Farm News

Good evening members,

Things have been bustling along on the farm. While we have been enjoying the beautiful weather and sunshine, we are anticipating a long, wet week ahead. While this is great for the vegetables, we will most likely be harvesting in our raincoats and boots later in the week.

We have finally come to the end of our run of lettuces, and are making that turn towards the heat loving vegetables. Sweet corn is merely weeks away, the same goes for our cherry, grape, slicer and heirloom tomatoes.

We are excited to have several new and unique items in the boxes this week! Week 5 box contents are as follows:

One Ball Squash
Eight Ball Squash
Yellow Squash
Zucchini
Pattypan Squash
Collards
Cabbage
Daikon
New Potatoes
Carrots
Pickling Cucumbers
Radishes
Broccoli

**Please note that box contents are subject to box size and availability. Please also note that we are reaching the end of our broccoli harvest and that quantities may be limited**

Our most exciting vegetable this week is Daikon, which is an Asian radish. It has a texture similar to a water chestnut. Our recipe of the week is a simple Daikon salad recipe, courtesy of Sarahs Cucina Bella blog.

Easy Daikon Salad Prep time: 20 Minutes

Ingredients

2 cups julienne cut (thin, skinny slices) daikon radish
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp seasoned rice vinegar
2 tsp granulated sugar
1 tsp sweet rice wine (mirin)
OPTIONAL: crushed peanuts

Directions

Place the daikon in a colander/mesh strainer over a bowl or the sink and sprinkle with salt. Mix well. Let sit for 30 minutes. Squeeze out excess water and then rinse well with cold water. Drain.

In a small saucepan, combine the seasoned rice vinegar, sugar and rice wine. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves (a few minutes).

Transfer the daikon to an airtight container and pour the rice vinegar mixture over. Shake or stir well to combine. Chill for 20 minutes before serving.

You can see this recipe and more from Sarahs Cucina Bella here: http://sarahscucinabella.com/2010/02/03/easy-daikon-salad-recipe/

And as always, please do not hesitate to call or email us at (843)-321-8344 or contact@pinckneysproduce.com if you have any questions.

Thank you for supporting local agriculture!

Urbie, Andrea, Ashby, Drew and Katie T.

Welcome to Week 3 Members!

We hope that you enjoyed your boxes last week. We sincerely appreciate the feedback and support you all have given us. We are very thankful that our deliveries have gone so smoothly, and we appreciate how well you all have communicated with us this season. We are even more thankful that the spring harvest and weather has been so kind to us so far.

Speaking of weather, the temperatures have certainly made a change for the warmer and we are adjusting here at the farm. Our winter vegetables such as greens and lettuces are starting to phase out. As the heat turns up, we are excited for a lot of our summer crops to start ripening. We already have some surprises ready this week, take a look at this weeks box contents:

Week 3:

Butter Crunch Lettuce
Turnips
Bok Choy
Beets
Cabbage
Onions
Broccoli
Yellow Squash
Zucchini
Patty Pan Squash
Mustard Greens
Cauliflower
One Ball Squash
Eight Ball Squash

**Please note that individual box contents are subject to size and availability.**

We are especially excited to offer our One Ball and Eight Ball squashes this week. For those that are unfamiliar with these varieties, the one ball squash is a small, spherical almost miniature version of the yellow crookneck squash, whereas the eight ball is the miniature zucchini version. You can cook these just as you would regular squashes, however these small varieties are especially popular for stuffing. Katie found these great recipes for stuffed one and eight ball squashes from Edible Magazine Dallas & Fort Worth: http://www.ediblecommunities.com/dallasfortworth/summer-2011/stuffed-one-ball-a-eight-ball-squash.htm

Our recipe of the week is a simple and quick recipe for pattypan squash. This is an easy recipe you can also use to prepare almost any variety of squash:

Roasted Patty Pan Squash

20 Min. Easy

Ingredients:

1/2 pound patty pan or other summer squash, cut into 1-inch chunks
1 shallot, sliced thin
1 tsp. chopped fresh thyme
1 tbs. olive oil
pinch of sea salt
*You can use rosemary or marjoram instead of thyme for a different flavor.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Toss squash, shallot, thyme, olive oil and salt together in a bowl.
Spread onto a sheet pan.
Spread onto sheet and bake 15 min.
Serves 4

Remember you can view this recipe as well as our vegetable ID page at any time under Our Produce section of our website.

Again we can not thank you all enough for your participation in our program. The positive responses we have received from you all have been most appreciated. We are so pleased that you enjoy the fruits of our labor as much as we do!

Till next week, Happy Farming!

Urbie, Andrea, Ashby, Drew and Katie

Hello Members!

First we would like to thank you all for an excellent first week. We appreciate all of your support and feedback as week kick this season off. We hope that you ate a lot of those good leafy greens in your boxes last week, because this beautiful weather has brought another big helping of tasty South Carolina freshness your way.

Box Contents for Week 2:

Butter Crunch Lettuce

Romaine Lettuce

Cabbage

Turnips

Bok Choy

Onions

Collards

Strawberries

Yellow Squash

Zucchini

Our recipe this week is Southern Turnip Supreme:

Ingredients

1 1/2 vegetable stock

3 cups peeled, cubed turnips

1/4 cup minced onions

2 gloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 tablespoons sour cream

1/2 cup cheddar cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Bring vegetable stock to boil. Stir in turnips, onion, and garlic, return to boil, and cook until turnips are tender, about 10 minutes. Reduce heat to a simmer, and cook until most liquid has been evaporated, 10 to 15 minutes. Lightly stir in the sour cream to coat the turnips. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and top with cheddar cheese.

Also, for those of you that may be unfamiliar with Bok Choy, it is simply a Chinese cabbage that you can sautee lightly with fresh garlic and vegetable oil or use in a fresh stir fry with some onions, zucchini, squash, and other vegetables.

A reminder: Please bring your empty green box from last week with you when you pick up your box this week. Please leave them on the rack so that we may sanitize and reuse them. Your help with returning the boxes helps keep us eco-friendly and sustainable!

Also, we are still accepting memberships at most drop sites. If you have a friend, coworker or family member interested in joining, we offer pro-rated shares for those interested. Please have them call us at (843)-321-8344 or email us at contact@pinckneysproduce.com

Our Facebook and Twitter really exploded with activity this week. Keep posting your pictures and recipes to share with other members! Like us on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pinckneys-Produce/175199343317 and follow us on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/#!/pinckneyscsa

Thank you again for your participation in our program and support of local agriculture! Eat fresh, Eat local!

Urbie, Andrea, Ashby, Drew and Katie T.

Hello again members,

We hope that you all had a blessed holiday weekend. We enjoyed the beautiful weather and some time with our families before we kicked off a busy week filled with vegetables!

That is right, we are ONE WEEK away from beginning deliveries! We are teeming with excitement down here. Urbie and Ashby are working very hard to have as much ready as possible for the first boxes, and I am working away finalizing our pick up times and other details. I will be sending out more emails this week including those times and other drop site information, so keep an eye out for those important messages in your inbox.

We also want to encourage those of you that have not signed up yet to do so! We are getting very close to the wire and we want to be able to include all of our last-minute folks. To sign up online click here:

http://www.pinckneysproduce.com/csa/signup/

Or give us a call at 843-321-8344.

We would also like to encourage you all to “Like” our Facebook page by clicking here

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pinckneys-Produce/175199343317

When deliveries begin this is a great resource to use to interact with other members, share recipes, photos, and more.

Again, I will be sending more emails with delivery times and other information very soon. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you might have. Thank you for the support, and happy farming!

Katie Thompson
katie@pinckneysproduce.com

Good Afternoon Members!

We are less than 3 weeks from our first delivery! This is an exciting time for us as the vegetables grow taller, the weather gets warmer, and those big green boxes get ready for delivery.

I just spoke with Urbie from the field and have some wonderful updates to share about our vegetables. Our collards are now HUGE and almost ready for harvest. The cauliflower is now budding and will hopefully keep progressing quickly enough to harvest for the first week of deliveries.

Our romaine and bibb lettuces are almost perfect. Onions, radishes, cabbage, and potatoes are all coming along nicely as well.

Our first batch of sweet corn is already almost 2 ft tall and looking prettier than ever. Urbie and Ashby are planting the second batch of sweet corn as we speak.

We have the tomatoes planted and they are growing rapidly. They should be ready for staking as early as next week. Our broccoli is also growing well, it should be ready for harvest the second or third week of deliveries.

The biggest news from the field is that our first batch of sweet summer watermelons and cantaloupes were planted yesterday! Summer is coming quicker than any of us could of anticipated. “Andrea, Ashby and Drew and I are all thankful for the good Lord looking over us!” says Urbie.

In other news, if you are considering signing up for a share with a Wednesday delivery I urge you to sign up as soon as possible. We are very close to filling up our available memberships for that day and we do not want you to miss out. Drop sites that have a Wednesday delivery day are:

SC Farm Bureau
Forest Lake Gardens
Rosewood Market
SC Hospital Association
Palmetto Health - Richland (Private)
Palmetto Health - Baptist (Private)
Woodleys Garden Center in Irmo
14 Carrot
Mid Carolina Electric Coop (Private)
Grove Park Pharmacy
The Plant Depot
Lexington Medical Center (Private)

Please note that we do deliver to Columbia and the surrounding areas on Thursdays as well. For our full listing of drop sites and delivery options, click over here: www.pinckneysproduce.com/csa/sites/

I am also sending out updates for current members at specific drop sites this week, so if you have not received your update yet it should hit your inbox in the next few days. I wanted to open up communications with each of you so I can answer your questions and accommodate your individual needs more efficiently.

Remember you can sign up for your share online here: http://www.pinckneysproduce.com/csa/signup/

or by phone at (843)-321-8344, or by mailing a check to:

Pinckneys Produce
17 Christine Dr.
Beaufort, SC 29907

Remember to include the one time $24 delivery fee in your total.

That is all of the updates we have for this week. We hope you all enjoy this beautiful day and we will be back with more news soon!

Thank you all for your continued support.

Katie Thompson
katie@pinckneysproduce.com

Hello Members!

Katie here - and for those that may not know - I am the Marketing and Membership Coordinator for Pinckneys Produce. I am writing in excitement as the spring harvest is quickly approaching! We are a mere month out from beginning deliveries and as Urbie and Ashby are out in the fields today I wanted to share my anticipation with you all.

Urbie has given me a detailed update on how our spring produce is coming along. The first plantings of collards and cabbage are doing very well and are about a foot tall now. The onions are also still doing beautifully and are quickly approaching two feet in height. They are developing into lovely large round globes as they should be.

The lettuce and broccoli are also coming along nicely, but here is the real sweet update - our sweet corn is now 6 inches tall! We are thrilled at the prospect of having sweet corn so early in the spring! Time to stock up on your dental floss.

The squash and zucchini are also doing well and survived the torrential rains we received a few weeks ago. I remember calling Urbie as he was trying to let water out of the fields and he joked about giving Ashby a snorkel!

In other news, the beets, turnips, mustard greens, arugula and mesclun mix are looking great, as well as our purple, white and red potatoes! Basically we could not ask for more beautiful weather or for more beautiful vegetables to be growing.

And for more big news…….we will be planting our tomatoes Monday! Get ready for some cherry, grape, slicer AND heirloom varieties this spring.

In other news, if you have not signed up for your share yet, I do encourage you to do so as some drop sites are filling up quickly. We are also pleased to announce a new drop site location now available in Summerville at Ace Hardware on Old Trolley Rd.

We are also happy to announce a partnership with Buy Certified SC. We have added a snazzy new link to their website from our homepage so be sure to check them out and get all of your Buy Certified SC gear while helping out our local agricultural programs at the same time.

Also, if you are finding this message in your spam folder, make sure you add us to your contact list so you do not miss any of our updates. We would hate for you to miss out on weekly delivery updates and recipes once the season commences.

Phew! That was quite a bit of updates! Please know that if you have any questions or would like to sign up, I am an email away at katie@pinckneysproduce.com or give us a call at (843)-321-8344.

Hope that you have a wonderful day and thank you for supporting our program!

Katie Thompson

Greetings from Pinckney, Jody, and the rest of the farm family!

It has been an exciting year in the Thompson family, and we have a lot to be thankful for. We have been blessed with new additions to our family, and also with the overwhelming support we have received from you, our amazing community that has brought our CSA program so much.

We are looking forward to the New Year, and to new opportunities with the farm. After much consideration, we have decided to take a new direction with our CSA program. We are very pleased to announce that Urbie West and his son, Ashby, the owners of Rest Park Farm in Beaufort, SC, will now operate Pinckney’s Produce.

Urbie is a 5th generation farmer with over 100 years of knowledge and love for growing fresh, quality produce in his blood. Rest Park Farm has operated their own successful CSA program in the Beaufort area, and there is no doubt in our minds that Urbie, Ashby, and the Rest Park Farm Family will continue to provide the quality produce that you have received from the Pinckney’s Produce program.

Pinckney and Jody will continue to work closely with Urbie and Ashby to ensure a smooth transition of the program from Holly Hill to Beaufort. We are also pleased to share that our newest family member Katie Thompson will be serving as the Marketing and Membership Coordinator this season.

So you are probably thinking, “How are these changes going to affect me? Will my drop sites change? What about pricing?” And we are happy to share that very little will change for you, the members.

Drop Sites: Almost all of our previous drop sites will remain active with the program, and we look forward to partnerships with some new locations. There may still be some slight changes and consolidation of some sites in certain areas that has yet to occur. However we remain confident that the convenience you have experienced with our drop site locations will continue. We look forward to continuing to serve the greater Columbia area and the midlands, as well as Charleston and the Lowcountry. We are also pleased to be returning to the Beaufort and Bluffton areas.

Pricing and share sizes: Pinckney’s Produce will continue to offer four different share sizes: small, medium, large, and extra large. There will be a slight change in share pricing from last season due to the anticipated season length − they will cost less! Share sizes and pricing are as follows:

-Small sized shares will be $216
-Medium Sized shares will be $276
-Large sized shares will be $396
-Extra large sized shares will be $516

Delivery Charges: There will be a change in delivery charges to compensate for the change in location of the program. Free farm pick up will still be offered, and there will be no delivery charge for drop sites located in the Beaufort and Bluffton areas. There will be a standard one time $24 delivery charge for all other locations to offset gas and travel costs for the weekly deliveries.

Season start dates: With the produce now being grown in the warmer climate of Beaufort, we are aiming for a Spring start date of April 9th, with a 12 week season ending the week of June 25th. This may be subject to change depending on the length of the winter season, but rest assured you will be notified in ample time.

Another benefit from the change in location will be a stronger potential for an abundant fall season. Again, the climate in Beaufort is more conducive to producing those delicious fall vegetables we all love.

We acknowledge that there may still be some questions you have that we have yet to answer, but rest assured we are working diligently to make this transition a smooth and successful one with very little effect upon our members. We are so very thankful for your support, and realize that none of this would be possible without you all.

We are planning to open signups at the start of the New Year, and are looking forward to serving you all again this season. We will be sending out another email notifying you when we have officially opened sign ups. We are also in the process of updating our website for the upcoming spring season.

Have a happy and safe holiday season from our family to yours, and let’s toast to another year of seasonal eating!

Week 13 of Spring/ Summer CSA 2011   

This week’s delivery is the final for the 2011 CSA season. I would like to thank each of you for the support given to our program this year. Many of you have been repeat members since our first season in 2009, others have joined the farm since that time, and some this represents the first participation. To each of you, Pinckney and I offer our most sincere appreciation and gratitude.

The CSA program indeed is a commitment between all parties. Each season brings a variety of challenges and many rewards. We can always be certain that Mother Nature will always keep things interesting. Overall, we feel the produce for this season has been some of the best since our beginning. The goal of raising the variety of many products to be available from a target date in April to end in July is really a challenge. Any of you that supplement our offering by gardening certainly appreciate this task. I need to give Pinckney high marks for accomplishing this feat this season. We never had concerns about enough seasonal items to include in the shares. We do understand the need for continuing to mix up the choices as we all like change is our menu. We look very hard at the number of items that can be successfully produced in SC and then the normal growing season for these as we plan for planting and harvest dates to match the length of our delivery period.

Our special feature for this final delivery will be Heirloom Stone Ground Grits from Keisler Mills. For any of you that have never experience the taste difference, you are in for a real treat. Instructions for cooking will be sent with the grits.  Also, we will be including fresh SC Peaches from a sister farm at ST. Julien Plantation . We will not be able to send a large quantity in each share so savor each bite.  The remainder of the shares will be completed with cherry and slicer tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, sweet corn, kale or Swiss chard, and cantaloupe.    Most of you realize I always make note of the weather in these messages. We did receive so much needed rain this week. Some crops are desperate and others suffer with too much. Example would be less Sweet Beauty melons in our final shipment as the rains totaling 3.5 inches last Wednesday caused some of the melons to over ripen.

Please take time to offer a sincere and much deserved thank you to all our delivery site sponsors. Without there unselfish support, this program, as we know it would not exist. I cannot tell you how all of the key people at your site help us in making each weeks delivery possible. Thank you.

I ask each of you to please return all share boxes to your pick up site before your regular pick up day after this final delivery. Our delivery team will return on week 14 as a regular week to retrieve these boxes and delivery shelves from each of our sites. I hope these share boxes are helpful to you. They have eliminated an abundance of trash from our landfills and represent an important part of our program.

Best regards and see you next Spring.  _______    Jody

Week 12 Summer CSA 2011               

I want to wish all of you a happy and safe 4^th of July.  We can all take a moment to thank all Americans for the liberties we are privileged to enjoy in our country. Every nation has

issues and we certainly are not immune. We are indeed members of one of the greatest countries on this planet and should always give thanks to our founding fathers and current leaders, and ask our Father in Heaven to bless our nation and guide us for the betterment of all.

We are entering our next to the last week of vegetables for the spring/summer 2011 season. I realize many of you may be taking vacation this week. I do hope you will be able to enjoy this week’s harvest. If not, please send a neighbor or friend to use your share. I wish we could put on hold the crops or double up a week, or even skip a week, but remember our products are living and maturing each day. When time is ripe for harvest, it must be picked and then the shelf life begins a decline. We are truly experiencing a full season of local SC vegetables.  If you designate a person to pick up, I remind you to have them look for the box with your name and not to remove another members share.

I have received some nice notes this week with suggestions to improve and consider for other seasons. I appreciate your feed back, as it truly is a relationship between us the farmer and you the consumer or member. We try to address as much flexibility as practical, as we all want the CSA program to represent a structure of many desirable values that sustain a bond between our families. 

This week should bring the following choices for the share boxes. Remember the share

size and sometimes day of delivery could change presence of the products listed.

Cantaloupe (Atlantis).  Watermelon (Sweet Beauty), Cherry tomatoes, Slicing          tomatoes, Peppers (Green, Red, & Banana), Cucumbers, Squash, Eggplant, and Sweet Corn

Enjoy this week’s harvest. A suggestion would be to pick up from your delivery site as soon as possible as the intense heat will accelerate change in quality. Also, according to policy, all shares are removed from the locations as a sanitation consideration after pick up time elapses. We do not want you to miss your share, but pick up needs to occur within the times allocated to avoid other problems.

Happy Independence Day,

Jody