CSA Announced

Dear friends, family, and neighbors:
Happy new year to all! I hope that everyone had a good year and is looking forward to the new. I am excited to announce that I will be farming again starting this spring. This time I will be growing fruits and vegetables at our home in Iowa City as The Millet Seed Farm, a small scale urban homestead. I will be offering 12 Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares for the 2016 growing season. The goal of the CSA is to help us all reconnect with food and learn skills for resiliency and sustainability. The share will consist of a diversity of greens, herbs, alliums, root vegetables, and other specialty items including fruits and fermented foods. We will also provide vegetable starts, trees and shrubs, recipes, and classes to support and encourage your personal efforts in growing food.
Details:
The main focus of the CSA is to provide healthy food that is grown in a way that sustains the land, as well as education that empowers our community.
  • A share will cost $25 per week for a 30 week growing season
  • The average share will consist of 2 greens, 2 roots, 2 herbs ,1 allium, and 1 specialty item. These shares will represent how we eat at our urban homestead on a daily basis. We have been subsisting on our own fruit and vegetable production (includes foraging) for the past three years. The diversity and quantity of the share will vary depending on the growing season.
    • greens: kale, chard, spinach, lettuce, mustard, arugula, collards, turnip, radish, nettles, chicory
    • roots: carrots, beets, radish, turnip, parsnip
    • herbs: anise hyssop, basil, cilantro, parsley, cutting celery, dill, sage, mint, lemon balm, rhubarb.
    • alliums: garlic, onions, leeks, shallots
    • specialty items:
      –fruits (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, apples, pears, sour cherries, aronia berries, raspberries, strawberries, elderberries, and peaches)
      –tubers (potatoes, sweet potatoes, and sunchokes)
      –fermented foods (sauerkraut, kim chi, hot sauce, pickled beets, apple cider vinegar, and kombucha)
      –apple and pear cider
      –honey (from our backyard bees)
  • We will offer fruit and vegetable starts to kick-start your garden. Choose from perennial herbs, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, paw paws, cherries, chestnuts, persimmons, aronias, elderberries, currants, gooseberries, and more!
  • We will provide education through garden consultations and classes on cooking, beekeeping, raising chickens, cider pressing, storing food for winter, canning, and more!
If you are interested in joining, please contact me as soon as possible. The limit is 12 shares and I will keep a waiting list once all shares are taken. Please share this e-mail with friends and family that may be interested in joining the CSA. I am hoping to find members in the neighborhood to make this a truly local effort but all are welcome to join. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about payment options or would like to hear more details about the share.
Cheers,
Jon

Providing healthy food, Sustaining the land, Empowering our community