CSA #3

Dear CSA-ers,

The online market is now open for you to place your orders. This week’s preassembled bag includes Arugula, Batavia Lettuce Head, Green Onions, Swiss Chard, Dill, and Caraflex Cabbage.

Grilled Caraflex Cabbage
Ingredients: Caraflex (conehead) cabbage or Napa cabbage Olive oil Garlic powder Onion powder Sea salt Black pepper
Method: Cut the cabbage in half or quartered. Place in a plastic storage bag with some olive oil and the seasonings and shake until well-coated. Place the cabbage cut-side down on a hot grill and leave until it is fork tender, but still has a little crunch. Slice before serving or serve in wedges. This method also works great for peeled slices of Kohlrabi.

We’ve been reviewing a lot of feedback about the site and CSA process. We’d like to make the experience as user friendly as possible for you. As we’ve talked with some of you on a personal basis, it’s become evident that people prefer to interact with CSA in different ways. As it turns out, many people really liked the traditional CSA system where a preassembled bag arrives every week, whereas others have jumped on the opportunity to assemble custom bags from the available produce on the website. We want to provide you with the flexibility to do either should you wish. For this reason, we will be contacting you this week to answer personally any of your questions. We will also be conducting a survey about how you would prefer to use the service. The options are:

1.) “I would prefer to receive the preassembled bag each week.”
2.) “I would prefer to custom order my bag each week, but if I don’t, I do not wish to receive a bag that week.”
3.) “I would prefer to custom order my bags some weeks, but if I don’t, please send me the preassembled bag.”
Be thinking about which of these you would prefer. If you will be unavailable for a brief phone call, please let us know via email. We are always happy to answer any questions or concerns you might have.

As for the farm, our busy season is in full swing. We have planted tens of thousands of seeds in our outdoor beds this week. To name just a few, new varieties of carrots, beets, and greens mixes are on their way. We have some exciting things growing and we look forward to sharing them with you. Your investment in our farm through CSA has enabled us to add a couple new labor-saving tools this season, and we hope to return this investment to you through more top-quality produce. We thank you so much for helping us grow sustainable and organic agriculture in Western Kentucky and look forward to bringing you the fruits of this endeavor.

Sincerely,
The Magney Legacy Ridge Farm Team

CSA #2

Dear CSA-ers,
The online Market is open for this week’s orders. This week’s pre assembled CSA bag will contain: Spring Mix, Collards, Beets, Kale, Parsley, Romaine, Basil.
Our farm’s busy season has begun! The Sun shines longer by the day and warms the waking Spring soil of Princeton’s Pleasant Valley. The likelihood of frost dwindles marking the time which it becomes safe to plant outdoors. Between Thursday and Friday alone the team transplanted over 4500 plants from the greenhouse to the first of our outdoor fields. These vegetables, some familiar and others new, will be yours to choose from on the online market. The following weeks will be nonstop planting, seeding, and turning over winter crops for summer ones. Please be patient with our selection during the transition time.
A vegetable we’d like to highlight this is Collard Greens. Historically an important culinary staple of the deep South, Collards are similar in taste and preparation to Kale. The primary difference is that Collard Greens have significantly larger leaves that lack the curl or savoying (the term for the bumpy texture on Tuscan Kale) typical on Kale varieties. Botanically, the plants are the same species. Like all leafy Brassica family plants, Collards are excellent source of Vitamins A, C, and K. If you’re looking for a bit of adventure this week, we encourage you to try swapping in Collards for Kale in a recipe.
Collard Chips
A crispy, healthy twist on an old Southern favorite.
Ingredients
2-4 collard leaves
1 tsp. olive oil (or use olive oil Misto sprayer)
pinch salt
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Prepare collard leaves by washing, patting dry, and removing leaves from stem (cut stem from the middle of the leaf all the way to the top). Tear leaves with hands into 3-4 inch pieces. Toss with olive oil or spray with Misto sprayer. Use just a light coat, too much oil will leave your chips soggy.
Lay in a single layer on parchment paper. If needed, use two baking sheets to prevent overlapping.
Bake for 7 minutes, then flip leaves. Bake for 5 minutes more, then check leaves. Remove any that are crispy, return any that are limp to the oven. Be careful not to overcook or they will turn brown and bitter.
Sprinkle collard chips with salt or other preferred seasonings.
Serve immediately.

Speaking of recipes, we’re launching the recipes tab on our website:
https://magneyfarm.locallygrown.net/recipes
Recipes will be added under this tab weekly, creating a helpful and convenient resource to help you cook the vegetables we grow. If you have a great recipe for our vegetables, we invite you to share it with us. We may put it on the site to share with the rest of the CSA community! As always, we thank you for your support. You are helping us create a strong sustainable farm for the West Kentucky region. We hope to be an asset to our community.

Sincerely,
The Magney Legacy Ridge Farm Team

CSA 1

CSA WEEK 1

Dear CSAers,
We missed you over the past month! As promised, CSA deliveries will resume this week with our first delivery on Thursday, April 4. Many of you have reached out to us over the past couple of days and it’s been really gratifying to hear your enthusiasm. We hope you enjoy the offerings on the site this week. Spring will start very greens forward and our selection will continue to expand throughout the season. We invite you to enjoy the bounty of seasonal local eating.

It’s been a busy month here with bed preparation, seeding, and greenhouse renovation. We also spent some time repairing damage to two of our structures from the violent windstorms that swept the area on March 14. Though it was a harrowing day, the team was able to pull together and minimize the damage. Being resilient and adaptable is one of the things that agriculture really requires of us. Seeing our team grow in these areas is truly rewarding. To be as transparent as we can, we will be sourcing a few items from the Nashville organic veggie farmers. We did have damage and it took time to repair and reseed. We anticipate it will only be a few weeks until we are back up and running at full capacity.
A vegetable that we would like to highlight this week is our cabbage. We have two different cabbages available right now. ‘Caraflex’ our cone shaped cabbage variety graced some bags before the March intermission and the heads are now even larger. New are our ‘Savoy’ cabbages, which have a uniquely textured leaf, reminiscent of the Tuscan Kale. ‘Savoy’ is perhaps milder than ‘Caraflex’ but both are delicious and wonderful. They are well suited to slaws, boiling, or my favorite, stir fried with a bit of bacon.
We’re so thankful for your support and being patient through the March interim. We’ve got a lot of exciting things coming up and are really thrilled to be bringing you fresh local vegetables again.
Sincerely,
The Magney Legacy Ridge Farm Team

March 2019 CSA NEWS

Dear CSA-ers,

Just a friendly reminder, there will be no CSA deliveries through the month of March. This is our transition season when we do a lot of planting and farm infrastructure improvements. This past week we have begun working to expand an existing greenhouse to accommodate more planting, which means a broader variety of vegetables for you! It’s been a lot of fun picking out seeds and we can’t wait to share our successes. The CSA online market, ( https://magneyfarm.locallygrown.net/market ) will remain open through this March with the two discounted main season share options open. If you have any friends or neighbors who might be interested in our CSA delivery program, we invite you to direct them to us. As our current customers and extended team members, your word-of-mouth continues to be one of the most important ways our business grows. We love connecting healthy food to the people who enjoy it. Families and communities bond over food, and it is so rewarding to see this at work. Thanks so much for being a part of our community, and we look forward to seeing you again on the week of April 4th!

Sincerely,
The Magney Legacy Ridge Farm Team

Winter CSA #6

Dear CSA-ers
This week’s online market is now open at (https://magneyfarm.locallygrown.net/market). If you’re receiving this email, we invite you to try it out, even if you have not yet used it this year. The preassembled CSA bag this week will include: Swiss Chard, Dill, Cabbage, Spring Mix, Collards and a head of Lovelock Lettuce. Remember that you can always add to it, or simply assemble your own bag from scratch. We do ask that if you choose to have your bag delivered, that your order total is at or over $25 after including the $5 delivery fee. Custom locally grown organic vegetable delivery is a unique service that we’ve worked very hard to implement. The parameters we’ve set are the minimums we’ve determined for keeping it cost viable, and we thank you for respecting them.
Ever have one of those days where you have just a few things to do, and you feel so out of sorts? Today was one of them, but I had to open the market! I don’t know how it has slipped my mind because I am so excited about our new system. I love that we can offer choices to our members.
This is our last Winter CSA this week. We are taking off the next month to focus on planting and adding a new greenhouse to the farm. Thanks to our members we can expand our growing spaces. We are all getting Spring fever. I am ready to get my hands dirty and plant, harvest, and weed.
If you have not signed up through magneyfarm.locallygrown.net, I would encourage you to do so in the next few days. Our .com website will be down and we will be switching over completely to the locallygrown! You do not have to commit to be on this website, it will just allow me to e-mail you with the weekly availability for veggies and keep you up to date on the farm happenings.
I look forward to seeing everyone this week!
Angela

Winter CSA #5

Dear CSA-ers

This week’s online market is now open at (https://magneyfarm.locallygrown.net/market). If you’re receiving this email, we invite you to try it out, even if you have not yet used it this year. The preassembled CSA bag this week will include: Lacinato Kale, Spinach, Red Cross Head Lettuce, Green Onions, Red Mustards, and a Broccoli Head. Remember that you can always add to it, or simply assemble your own bag from scratch. We do ask that if you choose to have your bag delivered, that your order total is at or over $25 after including the $5 delivery fee. Custom locally grown organic vegetable delivery is a unique service that we’ve worked very hard to implement. The parameters we’ve set are the minimums we’ve determined for keeping it cost viable, and we thank you for respecting them.

That said, all 4 of us have put a lot of thought in how to offer some whole season buy-in incentives. These sorts of memberships are valuable to us because they provide the upfront capital to purchase seeds for the year and alleviate some of the pressure of early season payroll while we are putting huge amounts of labor towards planting. For this reason, we are offering two levels of discounted buy-ins for our main season CSA. The first corresponds to a 12 week buy-in at a 5% discount. This option costs $285, and the 5% discount will be applied in the form of an additional $15 credit to your account. The second option corresponds to a 36 week buy-in and costs $720, this is a 20% savings realized through the elimination of the delivery fee from any order you place with us this year. There have also been numerous people who have requested the ability to simply buy-into a season’s worth of preassembled bags like last year. Choosing either of these options and specifying this in the “Notes” on the checkout page will allow us to enroll you in this way. Please note that this main season will begin April 4th. It is likely that we will not offer any delivery or online market during the month of March due to planting and lack of vegetables. If you choose to purchase one of our discounted options now you will still be able to use that balance towards any of your “winter interim” purchases during the next two weeks.

It feels like a lot of fine print, but coming up with the offers and terms for our CSA is just as much a part of farming as putting seeds in the soil. We earnestly strive to deliver you the best value. We want you and your family to thrive through eating our healthy locally grown vegetables. For us, that’s where the feeling of fulfillment comes from. We love being a part of your community, and we thank you so much for your support of our farm!

Sincerely,
The Magney Legacy Ridge Farm Team

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Winter CSA #4

Dear CSA-ers,

Can you feel it? Spring is coming. Daffodils are starting to poke up out of the Earth and though we’re still feeling cold temperatures, the swelling tree buds and prolific birdsong suggest that winter will be winding down soon. Through our winter interim period we will continue to offer the craft your own CSA at (https://magneyfarm.locallygrown.net/market). For those of you who wish to receive the preassembled CSA, this week’s will feature: Caraflex Cabbage, Lovelock Lettuce, Spring Mix, Swiss Chard, Mustards and Green Onions.

This week we will begin Spring seeding on the farm. This is when we get our starter plants growing so that we can hit the ground running for Spring and Summer. We are also putting together the final details on how this year’s CSA will be modeled and sold. Like last year, we intend to offer a pricing discount for a whole season buy-in. So far we are pleased with the new system for building custom orders. If you, as our customers and extended team members, have any ideas or input regarding how you want CSA to work, now is the time to contact us! We love hearing from you, and your perspective helps us to build a better service.

A crop we will begin offering this week is our Caraflex Cabbage. Caraflex is a cone-shaped cabbage, of more modest proportions than that of a traditional round cabbage. The texture is tender and the flavor sweet. These traits will be all the better having come through such a cold winter. Caraflex is great for making cabbage wraps, eaten boiled, or used in soups. In general, cabbage is excellent for one’s digestive health as it is rich in dietary fiber with a low glycemic index.

As always, we thank you for your generous support of our farm. Please reach out if you have any suggestions as to how we can better serve you through our CSA program! We want to grow a strong and healthy community here in Western Kentucky, and it’s you who help us to do so!

Sincerely,
The Magney Legacy Ridge Farm Team

Winter CSA #3

Dear CSA-ers,

This week’s online market is now open at (https://magneyfarm.locallygrown.net/market). Here you can order a custom CSA bag assembled from the seasonal vegetables of your choice. Online payment is fully implemented, and we’d like to thank the couple of early birds that helped us identify and correct an issue with the site last Sunday. Thanks for reaching out; you rock! For those of you who liked the system from last year, we are still offering a preassembled bag listed simply as “CSA Bag Complete.” This week it contains Red Cross Letuce, Broccoli, Spinach, Collard Greens, Kale, and Dill. If you’ve yet to explore the new site, we humbly invite you to do so.

This last week marks the first week we’ve experienced really troublesome weather. Our outdoor winter brassicas like Romanesco and Brussel Sprouts really took a beating on Wednesday and Thursday. All of the larger heads are showing rust-brown frost injury, though some of the smaller, more protected Romanesco still look healthy. For this reason, the suitable heads will be offered as a per pound item this week to account for their smaller size. Unpredictable brutal extremes of weather are one of the things that make farming so challenging. This past week we experienced record low temperatures, and this coming week we are seeing temperatures so high, our indoor tunnels will have to be fully vented for the first times in months.

The good news is, these indoor tunnels weathered the cold beautifully. The belle-of-the-ball crop right now is our Red Cross butterhead lettuce. Our coworker Caroline identified this variety as a type best suited to winter growing. Likewise, Red Cross will be a winter season exclusive. What an absolutely spectacular plant it is though! The whorls of brilliant red outer leaves seem to dance in whorls around its tender verdant heart. As a butterhead, the leaves are thick and melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Definitely consider giving this special lettuce a try.

As always, we thank you sincerely for your continued support of our farm. It’s your patronage that allows us to grow and expand our offerings. Despite some setbacks, we’re so excited to be moving into 2019 with you and your families.

With love,
The Magney Legacy Ridge Farm

Winter CSA #2

Dear CSA-ers,

Thank you for those of you who tried out the new system at magneyfarm.locallygrown.net last week. We appreciate your support so much and are happy to report that our first round of deliveries went smoothly. We’re so pleased to be able to offer you custom vegetable bags for delivery or local pick-up. We are up and running for our new credit card payment system, so give it a try. We are also exploring options for discounting a whole season buy-in, much like we did with CSA last year. The goal is to increase the value of our CSA for you, our customers and extended team members. Your support helps us grow organic agriculture and the overall health of the West Kentucky Region.

Despite the frosty conditions, life grows on beneath the protective coverings of our high tunnel greenhouses and outdoor frost cloths. Some of the vegetables we planted back in October are starting to come into their own. Notably, the Romanesco with its vivid chartreuse colour and unique fractal geometry are ready to harvest. Romanesco is most similar to cauliflower, with cooking and preparation being exactly the same. Though new to American markets, Romanesco traces its origins to Italy, where it was bred and developed more than 400 years ago. Romanesco, like its relatives Cauliflower and Broccoli, is high in Vitamin C and Vitamin K. With these Vitamins and many other minerals, all three of these vegetables are a great dietary choice for bolstering the immune system during these dreary winter months.

Again we’d like to invite you, our CSA members, to try out ordering from our new system. Simply create an account at
https://magneyfarm.locallygrown.net/user/signin?from=welcome
and begin by adding the items you want on The Market tab
http://magneyfarm.locallygrown.net/market.
During this interim period between Winter and Spring, we’re working to polish the system. We’re always happy to hear from you, and your input and suggestions help us to make this a better service for you. Again, thank you for your continued support. We look forward to growing you the healthiest, most delicious vegetables throughout the year to come!

Sincerely,
The Magney Legacy Ridge Team

Winter CSA #1

Dear loyal CSA customers,

Have you missed us this past month? We’ve certainly missed seeing you and bringing fresh delicious vegetables to your doorstep. Since making the last delivery of 2018, we’ve been busy reimagining the CSA system. One of the things we’ve really wanted to introduce is giving users the choice of which seasonal vegetables they receive each week. Essentially, what we’ve created is an online Farmer’s Market booth where you can assemble the CSA you want to receive each week. Love Kale? Triple up on it! Tired of squash? No problem. Hosting a dinner party? Receive as much lettuce as you need! The new system gives you, the customer, more control of which vegetables you receive.

We need your help though! We want you to try our new system out during the winter months before we open it up to the public. We understand that using a new site can be daunting at first, and we’re similarly daunted by the prospect of packing over 50 unique CSAs each week. Yet above all we are excited. This is the cutting edge of the local food movement, and we are thrilled to be bringing it to you.

Here’s how to get started:

https://magneyfarm.locallygrown.net/user/signin?from=welcome

First create an account here. You’ll be asked for your name, phone number, email address, mailing (delivery address), and receiving location. This is so that we can match your order to the username you create on this page. You will receive an email confirming the creation of your account.

https://magneyfarm.locallygrown.net/market

Once you have created your account, you can follow the above link to “The Market” page, or simply navigate to “The Market” tab on the navigation bar at the top of the page. This displays all the products, and their amounts, that are available for this delivery cycle. Each delivery cycle begins on Sunday, and each week’s order will need to be placed before 5PM on Tuesday. Our team will harvest and assemble your order Wednesday and Thursday, ensuring you get fresh vegetables at peak quality.

To begin, simply add the amount of each item you wish to receive this week and click cart icon next to the box in order to “Add to Cart.” If you wish to have the vegetables delivered to your door, add 1 of the $5.00 “Delivery Fee” items to your cart. Please note to qualify for delivery service, your order and delivery fee must total $25 or more. When you are finished, click the “Proceed to checkout” option to the left of the screen. You will be taken to a page where you can review your order, and then “Place This Order” to finalize the process.

At this point in time we are only accepting payment via cash or check upon delivery, though in the near future, we intend to implement payment processing from the online site. We recognize that payment upon delivery is a little clunky, but please bear with us while we work out the new system. The delivery schedule will the same as it was during CSA season, Thursdays from ~3PM-8PM depending on where you’re located along our 3 delivery routes.

We have also added a local pickup option from our Farm. This is a new choice we are trying out for those of you who find it convenient to pick up from us directly. If you opt to pick up from the farm, there is no minimum order nor delivery fee. The pick-up window is on Fridays from 4PM-6PM, and the address for doing so is:

Magney Legacy Ridge Farm
837 Pleasant Valley Road
Princeton, Kentucky

We cordially invite and encourage you to utilize our new system. Likewise, we hope that you will contact us with any of your questions, concerns, or feedback. Beginning something new is always a little intimidating, but we’re confident the service we’re offering will improve the flexibility and value of the Magney Legacy Ridge Farm CSA substantially. As always, we intend to deliver you the region’s healthiest vegetables, grown using only organic practices and harvested with care, right here in Western Kentucky.

Sincerely,
The Magney Legacy Ridge Team
Angela Magney
706-564-6757