Frog Holler Farm

All good things must come to an end..... Cale leaves the patch with the last crate of potatoes! NOTES FROM THE FARM: Ah, tomatoes at last! Seems like ours have been a long time coming, while other local farms have been featuring their tomatoes on Instagram and Facebook for a few weeks. In thinking about why we are on the late side, we realized that we have a whole separate operation in the spring that ties up our greenhouse, hoophouse, and time. And that would be the organic seedlings that we have grown for area gardeners since the early nineties. This spring, with the farmer's market closed and so much uncertainty about where basics would come from, many folks decided to garden. We were fortunate to have a family member who set up the Square Online Ordering system for our seedlings, and we started to field hundreds of orders - the first ones in early April were being filled while snow was coming down. The A2 Farmer's Market eventually opened and we were able to take the seedli...

Milan and Keegen just drew the winning name! AND THE WINNER IS...t he winner of the first ever CSA Beans Crossword Puzzle is Bi-Weekly CSA member  Sara Samuel!!  Due to technical difficulties we could not award Sara a bouquet but she will receive a coupon for a half-pound of the Frog Holler Farm signature salad mix - and of course bragging rights. Stay tuned for more fun and informative CSA puzzles and word games. And prizes! Thanks everyone who entered and solved the puzzle! Tubs of spuds - Crates of 'tates RECIPE TIPS:  So much good food it's hard to know where to start! One place to start could be the  Frog Holler Recipe Box . This is a (often share box oriented) recipe blog that we published in our early CSA days. The link will take you to the last recipe published in 2016 (!) for Zucchini doggy biscuits. That's for when you have really run out of ideas for preparing zucchini - you're not there yet are you? Although who says the pooches can't ...

Keegen, Cale and Ashleh in a sea of beans, and that can only mean... GREEN BEANS! Do you know how many idioms there are for beans? After reading the newsletter you will! RECIPE IDEAS:  Last week we reported that there have been concerns about carrot top toxicity due to the presence of alkaloids and nitrates to which some people can be sensitive.  CARROT TOPS  are not inherently toxic to most of us unless we eat them by the wheelbarrow-full. And you won't find a wheelbarrow-full in your share - at least not yet! ;-) We revisited the "carrot top controversy" after a customer at the stall took great pains to describe to us how she blanched the carrot tops and regularly added them to her salad. Hailing from Europe, where apparently carrot tops are traditionally consumed without concerns, this customer convinced us to be more open-minded about including the carrot tops in our cooking. A quick Google search brought many recipes for  Carrot Top Pesto . We particularly ...

Cheers for Garlic! This hot week was garlic-digging time and the crew went at it with digging forks and good spirit!  NOTES FROM THE FARM: the week of the "stinking rose'! Garlic has been called the stinking rose for nearly a century, thanks to a French writer and physician, Henri Leclerc, who in 1918 roughly translated garlic’s ancient Greek name, scorodon, to skaion rodon, and then to rose puante, or stinking rose. * Although garlic is in the Lily family (along with tulips and, of course, lilies), roses are  not  in the Lily family. But the "stinking rose" nickname has been affectionately embraced by garlic lovers; there is even  a popular California restaurant named "The Stinking Rose" and renowned for including garlic in every dish. (now temporarily closed ) Garlic, like many garden crops, requires patience and delayed gratification. We plan and we plant; we weed and we wait. Garlic, however, might win the delayed gratification prize, requiring planting...

Crew member Cale floating between two worlds MEET THE INTERNS: CALE STOKER!  Cale picks Kale Cale hails from Adrian and fun fact: he is named after the famed American race car driver,  Cale Yarborough  rather than the nutritious vegetable we are now more familiar with. Another fun fact: Wikipedia describes Cale Yarborough as an American  farmer,  businessman and then goes on about NASCAR wins.  We don't know what the other Cale farmed but we're glad that this Cale's name set him on the vegetative rather than the automotive course! The good-natured recipient of many comments on his name, Cale did happen to be picking Kale when we took photos, thus.... Cale loads a bale of kale! . Cale/Kale Cale, along with his partner Ashleh, is back for his second year on the Frog Holler crew, but we have known Cale through our festival, Holler Fest, for several years. Cale carves beautiful wooden spoons and has given carving demos at the festival. (See one of Cale's spoons...

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.”     -  Margaret Atwood Greetings from the Farm Crew and Critters! It has been a good growing week on the farm, although a little more rain wouldn't hurt. See what y'all can do about that! (We got some on Friday - thanks!) RECIPE SUGGESTIONS: This week we  roasted the  garlic scapes  until almost charred and crispy - very tasty!  We also enjoyed our first feast from neighbor Maan Abdul-Baki, who occasionally provides the crew with authentic Lebanese fare. You can find the recipe for  Lebanese Lentil + Chard Soup  on p. 60 of  the Frog Holler Recipe book and see the actual soup AND the soup-maker here: Using cilantro, scallions and chard! I told him to smile! :-) NOTES FROM THE FARM: MEET INTERN MILAN! Milan (pronounced like the city in Italy, not the town in Michigan!) Anderson is our only residential intern this year, joining us at an uncertain time in late April, but ag...