Our first CSA has arrived

At the Vancouver office of the thegreenpages.ca network (our home office), we decided to venture into joining a organic farm co-operative (Community-supported agriculture – CSA). Our first CSA box arrived last Thursday from Glen Valley Organic Farm Co-operative and they did not disappoint. Below is a message from our farmers…

Hello everyone,

It’s finally time! Your first CSA box of the season is ready and you will be picking it up at your designated spot this week (Langley and Abbotsford subscribers already have their boxes). Half-shares and full-shares are almost identical this week, given the small amount available. We track the content of the boxes throughout the season and even things out as we go (when produce becomes more abundant).

In this week’s box:

• 1 bunch Spinach
• 1 bunch Collards (or kale)
• 1 Green Garlic
• 4 lbs rhubarb (half shares receive 2 lbs)

A few notes about these items:

The green garlic is similar to a green onion. It’s young garlic and the entire plant can be chopped and added to cooking and/or salads. We had just enough for one stalk per box, so they’re precious but powerful. A little goes a long way. We hope this helps give a taste of garlic to come!

Given the cool, wet spring, some of the collards have flower stalks (i.e. the plants are stressed and trying to put out seeds). The flower stalks are all edible and have a nice, sweet crunch. Most of the collard bunches are nice, flat leaves. You can sauté them, use them as wraps, add chopped leaves to salads, soups or stews. Collards are very closely related to kale — and since we didn’t have enough bunched collards, a few boxes received Red Russian kale instead.

Rhubarb — we hope you like it! We wanted to provide enough rhubarb for you to use some now and possibly chop and freeze some for later. In case you need some inspiration, we have a few recipes on our blog: http://glenvalleyorganicfarm.blogspot.com/

Cheers — Chris and Jeremy

Glen Valley Organic Farm

Blog: http://glenvalleyorganicfarm.blogspot.com/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/gvof

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/glenvalley

–

The rhubarb and spinach were simply amazing, the aroma was so fresh. So much flavour! We definitely recommend CSA’s!

Cheers,

R

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