is a one-of-a-kind, very special non-profit organization that serves our community in a unique and wholesome way. We believe in this mission so much that all board members (including the Camire family) donate personally to it. Do you believe in this organization too? Please, if you do, consider donating if you have the ability...
Interested in making a tax-deductible donation to ACI? Ahavah Community Initiative is registered as a 501c3 with the State of Colorado as a non-profit organization and all donations are tax-deductible.
Since 2018 we have ...(updated as of 9/13/2021)...
Donated over 220 CSA memberships to families in need! - A value of over $85,000.00 of free food - OVER 3,000 weekly BAGS of veggies😮!
Facilitated the donation of 73 Double Up Food Buck Grants valued at over $15,000.00 of free food!
Donated 400 plants to families in need, so they can grow their own gardens!
Taught 46 full-length classes on regenerative and biological agriculture, fermentation, environmental classes, nursery classes and children's classes..
Attended 54 outreach events to spread regenerative agriculture education to our community including school events, speaking engagements and markets.
Have provided 35 educational tours.
Hosted 6 large public events.
Hosted 5 regenerative farming interns.
In addition, Ahavah Farm (aside from ACI) has donated an additional $75,000+ worth of free food to numerous outlets and families in our local community.
Want to get involved with either ACI or as a volunteer on the farm? E-mail us to let us know. We are always looking for volunteers and we would love for you to join the party!
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AHAVAH COMMUNITY INITIATIVE
BRING-A-BUCK!
"Hi, nice to see you! Did you bring your buck today!?"
These are the words you should hear every week when you show up at the CSA locations to get your veggies for the week. That's because, supporting ACI, and therefore families in need, is the MOST IMPORTANT and BEST part of being a CSA member with Ahavah Farm! ACI does some amazing things, and you can be a MAJOR part of that simply by bringing your buck every week. We thank you! 🙏
Bring $1 every week and be a part of supporting, directly, families in need.
Don't say your $1 isn't important! IT IS!! The only way crowdfunding works is if we all participate. Therefore, your $1 is vitally important and it is directly through this program that we raise the majority of ACI's food donation funds than any other fundraising program, and yet it is the absolute easiest for all of our members to participate!
Everyone can afford to Bring-A-Buck and if we ALL bring $1, the impact can be enormous - to the tune of feeding 1 family for an entire season for every single week we all participate!!!! WOW!!
Thank you members! The last few weeks of Bring-A-Buck have been great! Thank you so much for your donations! - EVERY DOLLAR COUNTS!
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📰NURSERY NEWS📰
Ahavah Farm Nursery is expanding! That's right, with a Grand-Opening date of March 1st 2022, Ahavah Farm Nursery will now have a retail set-up and store! We are planning on putting in an enormous amount of infrastructure this Winter including landscaping, a parking lot, store buildout and more. We will be selling everything from house-plants to medicinal plants to garden plants and more. We will have tools, soil, trays, seeds and all the basic gardening needs, right here, conveniently located in Peyton! We are so excited to serve the eastern El Paso county gardening community with all their gardening needs! It's going to be AWESOME! Stay tuned as we continue to monitor this progress and share updates!
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Microgreen CSA Share!
Love our microgreens!? Than this selection is for you! Receive 3 types of microgreens every week of the year and save 17% every single week!
✔SIGN UP ANYTIME AND START YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AT ANY TIME OF YEAR! AND CANCEL AT ANYTIME TOO!✔
Our microgreens are fresh and will last - unlike anything you can find in the store. We pride ourselves on our microgreen quality as being not only absolutely pure - grown without chemicals, fertilizers or inefficient energy (we grow with 100% solar, renewable energy!), but they are absolutely beautiful, long-lasting and delicious! We really can't rave enough, they are THAT good! (Packaged in a 100% plant-based, commercially compostable container)
WHAT'S IN A SHARE? In your share you will receive a combination of 3 microgreens every week with the option to purchase add-ons and extras when available. Every week we will be growing a mixture of microgreens and you will receive 3 selections of the following: Sunflower Shoots, Pea Shoots, Radish, Kale, Kohlrabi, Basil, Cilantro, Lettuce, Brocolli and more.
Pickup locations and times are the same as Ahavah Farm Veggie Share CSA but you do not have to be a veggie-share member to be a microgreen CSA member - these are two independent programs combined into one.
Go to https://www.ahavahfarm.com/microgreen-csa to learn more and to sign up!
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COMPOST
Be a part of our ZERO-WASTE mission here at Ahavah Farm and bring us your compost! PLEASE REMEMBER - NO PLASTIC BAGS. Want more information? CLICK HERE to learn about the program. Thank you everyone who has been bringing their compost! We are so excited that we can help on your mission to become Waste Free!
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THANKSGIVING WEEK SCHEDULE
For the week of Thanksgiving (11/25), we want to do our best to get you your CSA before the holiday and so we will be moving all CSA pickups to Wednesday (11/24) with the following times:
Farm: 10am to 11am
Colorado Springs (Ranch Foods Direct - Market Style): 1:30pm to 2:30pm
Colorado Springs (Ranch Foods Direct - Indoor Traditional Pickup): 2:30pm to 6pm
North Colorado Springs: 10:30am to 11:30am
Denver: 1:30pm to 2:30pm
Thursday, Thanksgiving Day 11/25 and Friday 11/26 the farm is closed.
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CSA PICKUP LOCATIONS AND TIMES
NOTATE TIMES: Times are subject to change due to unforeseen circumstances.
**Please be aware that it is your responsibility to check the newsletter at www.ahavahfarm.com/blog for updated information and changes.
North Colorado Springs @ Colorado Mountain Brewery
- THURSDAYS
- 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM
- 1110 Interquest Parkway, Colorado Springs, CO 80921
Go to https://cmbrew.com to learn more about this location.
Denver @ Jewish Community Center
- THURSDAYS
- 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM
- 350 S. Dahlia St, Denver CO 80246
Colorado Springs @ Ranch Foods Direct
- FRIDAYS
- 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM (Market & Traditional Drive Thru)
- 2:31 PM to 6:00 PM (Traditional pickup inside store)
- 4635 Town Center Dr., Colorado Springs, CO 80916
- Go to www.ranchfoodsdirect.com to learn more about this location.
Ahavah Farm @ Ahavah farm
- FRIDAYS
- 1o:00 AM to 11:00 AM
- 7545 N. Log Rd., Peyton, CO 80831
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This Week's Harvest
As always, nothing is guaranteed. These are the items that are "in season" and are anticipated to be ready this week (which may or may not be available at the CSA).
Small = 4-6 items per week
Medium = 7-9 items per week
Large = 10-12 items per week
Mustard - our red splendor mustard is back! It's the best tasting mustard we have ever tried and a new staple crop for 2022. Enjoy it raw or cooked, the flavor is amazing. CLICK HERE for 10 ways to prepare and use mustard greens.
Arugula - another member favorite. Delicious cooked or raw. Arugula is an amazing detoxifier and is loaded with antioxidants (cancer fighters!). One of our favorite greens to put in a frittata or in a stew! CLICK HERE to learn more about this fabulous plant!
Cucumbers- Our cucumbers are spectacular. We have both tendergreen burpless, a smooth and tasty slicer and we have the picklers which are great for both pickling and slicing. Still producing for at least 1 more week!
Peppers - We have sweet bell peppers and marconi peppers and some spicy jalepenos too.
Fennel - Fennel has lovers and enemies, but I will tell you that even the greatest fennel hater out there can still enjoy it! Check out this article to discover a new way to eat fennel and absolutely LOVE IT!
Radishes - Our radishes are crispy and crunchy! They are not bitter like store-bought radishes and due to their incredible taste and the huge demand we get for them, they are a staple crop for the fall, winter and spring seasons. The best way to enjoy them? ROASTED! Check out this recipe (and include the other roots too!): Garlic Roasted Radishes
Leeks - you can't go wrong with leeks! Leeks are the largest member of the allium family and the entire plant is edible and delicious! Grown as a vegetable, but with a very close similarity to onions, garlic, shallots and chives which makes them super versatile. Check out this very informative article about leeks - EVERYTHING YOU NEEDED TO KNOW ABOUT LEEKS.
Turnips - Oh, the precious and amazing hakurei turnip! No, these are not your typical purple topped turnips - these are special, incredible, delicious and sweet! Try them, enjoy them, love them...and be amazed!! CLICK HERE to learn about their "Surprisingly delicate, almost fruity flavor..."
Tomatoes - The last of the tomatoes are coming! This week will be red mixed with some green and then the next two weeks will be our giant green tomato harvest! Green tomatoes are the best! CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE - WOW!
Basil- Delicious and amazing! This basil is the BEST for pesto - and let me tell ya, we eat lot's of pesto!! Only 2 more weeks of basil!!!!😢😢😢
Radish Microgreens - Next to the barley grass and the sunshoots, radish microgreens are some of the most nutritiously-dense items we grow on the farm and not only that, but during our annual survey last year, they ranked as the #1 most requested and love item we grow! They have a fantastic bite to them, last considerably long in the refrigerator and are beautiful in appearance.
Pea Shoots - One of the most desired and sought after items we provide are these pea shoots! Quite literally the best you added to any dish or salad. Our favorite way is to add them to stews and soups. A perfect topper too! Here are four fun ways to use Pea Shoots: http://blog.bostonorganics.com/4-fun-ways-to-use-pea-shoots
Broccoli Microgreens - Last week we told you that Radish Microgreens were the #1 most loved item we grow, well, these microgreens weren't on the list then! I have a sneaking suspicion that these microgreens are the real winners!
Sunshoots - Our sunshoots are certainly some of the nicest, most high-quality sunshoots you will ever find (that actually goes for all our microgreens). They are one of the most beloved items we grow as well and a regular staple to our CSA. Here are some ideas to use your sunnies this week: https://www.martinsgardenacf.com/sunflower-shoots-recipes
That's it for this week! We love you to pieces, are incredibly grateful for each and every one of you and we are blessed to the core to be YOUR farmers!!
Yosef, Havah, Kids and Team The Camire Family
