It’s finally time! Fresh salad is in (long-range) sight… CSA sign-up is officially underway!

Before you rush off to the online sign-up link, though, take note of a few changes ahead in 2012. This is just an overview… more details can be found on the CSA page of our website and within the online sign-up wizard.

• New Delivery Location: Pen Bay Medical Center Café, Rockport. While we may end up shifting the time to accommodate members’ work schedules, we are planning a farmers market-style pick-up outside of the Pen Bay Café from 3:30-5:00pm on Tuesday afternoons. All MaineHealth employees are able to receive a $50 biannual CSA rebate through the WOW! program.
• New Delivery Location: Village Bakery and Café, Waldoboro. The bakery will host a CSA pick-up on Tuesday afternoons from 3:30 to 5:30pm. Since we will not be providing home delivery this year, we hope that this pick-up location will help Waldoboro-area members access their shares more easily. These shares will be pre-bagged.
• New Meat CSA Options: Beef Share and/or Pork Share. We love the chicken and egg shares from Cheryl Denz at Terra Optima Farm and so this year she will also offer a monthly beef and/or pork shares. Another new feature this year is that the Terra Optima chickens will be cryovaced, eliminating any possibility of frost on the chicken.
• Sample the add-on options and meet the cheese, meat, bread and mushroom producers! Mark your calendar for Sunday, February 26th, 1-3pm at the First Universalist Church in Rockland (345 Broadway). We will be hosting a CSA & CSF “Fair” and the add-on producers will be there for you to ask questions of and to sample their products. This event is open to the public and is free of charge.
• Opportunity to “Share-a-Share.” When you reach the page in the online sign-up wizard for add-on shares, you will see the opportunity to donate $1 per CSA delivery (or more if you wish) to the CSA “scholarship” fund. Your donation will go directly to help cover the cost of a share for a family who would otherwise find it challenging to afford the CSA. If you would like to be the recipient of a scholarship, please just let us know (a slightly more formal application is in the works). SNAP (EBT) payments continue to be a payment option, and we hope to have SNAP matching funds again this year.
• Hatchet Cove Farm on Facebook (finally!). If you’re on Facebook, please “like” us (or just find us at http://www.facebook.com/HatchetCoveFarm)! I’ll utilize Facebook for crop and farm updates as the season nears, and the first pictures of Boston’s new calf will be up as soon as she or he is born! But don’t worry if you’re not on Facebook. Newsletters and important information will still arrive via email and will be posted to our website.
• “Farmers Market-Style” pick-up at the Farm. In response to feedback from the 2011 survey we are replacing the pre-bagged shares with “farmers market-style” pick up where you will be able to bag your own share (the same way we do it at the Rockland UUR). This will give you the opportunity to choose vegetables in the size (and sometimes quantity) you want, use your own bag or basket, and participate in a “trade” table. There will always be a couple of pre-bagged shares available for those in a rush.

Now that you made it through all those bullet points, here is a little bit of news from the farm… we’ve had a great winter so far. Bill completely rebuilt the second floor of our big barn with lumber milled from our woods, and we’re so excited to use that space to cure even more garlic, onions and shallots than ever before. It has been so rickety up there for so long that it’s like having a whole new barn… and Eli and Cecilia think it’s their newest playroom! Our seed orders are finally completed, and this year we’re super excited to use our small hoophouses to experiment with two new crops for the CSA: watermelons and sweet potatoes! Keep your fingers crossed for a bountiful harvest! Boston, our old lady Jersey cow, is due to calve in mid-February. She had a bout of illness over Thanksgiving and we’re a little worried about how she will make it through the birth, but we’ve been coddling her with extra minerals and hope for the best. Our cute little Dexter heifer, Cookie, is due in May. So hopefully we’ll have two calves on the farm this summer!

We’re all looking forward to another season of great food and great community. Please contact us with any questions, small or large. We can’t wait to get planting!

Be well,

Reba, Bill, Eli & Cecilia

Sign Up for the 2012 Season: http://www.farmigo.com/join/hatchetcovefarm/summer2012