Farm Box 10/16

Please check your email to find out what’s inside this week’s farm box!

Hi guys!

Hope you all are having an awesome week! Is it me or has life been seeming so busy lately? I don’t feel like I’ve had a break in since launching schoolfoodbox.com and I can’t really see a slow moment anytime in the next few weeks or MONTHS where I can take a breath. Oh well!

If you got our box last week you know about what happened with the romaine lettuce. I did a whole email on romaine and even created a short video for a how-to-make-ceasar-dressing and come to find out the romaine for the week was small, weird and just awkward. Wonk wonk… Epic fail! The farmer thought his field of romaine was much more mature than it really was and when he went to harvest it he found that the heads we’re super tiny! We put the small heads in the boxes anyways and we’re disappointed at the overall appearance of our boxes. This being said, we are giving everyone a free romaine lettuce this week as a bonus! And this week’s romaine is ultra sexy. So please check out our video over to the right and enjoy a caesar salad this week. You probably even have most of the the ingredients in your pantry!

For the last three weeks it seems like there’s been problem after problem as far as box packing goes. We’re falling short on items, and we’re having to supplement things. Produce that we expect to put in the boxes are being pulled at the last minute due to quality and not enough supply. Just in the last week I’m seeing tomatoes dwindling down, melons mostly done, and cucumbers/cherry tomatoes are sparse. Carrots are in between crops and today we didn’t have ANY for the add ons. And while our normal avocado grower is done for the season, we are sourcing avos from Las Palmalitas. As we see the daylight changing and the evenings become cooler it makes a big change for the farmers and their crops. As these crops slow down we are excited to bring on autumn & winter. Later this week I will be adjusting our add on store and hopefully soon we’ll be seeing some things like asparagus and brussels make an appearance. This brings us to the point of this email which is all about the focus behind a CSA program and eating seasonally. Thank you all for being patient with us and being understanding when occasionally you open your box and find kale instead of celery :) raise your hand if that was you today?

What is a CSA or Farm Box Program?

A CSA program stands for community supported agriculture. Traditionally a CSA is when you join a farm and you are essentially buying a farm share. Members (you) pay in advance for a growing season so farmers have operating capital. However we don’t like to call our program a CSA because you are supporting multiple farms and our program is fricken rad because of the way we operate. When we support multiple farms we have the benefit because we can pick and choose to give you the best variety possible that is available during the season. Here are the top few reasons why the farm box program is awesome for farmers, the community, the local economy and our environment.

Fresh: Guys a lot of our stuff is picked within 24 hours of receiving your box! Sometimes our stuff even has the dirt on it still which is super rad. Who doesn’t love free organic dirt that comes with their box? Our produce doesn’t come shipped in across country or sit on store shelves. As a result the produce lasts much longer and is picked when ripe. The quality is epic!

Organic and straight forward: We’re just 100% organic and that’s it. There’s lots of grey terminology in todays world and sadly even at your local farmers market. Our rules is that things have to be 100% certified organic for it to go in our box. We have helped get over five farmers certified organic and we’re pretty stoked about that. It’s a big deal. Let’s voice our opinion buy purchasing all organic! It means a lot in the big picture!

Supporting the local farmers: Here’s the real issue… If we don’t support our small organic farms we will end up with food from large profit driven farms where practices are questionable at best. With a farm box membership we can count on our subscribers to support small farmers with their dollar. And that keeps our farmers growing food the way we like it!

Community based: We want you to know the guys who grow your food. That is why we keep writing stories about farmers over and over. These are the dudes that really matter. Where else are you going to get information on your farmer? Even if you shop farmers market, you’ll never get inside story on what’s going on the farm. We try to keep you real informed on real farm life issues and pleasures!

Learn to eat seasonally! Getting a farm box will help you learn which foods are grown during different times of year. Do you know when melon season is? Why do grocery stores have tomatoes in January? These are all things you’ll learn thru a farm box program! Modern grocery stores have trained us to shop without seasons. We lose the healthy flow of seasons in our diet? Ever wonder why oranges are in season during cold & flu season? We’re designed with nature and supposed to eat with the seasons.

Farm boxes urge you to try new things: We know you and we know you like to make the same things over and over. So do we! A farm box subscription is awesome because it forces you out of your routine when we toss in those wild vegetables like cabbages and lemon cucumbers. We try to keep it real though and not make our program too weird. So while we push you just a little bit, we choose what’s in the box based on availability and when times are tough we might throw in a cabbage. Explore our recipes and learn new dishes. We promise, they’re all easy