Keep farming, feed people, build community

June 12, 2023

Balancing Tuesday and Friday CSA pickup: Quite a few more people who have chosen Tuesday than Friday for on-farm CSA pickup. If you are willing and able to switch to Fridays, please let us know, as that will help us balance the days and reduce traffic.

A request for 10-week Flexible/Half CSA subscribers:

Please send your pickup plan in an email to [email protected] if you haven’t already. The majority thus far have chosen to begin picking up Week 1 and doing alternating weeks from there. If you haven’t yet sent your plan in, you can help balance out our harvest days and limit crowding by starting with Week 2. We generally suggest picking up every other week, beginning either week 1 or 2, but the plan is flexible to allow you to choose any 10 weeks you would like. Please send us your plan now.

Reminder emails from GrownBy: GrownBy sends reminder emails ahead of your CSA pickup day each week for our 20-week subscribers, and uses a default of picking up alternating weeks, beginning with either week 1 or 2 for our 10-week subscribers. We know that many people switch pickup days as needed, and have a different pickup plan than the alternating weeks. As a result, you may receive some reminder emails that don’t match with your pickup plan or changes. Know that we are working with GrownBy to make adjustments to the auto reminder emails. Thank you for your continued patience and understanding on this.

On-Farm Pickups – Tuesdays 2:30-6:30pm; Fridays 12:30-5:30pm

• Come on in to the big red barn: Park in the parking area on the north side of the barn, walk down the steps and and enter the barn through the east barn door entry. Our harvest will be set out in bins with instructions for you to select and bag your own produce. Staff and/or volunteers will be there to help you as needed. Please bring your own bag or box.
• Please note that we will no longer be offering the drive thru pick up option. We will make up a few bags in advance for a quick pickup option for those who might need it.
• There is a handicap parking spot and an additional accessible spot next to the entry/exit on the south side of the barn.
• ALWAYS DRIVE SLOWLY at the farm – there is often programming here for kids, and the farm family with young children live here.
• When U-Pick crops are available, we recommend doing U-Pick first, then picking up your CSA when you are done. See map.

Delivery to District – Wednesdays, 3:30-7:30pm

• Located at 470 James St. at State St.
• Go to Door 004 for District Athletic Club (see map).
• CSA boxes will be stacked through the door and down the hall in the gym kitchen area.
• Pick up time is 3:30-7:30pm on Wednesdays.
• Take only one box of produce unless otherwise indicated, all boxes will be the same. Return your box each week and pick up a new one.

Egg CSA Subscriptions – a few more are still available

• Pickup along with your vegetables on your regular pickup day and location.
• Massaro Farm Egg cartons can be returned to us as long as they are in good, clean condition.

Fruit Option – a few more are still available

• Comes from High Hill Orchard in Meriden.
• Typically begins in early July once blueberries are ready to harvest.
• Pickup along with your vegetables on your regular pickup day and location.

Farm Store – for on-farm pick up only; not available for New Haven delivery

• Our eggs, honey and tomato products will be available each week as long as we have them. Purchase at pickup along with your produce.
• Products from our partner farms and local vendors may be available as well.

Looking ahead on your calendar: We will move our Tuesday, July 4 CSA pickup to Wednesday, July 5, allowing for some time off for our staff on 4th of July weekend.

Communications: We send out a weekly CSA newsletter during the harvest season, and additional messages throughout the year.  Please read them. There is often helpful information in them, or important updates that might answer questions you have.  We also share news, stories and photos on facebook and instagram.

If you have a question, request, feedback, or need to be in touch for any reason, emailing us at [email protected] is the best means of communication. This email is checked regularly, and we do our best to respond quickly. We’d love to talk with you when you are here on the farm and we can usually be found around the barn during CSA pickup hours, so grab our ears, pick our brains, chat us up or tell us what’s on your mind!

Bags: Please bring a reusable bag or box to take your produce home in. We will have compostable bags available for you if needed.

What if I miss a week?: If you are not able to make it to the farm to pick up your produce on a given week, you are welcome to have someone else pick up it up for you. Simply have them come to the farm or District on your behalf. Any produce that is not picked up will be donated, so know that it is put to good use! If you do miss a week, please understand that you are not entitled to additional produce on another week.

Produce Donations: Part of the farm’s mission and commitment to the community is to donate produce to local hunger relief organizations, which is more important than ever right now. To make this happen, we harvest additional produce for donation on CSA distribution days. Any produce not picked up by our CSA members is added to that donation. Thus, if you can’t make it one week to get your vegetables, know that your produce will go to people in need and is never wasted.

Want more of our produce?: As our harvest allows, we will offer additional produce for sale at the farm. If you don’t see something you want available in the store, please do let us know when you are here and we’ll see if we can offer it. We will be at the Q House market at 197 Dixwell Ave in New Have on Wednesday afternoons from 3-6pm and some weekend markets again beginning in late July.

Payment plans, and final payments: If you signed up through GrownBy for weekly or monthly payment plans, your card will be charged automatically. Please make sure your card is up to date. If you paid by check and you still have a balance for the CSA, please send in your final payments, or email your payment plan to: [email protected].

Strawberries Hand Pies

from Caty Poole

Strawberry hand pies

2 3/8 cups flour (can use a gluten free mix or other alternative)

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 tsp salt

1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

2 large egg yolks

1 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 pound strawberries (about 1 quart) cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1/2 cup confectioners sugar

3 tbsp strawberry jam (can substitute another fruit jam; aids in thickening filling)

1 tbsp sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl combine 2 1/4 cups flour, baking powder and 1 tsp salt. Using a pastry blender or 2 knives, cut butter into mixture until it resembles course sand. Add 1 egg yolk, 1/2 cup chilled water and 1/2 tsp vanilla and mix until dough just comes together. If it’s too dry you can add additional water, 1 tsp at a time. Refrigerate for 15 minutes while you make filling.

Combine strawberries, confectioner’s sugar and jam in a bowl. Add remaining flour, vanilla and salt and set aside.

Beat remaining egg yolk and 1 tbsp of water to use as egg wash. Then, roll out dough on a floured surface until it’s 1/2 inch thick. Use a 3 ” biscuit cutter (I used a large drinking glass) to cut dough into rounds. Recipe calls for 6 rounds but I a actually got 10.

Roll each round out into a 5-6″ circle. Spoon 1 – 1 1/2 tbsp of strawberry filling onto each round leaving an edge to seal. Touch edges of circle with egg wash, making a half moon shape, and crimp closed with a fork. Poke a few holes in the tops with a toothpick to allow fruit filling to steam and avoid leakage at the seams. You can also use the egg wash to brush tops and sprinkle sugar on top as a finishing touch.

Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes until golden brown. using buckwheat flour, I baked for 33 minutes. Remove and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Garlic Scapes

• Garlic scapes are a farm favorite, available only early in the season. They are the flower of the garlic plant. By harvesting the flower we send energy back to the roots and encourage larger heads to develop, which we’ll dig up in July. You can use the scapes just as you would garlic cloves, dicing them and including them countless dishes.
• Try brushing the scapes with oil and putting them on the grill until they get slightly charred for a crispy, delicious side dish.