To Sign Up for the 2012 CSA Program, Click Here!

For a customer-written overview of our CSA Program, click on this link:  http://www.examiner.com/food-in-salt-lake-city/b-u-g-farms-is-the-new-kid-on-the-block-community-supported-agriculture-review

To Learn Details About Our CSA Program, Read On........

What is a CSA?

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture is a partnership between us, BUG Farmers, and you, the locavore consumer! CSA's are a business model that allows you as a consumer and us as farmers share the risks and benefits involved in growing your food in an urban, grassroots, and community-based way. You purchase a subscription to the farm (a "share") and become a member.Our CSA program gives an opportunity for families and individuals to directly access urban farm fresh produce throughout the growing season while directly supporting small scale, sustainable, grassroots community agriculture. Your upfront payment is indispensible in covering start-up farm expenses and also providing living wages for the folks who are growing your food. Without your support, we would not be able to continue growing good food for our Salt Lake Community. We hope you will consider becoming a member of the BUG Farms CSA Program.

What Are My Share Options?

There are 2 basic option types: The Full Share, and the Half Share. Both provide the same amount of produce in each delivery, but the Full Share comes every week, and the Half Share comes every other week during the growing season. If you buy a Half Share, based on your delivery or pickup location, you will be assigned to either Week A or Week B distribution. Pricing for shares are outlined below:

How Long Is The Season?

We will plan to have our 2012 harvest season, weather permitting,  from mid-May to the end of October, give or take a week or two depending good graces of Mother Earth : ) The total season should last between 22-25 weeks. Last year (2011) we started late (First week of June) because of the long cold wet spring, but our last delivery was into the first week of November.

How Will I Get My Veggie Share?

There are 2 ways of getting your veggies each week: HOME/OFFICE DELIVERY or CSA PICKUP LOCATIONS.

HOME/OFFICE DELIVERY: One of the many unique things about our CSA program is our delivery service. For a small additional fee, if you live within Salt Lake City, there is no need to remember to pick up your CSA share, we deliver it directly to your house or office! The one time delivery fee is $50 for a Half Share and $100 for a Full Share. This helps us cover our costs in fuel and extra labor.

If you are getting a Home/Office Delivery, we need to make sure you have a way of keeping your veggies cool and fresh until they get inside your fridge. Therefore, please make sure you have a cooler with a cold freezer pack outside your front door of hour house/apartment, or have some way of storing your produce in your office, either in an office fridge or cooler, before taking it home with you. 

CSA PICKUP LOCATIONS: If you don't mind coming to a pickup location for your veggies and are on a tighter budget, the Pickup Share may be the way to go for you. Here is a list of our dropoff Locations*:

• Mountain Valley Seed Co. Store: 455 W 1700 S
• Sugarhouse Pickup: TBD
• Avenues Pickup: TBD
• East Bench/University Pickup : TBD
• Liberty Wells Pickup: TBD
• Wasatch Cohousing Pickup: 1411 S. Utah St (1605 West)

We are currently finding our exact locations for many of our pickup spots, if you are interested in becoming a pickup location host for the 2012, you will recieve an additional $100 discount from your full share. We are currently looking for locations in the Avenues, Sugarhouse, East Bench/University, and Liberty Wells Neighborhoods. Hosts must also sign up to recieve a full share and need to have a secure, protected area that is accessible by the members to pick up their shares. If you are interested, send us an email at bugfarms@gmail.com and we will give you more details!

How Much Food Will I Get In My Delivery?

Understand that even with our best planning and farming efforts, mother earth is the real decider on what grows and what doesn't! Each delivery should contain between 5-9 different veggie/greens/herb items. The exact quantity and variety will change each week depending on the harvest for that time of the season. For example, if the slugs and snails decide to eat up a certain bed of spinach, then you may not have spinach for that week.   Generally, one delivery should last 2-4 people cooking at home a weeks worth of veggies. If you are single, think about teaming up with a friend and splitting a Full Share, or try a Half Share where you will have 2 weeks to eat your produce before getting another delivery.

June deliveries could look like this:
4 oz microgreens
6 oz lettuce mix
6 oz baby spinach
1 bunch Rainbow chard
1 bunch Red Russian kale
1 bunch French Breakfast radish
1 bunch Parisienne carrots
1 bunch cilantro
2 medium summer squash
 
August deliveries could look like this:
8 oz mixed heirloom cherry tomatoes
1 bunch rainbow carrots
1 bunch rainbow beets
1 large eggplant
1/3 lb green beans
1-3 sweet pepper
2-4 hot peppers
1 bunch/bag basil
1 bunch chard
4 oz sunflower sprouts
 
October deliveries could look like this:
2 lb potatoes
2 acorn squash or 1 larger winter squash
2-3 storage onions
6 oz. spinach
1 bunch chard
4 oz microgreens
1 bunch pea shoots
6 oz lettuce mix



Exact quantities and varieties can vary a bit, and some weeks you may recieve more different veggies than others.
To see some of what we gave in 2011, peruse some of 2011's weekly CSA newsletters in the blog section here
 

What If I Am Out Of Town?

We are hoping to provide veggies for up to 90 members this year, which makes member management a very BIG JOB. Based on my experience last year, it became increasingly pain-staking and tedious to keep track of who was skipping weeks when. So to streamline the member management, and reduce errors, if you know you are going to be out of town, there will be a couple of options: Coordinate a friend who will pick up your share at your delivery location and eat it or keep it for you for that week. We won't be able to deliver it to a different address though. Another option for Half Share members is to switch your delivery to your "off week". The bottome line is to please LET US KNOW AT LEAST A WEEK AHEAD OF YOUR ABSENCE and we can figure out something for you : )

How Do I Pay For My CSA Membership?

Currently, we can only accept a check in the mail, or cash in person for CSA payment. Due to the difficulty of setting up online credit card payment, and the extra fees associated, we will not be offering that option right now. Hopefully that wont be a huge problem for you. We understand that paying for the whole season at once may be challenging for some of you. If that is keeping you from joining, send us an email and we will try to work with you in splitting up your payments. But, if you have the ability to pay all at once, that would be really helpful on this end and lots of good and tankful vibes will be going your way : ) We really want to offer our tasty veggies to as many folks as possible in our community, and offer as low of a price as we can, while still being able to function sustainably as an urban farming business. We aren't in this for the money, but we do need money to be able go grow food and pay the rent for ourselves : )

Now that the growing season is over, and have had a nice holiday break, we are rolling into the planning and transition stage of the season. Every day the sun stays in the sky a little bit longer, and we are gathering our energy and wits to make the 2012 season the best harvest season yet! I am currently spending a few weeks in Arizona with family here, and then heading to Tucson to attend Native Seed/SEARCH's Grain School in the hopes to be growing backyard plots of grains for this coming season and beyond.

With all of this planning and transition going on, I wanted to remind those of you thinking about joining our CSA program for 2012 of our Early Bird Discount which will end in a few short days on December 31, 2011. Those of you who sign up by the end of the year will recieve $100 off the Full Share Price and $50 off the Half Share Price.

To Sign Up For Early Bird CSA Pricing, Click Here!

http://www.backyardurbangardens.com/members

Another note about changes for the 2012 Season is that we are increasing the price of Home/Office Delivery Shares to reflect the extra time and/or fuel it takes to make these deliveries, so make sure you choose the type that suits your needs and budget. We have increased the delivery price so that the delivery charge is only an extra $4 per week to get your veggies taken straight to your door.

But for those of you wanting the Pickup Option, we have locked in 3 Pickup Locations so far including:

• University/East Bench Area: Bright Horizons at U of U Research Park
• East Downtown Area: Home near 1300 E 700 S
• Mountain Valley Seed Co.: 455 W 1700 S (Near Costco)

Also we are looking for Pickup Hosts in these SLC Neighborhoods:

• Sugarhouse
• Avenues
• Downtown/Liberty Wells

*If you become a pickup host, you will recieve an additional $100 off your full share price. Contact me (Sharon) for more details about becoming a Pickup Host at bugfarms@gmail.com.

To learn more about what our CSA Program offers, check out our CSA description page here:

http://www.backyardurbangardens.com/content/8993

I hope some of you take the leap to join our CSA Program, it does a lot to support the transformation of urban land into productive food growing space. Not to mention all of the tasty, fresh, and grown with love veggies you will recieve all season : )

Until Next Time,

Sharon

Happy Final Veggie Delivery Greetings!

Well, it certainly feels like winter is quickly approaching! It got down to 22 degrees last night out here in Glendale. We had to wait until 10:30 this morning for the frost to melt off the greens so we could pick them. The microgreens suprised us by not even germinating in time this week, even though we planted them earlier than we ever had before! Today we had 10 hours and 22 minutes of daylight, only 23 minutes away from minimum amount of sunlight needed for plants to keep on growing (which is 10 hours). Despite all of these frosty days, we are still giving you a lovely final share this week! We have some pretty heirloom winter squash for you, as well as some tasty potatoes to send you off into the winter with!

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2011 In Review!

Since this is the last CSA email, I thought it would be nice to write an overview of what we grew this season. After crunching some harvest numbers in a spreadsheet, here are some of our harvest totals for the 2011 Season.

BUG Farms in 2011 Grew:

• 500 Pounds Summer Squash
• 800 Pounds Heirloom Tomatoes
• 717 Pounds of Radish Microgreens
• 700 Pounds Greens (Spinach, arugula, mustards, lettuce, etc)
• 1,000 Pounds Bunching Greens (Chard, Kale, Collards)
• 1.120 Pounds Carrots
• 2,120 Pounds Beets (Including Greens)
• 11,275 Pounds Total Food in 2011! (Over 5.5 Tonnes)

That means that each full share recieved about 150 lbs of food over the season! We ended up having 110 CSA Members this year, with 37 members having Full shares, and 73 members having Half Shares.We had 21,000 square feet of growing space, which is just over 1/2 acre spread over 7 backyards.

This season had a lot of weather related challenges, we had the wettest two months EVER in Salt Lake in April and May, which put many of our crops behind. The temps didn't warm up and soil didn't dry out until June, and all of our long season crops were outplanted about 3 weeks behind schedule. We did have a very mild summer, with only one day reaching over 100 degrees! The fall overall has been quite stable with fairly average temperatures allowing for a nice late harvest.

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New Delivery Changes For The 2012 CSA

We are really looking forward to next season, lot of exciting changes coming our way. As I have been writing about, we will be relocating all of our farming activities from Sugarhouse to backyards out in Glendale. I am settling into my new house in Wasatch Commons quite nicely, and look forward to walking out to my backyard farms, walk-in cooler, and chicken coops instead of having to drive to them all! We had to drive an average of 35 miles everyday to get around between our plots, and next year we hope to only have to drive for some of our CSA deliveries.

Speaking of CSA Deliveries, we are seriously looking at minimizing our driving miles next year, and have a couple of awesome, heavy duty bike trailers lined up to do many of our deliveries via bike. We can probably only do the flat land deliveries this way (biking a 500 lb load up the Wasatch Fault would be tricky to say the least) so we will be using the truck to do "Up The Hill" deliveries. So, when you sign up for your share for next season, just choose either "Up The Hill" or "In the Flats" to delineate your delivery neighborhood. Also, because of the time/fuel it takes to do home deliveries, we are planning on adding a delivery fee ($100 extra for  Full Share, $50 extra for 1/2 Share) for those who are choosing that option. BUT if you are a returning member, and you sign up and give us a $100 downpayment before the end of the year (December 31, 2011) your delivery fee will be waived, as well as recieving the early bird discount (another $100 for full shares and $50 for half shares), making the 2012 Full Shares $500, and Half Shares $300 for early bird returning members. To recieve the delivery fee waiver, please send me an email so I can take the discount off of your membership : ) We just finished the sign up page on the website, so feel free to sign up for 2012 online here before the end of the year to get the Early Bird Pricing as well!

Become a CSA Pickup Host!

Because some folks might not be able to afford an additional delivery fee, we are planning on expanding the pickup options for next year. So, if you are interested in becoming a pickup location for other folks next year, you will recieve another $100 discount from your full share. We are looking for locations in the Avenues, Sugarhouse, East Bench/University, and Liberty Wells Neighborhoods. If you are interested, send me an email and I will give you more details!

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Thanks for your Support for Grain School!

Because of all of your generous donations, we were able to raise $700 towards tuition for attending Grain School at Native Seed/SEARCH this winter! Jesse and I will be splitting your donations to cover each of our $600 tuition, and we will hopefully be able to recieve a working scholarship for the remaining portion. We are excited to bring back small scale grain growing knowledge to start a couple of 1/2 acre fields of quinoa, wheat, and tepary beans for the 2012 season. We will keep you updated as to our plans of the grain vein : ) Oh, and to those of you who donated, we will be bringing you some tasty homemade jam in your deliveries this week!

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I know this is a looong email, but there are lots of juicy end of season tidbits to share. I will be making a quick CSA survey so you can all voice your thought/opinions on your share this year that we will incorporate into our crop/farm plan for next year. We have learned a lot and hope to only improve with each passing year. We truly, deeply thank you for your wonderful gastronomic support this year, and hope to see you all back with the CSA next season! All right, here are the final week CSA details and recipes, enjoy!

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Week 23 (A&B) Share
 
1 bunch Kale or Collards
1 bunch Carrots or Beets
1 bunch Swiss Chard
1 bag lettuce mix or Asian/Mustard/Arugula Mix
1 bunch Sorrel
1 bag potatoes (mixed varieties)

Winter Squash! (mixed heirloom varieties)

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Recipes

Sorrel and Potato Soup

Adapted from "Vegetable Every Day" by Jack Bishop. Thanks to CSA Member Sandra Hatch for giving me a copy!

2 Tblsps olive oil

2 leeks, or green onions, halved and sliced crosswise into thin strips

1 lb potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes

4 c veggie stock

4 c sorrel, washed and chopped

Salt and Pepper

1. Heat oil in large saucepan. Add leeks/onions and saute over med heat until completely softened.
2. Add potatoes, stock, and salt and pepper to taste and bring to boil. Reduce heat, partially cover, and simmer until potatoes are extremely tender, about 30 minutes
3. Stir in sorrel and continue cooking until sorrel has wilted, 2-3 min. Adjust the seasonings. Serve hot or cool slightly, puree in a blender or with a hand blender, chill, then serve ice cold.

Baked Squash Casserole with Indian Flavors

Also from "Vegetables Every Day", add some rice and a salad and everyone will be satisfied.

2 1/2 lbs winter squash

2 Tblsp oil

2 medium onions, halved and sliced thin

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tsp curry powder

2 tsp minced fresh cilantro

salt

1 c coconut milk

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Use a spoon to scoop out and discard strings and seeds. Cut squash into pieces about the size of your hand. Remove the skin and a layer or two of flexh? you want to remove any whitish or green flesh right beneath the skin) with a vegetable peeler or paring knife. Cut the peeled squash into 2 inch chunks.
3. Heat oil in large skillet. Add onions nd saute over med heat until godlen, about 8 min. Add garlic and curry powder and saute until fragrant. Add squash pieces and toss just long enough to coat with the onions and curry. Season with cilantro and salt to taste. Scrape mixture into 13X9-inch bakind dish. Drizzle with coconut milk over squash.
4. Bake until squash is tender and lightly browned, about 1 hour. Let settle for several minutes and then serve

   Spaghetti Squash with Pine Nuts, Sage, and Romano

• 1 spaghetti squash, halved lengthwise and seeded
• 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
• 1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh sage
• 2 teaspoons butter, melted
• salt and pepper to taste
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
  2. Place the squash, cut side down, in a large baking dish.
  3. Bake the squash in the preheated oven for 50 minutes.
  4. Scrape flesh of squash from the rind using a fork and place in a bowl. Add the pine nuts, cheese, sage, butter, salt, and pepper; toss to combine. Serve immediately.

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There you go! Well, this is the last offical CSA Newsletter, but I will periodically be sending out emails with updates on BUG Farms. Also look out for the End of Season Survey email in the coming weeks.

Thank you for your support of BUG Farms!

Sharon

Halloweenish and Samhainesque Greetings to all of you!

Well, were on the home stretch here with the BUG Farms deliveries, and the weather is turning wintersome these days. We had a lovely time planting our first BUG Farms garlic crop last friday on a lovely sunny day. We bought 5 lbs of seed stock garlic from your farmer friend Dave Baldwin who farms down in Sandy. He gave us the variety Incheillium Red, which is the longest storing hardneck variety out there. We are starting small because seed is quite expensive, we spent close to $100 for the seed stock. Garlic is a long term crop that you continually build up year after year by selecting your fattest cloves to save for seed each season. Garlic takes 9 months from planting to maturity(like a baby!) so we will be sharing with you the first of our garlic next July. Some good things to look forward to : )

As for this week, we have the last of our hot peppers and pepperoncini's to pass out to you all. There will be radishes for everyone, I will include an adapted recipe based on what chef Ethan Lappe of Caffe Niche had us try last week when we delivered some of our radishes to them. He had them sliced paper thin on a lightly toasted piece of french style bread served with warm butter and sprinkled with Hawaiian black salt. It was the tastiest radish dish I've ever had! Our beet bunches are a bit smaller this week, the beds are starting to get thinned out, and the fall crop is still filling out.

Next week, November 2, will be the LAST CSA DELIVERY for the season. We will be delivering to everyone, to BOTH A and B half shares. We will (hopefully) go out with a bang divvying all of the long storage crops as well as the root veggies and greens. Park City deliveries are included, you will still get your delivery on Friday November 3 : ) I will also try to compile a season summary in next week's email, so stay tuned for that too!

Now here's your share this week:

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Week 22 (B) Share
 
1 bag Microgreens
1 bunch Beets
1 bunch Swiss Chard
1 bag Baby Red Russian Kale (tender enough for a salad)
1 bunch Radishes (Purple Plum, Pink Beauty, or French Breakfast)
Pepers (Serrano, Jalapeno, Anaheim, or Pepperoncini

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Caffe Niche-esque Radish Toasty Heaven (adapted from a what Ethan Lappe made at Caffe Niche for me last week!)

For 4 slices of toast

• 1-2 medium radishes, sliced paper thin
• 1 Tbsp butter, melted
• 4 slices of good french-style bread, something crusty but soft with a good crumb, toasted lightly
• 1/2 tsp Hawaiian Black Salt, or another fancy salt

Sharon's Tasty Baby Kale Salad (I made this tonight for dinner!)

• 1 Bag Baby Kale
• 1 handful microgreens
• 1 small beet, grated raw
• Sunflower seeds or other nuts, toasted
• 2 oz crumbled Feta(Drake Farms has a tasty goat feta that I used)

Shake together in mason jar for dressing:

• 1-2 Tbsp good Olive Oil
• 1-2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
• 1 tsp granulated kelp
• 1 tsp flax oil
• 1 tsp Bragg's Organic Sprinkle Herb mix
• Salt to taste

This luxurious pizza is topped with tender caramelized onions spread over a creamy mixture of ricotta, Parmesan cheese and chopped Swiss chard

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 1/4 pounds onions, sliced

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves

2 garlic cloves, minced

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1/2 pound chard, stemmed, leaves washed

1 14-inch pizza crust (1/2 batch pizza dough)

3/4 cup ricotta (6 ounces)

2 ounces Parmesan, grated (1/2 cup, tightly packed)

1 egg yolk

1. Thirty minutes before baking the pizza, preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large, heavy skillet. Add the onions. Cook, stirring often, until tender and just beginning to color, about 10 minutes. Add the thyme, garlic and a generous pinch of salt. Turn the heat to low, cover and cook another 10 to 20 minutes, stirring often, until the onions are golden brown and very sweet and soft. Remove from the heat.

2. While the onions are cooking, stem and wash the chard leaves, and bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Fill a medium bowl with ice water. When the water comes to a boil, salt generously and add the chard. Blanch for one to two minutes, just until the leaves are tender, and transfer to the ice water. Drain and squeeze out excess water. Alternatively, steam the chard for two to three minutes until wilted, and rinse with cold water. Chop the chard medium-fine.

3. Roll out the dough, oil a 14-inch pizza pan and dust with cornmeal or semolina. Place the dough on the pan.

4. In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta, egg yolk, Parmesan and chard. Spread over the pizza dough in an even layer, leaving a 1-inch border around the rim. Spread the onions over the ricotta mixture.

5. Place in the hot oven, and bake 10 to 15 minutes until the crust and bits of the onion are nicely browned. Remove from the heat, and serve hot or warm.

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Well, until next (and last!) week,

Sharon