Good-bye & thank you!

Our son and the CSA are the same age. For the first season - back when the farm was a solo project of Jason’s - Silas was a newborn.

Fast forward and both the farm and boy are eight. The farm is now every bit a team effort, and the CSA is also at an end. Thank you so much for being a CSA member. Some of you have been with us for years. How appreciated you made us feel by signing up each season.

We hope you enjoyed your time with us. If you’d like to track down Plot Twist Farm produce next season, you’ll be able to find us at several locations.

The other night, the three of us talked about how we felt about the CSA ending. We agreed it was bittersweet. We all have new things happening in our lives, and it feels like an exciting time. But something that was a force of good in our lives is ending, and it’s impossible to not feel a bit of sadness.

The farm has always been a blend of grit, goodwill, and great luck. We brought the grit, and it was you who always brought the goodwill by supporting a small farm. From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you.

~ Stella & Jason

Time for a new chapter

We have four lists hanging on our fridge. They’re lists of what we’re planning to put in the last CSA shares of the season. We’ve made these lists for eight years. In that time, we’ve packed weekly produce shares, June through October, for more than 300 households total. That’s close to 6,000 shares.

After eight years, we’re opening to a fresh page for the farm, and our family, and doing so means it’s time to end the CSA. We’re grateful for everything the CSA helped us do, and we’re also excited for the future.

We’ve found ourselves in the fortunate position of no longer requiring the CSA to financially sustain our family or farm. If you’ve followed our story, you know that Jason left his full-time job in December. He started his own business as a grant writer and project manager. To our complete and joyous surprise, this business was immediately able to support our family.

And while this was wonderful news for us, it did upend our year. This was supposed to be the season when we farmed full time, with Jason’s new business operating on the side for added financial security. To keep ourselves sane, we decreased our farm workload in the ways that we could. This meant focusing on the CSA, while drastically scaling back retail sales, and only attending the farmers market when it did not put too much strain on our week.

Next year, we’ll be doing the reverse. We’ll return to selling to local outlets, and we’ll be regulars again at the farmers market.

This farm reset will open up time and energy for long overdue personal and professional goals, and allow us much more time with family. It will also allow us to retool the farm. We’re drawing up plans for an entirely new farm layout (one of the benefits of a business built of soil!), and rethinking what we’ll plant and how much. There’s a new, exciting energy flowing into our lives.

We’re grateful for everything the CSA gave us. It’s because of the CSA that there’s even a farm. And it gave us the confidence to make the leap to self-employment, a decision that has changed our lives in the most fantastic way. Along the way, we’ve met people who will be special to us always. We’ve finished Part 1 of the farm’s story. Time for the sequel.

~ Stella

Best laid plans

If you know what they say about “best laid plans,” then you’re wiser than we were last year. We thought we had 2022 all figured out, and then it unfolded in a completely unexpected way from the start.

We’re happy to report that the unexpected turn of events this year has been a true gift to our family. Last year, Jason started his own grant writing and project management firm. Basically, he's continuing to use the skills he acquired during his decade in local government, but in the private sector on his own schedule.

This was supposed to be a side gig — just something for added financial security. As soon as he left his full-time county government job in December, his new business took flight — and it hasn’t touched down yet. We even recently completed the steps necessary to make me an employee of the business. We definitely did not see that coming.

To keep ourselves from going crazy with work this year, we’ve scaled back how much we harvest and sell. While the CSA remained unchanged from last year (about 50 families, 18 weeks of produce), we decided to step back from online sales and regular farmers market appearances. We LOVE setting up a stand at the Meadville Market House on Saturday mornings, but we could not maintain that level of time/physical labor every week this season. We skipped the past few Saturdays to catch up on the farm and enjoy family time — and just breathe! FYI: We do expect to be at the farmers market this Saturday (July 30).

We’re learning to set boundaries with the farm, and work in general. This season, our farm priority is the CSA. Beyond that, we’re not doing anything if it stretches us too thin.

We definitely didn’t see this plot twist coming, but we’re glad it did. We’ve been 100 percent self-employed for seven months now. Our new business has given us financial freedom and freedom when it comes to the farming choices we make. We’re still busy making plans for 2023, of course, because we’re planners. But we’re remembering to factor in enjoying life and our family and friends in those plans.

~ Stella

75% CSA retention rate for 2022!

This is a year unlike any other for us, as you know. For those of you who are new, Jason no longer works off the farm. That was not the case for our previous seven seasons. And Season 8 is a milestone year for another reason. After entering this year’s CSA memberships into a spreadsheet, Jason learned that 75 percent of our CSA members from last year have signed up for this year. The average retention rate for CSAs is about 45 percent.

The prospect of seeing and communicating with most of the same people this year came as happy news to me, and it makes me excited for the season. Many of those CSA members have been with us for several years now - if not from the very beginning!

A few CSA members opted out this year because they have plans to travel, with the end of the pandemic hopefully on the horizon. This, too, is happy news!

~ Stella

P.S. And we do have a few CSA spots still open. Last count was five.

Panzanella - a summer taste of Tuscany

I love food aha! moments. When someone introduces you to a simple and delicious ingredient or recipe. This happens at least once each season, thanks to a CSA member.

The recipe below is for panzanella, and it was one such moment. It was sent in by CSA member Mark. I used it in this week’s CSA newsletter, and also asked him to share a good Italian proverb about food. I’ll let the curious amongst us seek its meaning.

Mark’s explanation of panzanella is so interesting and clear, I’ll just let him take it from here.

~ Stella

“Mangia bene e caca forte e non aver paura della morte.” - Italian folk saying

HOW TO MAKE PANZANELLA

Panzanella is the epitome of Italian cucina povera or “poor kitchen.” Historically, this was the food of the impoverished. Now, it’s a catch-all phrase for an inexpensive dish that makes use of simple ingredients and is prepared easily.

Panzanella is a mixing of the word for bread - pane - and that of an archaic word for bowl - zanella. This high-summer dish is native to Tuscany, but one sees variations across the region.

Bread, tomatoes, red onion, basil, olive oil, salt, and pepper are at the core of panzanella.

This is a fool-proof recipe! That stale bread on your counter or buried in your freezer? Toast it, cube it, and put it into a bowl.

Then, add a number of diced, very ripe tomatoes and a few slivers of red onion. Thinly slice some basil and add it, along with some salt and a few grinds of black pepper.

Finish the dish with a healthy drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and toss it gently.

You’ll see variants of panzanella, depending on what’s in the fridge and needs to be eaten. When I have things like cucumbers, peppers, and celery on hand - as we CSAers have had recently - I often add them to the dish. Sometimes a bit of red wine vinegar or some capers is added to give the dish a boost. Italians closer to the sea often add anchovies to the mix, too.

Mangia bene!

~ Mark

The aftermath

Here’s the scene on Thursdays after CSA share packing. Every ripe veggie on the farm finds a home each week, whether it’s in the CSA shares, sold to a shop or at market, donated, given to a friend or family member, or in our tummies. There’s no food waste on the farm.

As always, many thanks to Gene for his assistance. And thanks to Fawn, too.

~ Stella

Mangia bene!

Ashley put her CSA produce and recipe to delicious use this week with her pasta pomodoro. I’ll post the pasta pomodoro recipe later this week. Thanks for sending in, Ashley!

The first CSA harvest is in! How much did we pick?

We’re packing 55 CSA shares for Lucky Season No. 7. We have 20 half shares and 35 full shares, and the harvest is in for this week’s CSA. They’ll be packed tomorrow morning, and then distributed over three days.

Over the seasons, we’ve learned (sometimes the hard way) there are two keys to a smoother CSA week.

1.) Have a detailed, written plan for the week. When it’s written out, you might look at it and say, “Well, damn.” But you must have a plan in front of you. It’s better than looking around the farm and having that same thought. For the CSA, I make a list a week beforehand of the produce we think will be ready to harvest. Jason’s seeding and planting schedule aims to hit its mark every week, but of course the weather is always a big factor. I plan out what we’re going to harvest down to the exact number of kale leaves. Then, I map out when we’ll harvest. Having a clear plan makes any changes that crop up during the week less painful.

2.) Do. Not. Procrastinate. Never. Don’t do it. No. Do not. We mostly stick to the written plan, but if an opportunity presents itself, we take it. Like, say, the radish pulling went way faster than expected. Okay, then pick some spinach right now instead of tomorrow. We cut greens that store exceptionally well, such as kale and spinach, as early in the week as possible. When cut properly, in the cool of morning or evening, and immediately rinsed and stored in airtight containers in the cooler, they can keep for several weeks, so picking them a few days in advance is perfectly fine. Early on in my farm years, I had the ridiculous mindset that all CSA produce had to be harvested only one day before it’s packed. This is completely foolish. Fresh vegetables store well. Don’t make it harder on yourself than it needs to be.

This is our second season with about 55 members. For our biggest CSA season, we had 75 members. That was when we had a part-time helper. With Jason still working off-farm full time, we decided to keep the CSA around 55. The fact that we sell out every year is a positive indicator for future expansion.

But back to present day. Want to know how much we harvested for this week’s CSA? Here you go:

Kale: 20 pounds (This is 600 big leaves.)

Lettuce heads: About 100

Pea shoots: 7 pounds

Oregano: 4 pounds

Spinach: 6 pounds (This week, the spinach is only going in the full shares. Sometimes we alternate what the half shares and full shares receive. It all just depends on how much is ready to harvest.)

Parsley: 3 pounds

Green onions: Not sure how many. It felt like an eternity’s worth. Darned green onions. A tedious vegetable if there ever was one.

Radishes: About 3 bushels

Every season, as that first CSA week draws near, I get nervous. We still harvest for local shops and fill website orders every Monday, plus we’ve got to, you know, grow stuff. There are times when the weekly schedule looks totally bananas. There are times when I look around and think, this whole thing is nuts, isn’t it? Are we nuts? Well, maybe it is, and maybe we are, but, we’ve got a plan, and we just need to stick to it. And no procrastinating. No. Never. Huh-uh! Don’t even think about ! ;)

We’re loving the pick-up we bought last fall, even with all its quirks. It’s so easy to load bins in the bed. We’ve still got the Toyota RAV4 and its trailer, but the truck is much easier. That’s the whole lettuce harvest for the CSA this week. It’s about 100 heads. Time to take it home and let it soak before storing it in the cooler in bins.

~ Stella