Blog

August 31

Published on
September 1, 2020

Box Contents:

1 lb Eggplant

1 bskt Cherry Tomatoes: Juliette variety

.75 lbs Jimmy Nardello Peppers

.75 lbs Green Beans

1.5 lbs Heirloom/Early Girl Tomatoes

1 Red Seedless Watermelon

1 Yellow Canary or Charlyn Melon

Field Notes: A few zones just north of the farm in Yolo County remain under mandatory evacuation. One northern zone is still under advisory evacuation. The LNU Lightning Complex Fire is currently 317,909 acres and 62% contained. The air remains smoky in the Capay Valley. We monitor the air quality index daily and have shortened some work days to minimize exposure to smoke. The State of CA funded and supplied n95 masks to all County Agricultural Commissioner offices in the state for employers to provide free masks to all agricultural employees. We recently picked up a case of 600 masks and will be able to continue to source the masks from the ag commissioner’s office during the smoky conditions caused by the wildfires.

Despite these tough circumstances, the plants continue to grow and crop yields have been outstanding. As we harvest summer crops, we are simultaneously prepping fields and transplanting fall crops for Autumn: broccoli, kales, chards, and cabbages. We are also direct seeding beets, turnips and carrots.

Thank you for your continued support of the farm. We are grateful for your dedication to sourcing your food directly from us! Please pick up your veggie box on your delivery day.

Webstore Features: Canning Tomatoes (Early Girl), Red SauceTomatoes, Pickling

Cucumbers Visit: https://csa.farmigo.com/store/riverdogfarmcsa to place your orders. Place your orders by noon, 2 days before your delivery day.

Box Notes: Late August and September/October are eggplant and pepper months. Melon production will slow down later in September. The Jimmy Nardello Peppers are a sweet variety of pepper. See recipe below for sautéed peppers with burratta.

Each week, the veggie box contents are subject to change. In the newsletter, we include a list of box contents to give you an idea of what to expect but the items packed in the box may change. Crop quality, daily yields and weather conditions will determine final box contents each week.

 

New CSA Announcements:

1. We are delighted to announce that a new group of hens have started laying eggs, that means our egg numbers have increased. The RDF CSA Manager, Fallon is emailing folks who are on the egg waitlist. Please respond promptly to the egg subscription email yes or no. Then Fallon will update your account accordingly. There will be one more email going out this week for the egg waitlist. With a non-response, your egg waitlist subscription will be deleted at the end of the month so members can start adding their own eggs again.

 

2. Frog Hollow Farm Fruit Box subscriptions are available. We received many subscriber requests for this subscription option. The weekly fruit box is $29.75. To add the Frog Hollow Fruit box to your weekly subscription, go to your account in Farmigo, and add it as an option. The deliveries of the fruit boxes will be weekly. The Frog Hollow fruit box will be available to add to your CSA account only from Thursday to Sunday at NOON. And, due to logistics, the Frog Hollow Fruit Boxes will only be available to the Wednesday/Thursday/Friday subscribers. CSA subscribers who pick up on Tuesdays/Thursdays, at the Berkeley farmers markets will not have the fruit box option but may purchase one directly from Frog Hollow.  12:00 pm Sunday is the deadline to change your account for the fruit box, if you enter a hold any time after that, we can cancel delivery of the box, but your account will still be charged. Frog Hollow CSA boxes come with 3-4 varieties of seasonal tree ripened, exceptionally tasty stone fruits. Summer CSA boxes contain 7 lbs. of mixed stone fruit, many varieties of peaches, plums, nectarines and pluots. As part of their commitment to sustainability, Frog Hollow works hard to avert food waste. You can expect to see ripe cosmetically imperfect fruit and small or large pieces of fruit in the fruit boxes. These characteristics should not affect the deliciousness of what you receive. Visit their web site to learn more about their CSA program, farm, ethos and fruits and recommendations: www.froghollow.com.

 

3. Recognizing that more people are eating and cooking at home and from our CSA subscriber feedback, we have increased the number of items in the veggie box. The weekly veggie box price will become $30 to correspond with the added value. Instead of 5-6 weekly items, the veggie box will include 7-9 items or the box may include an increased quantity of some of the items included in the veggie box. For example, with the new plan there will be more variety and more quantity of some items. The farm uses the farmers market pricing to determine the box value. The pricing includes administration and delivery costs in addition to the value of the produce. Summer produce is higher value than the winter produce so the veggie box contents volume may have the appearance of being smaller than winter produce volume.

The new CSA pricing of $30 per veggie box started August 3, 2020. - Please pick up your veggie box on your delivery day. With very warm summer temperatures, please pick up your CSA order on your delivery day so that it stays fresh and we can ensure quality. At Riverdog Farm, CSA site hosts may donate any unclaimed boxes of vegetables no sooner than 24 hours after the original pick up day and time of 3pm. After 24 hours (3pm the following day) unclaimed orders are no longer available and the subscriber absorbs the box cost for that week’s order.

Riverdog Farm has an active Instagram account. Find us via our Instagram handle: riverdogfarm. On our account, we share images of the crops, farming, re-posts of your farm fixings photos and videos and provide market/CSA updates.

Whether you leave the box at the site or take it home to return the following week, please unfold (collapse) your box carefully to keep the end flaps from tearing. Slowly, bend the two end panels towards the outer ends first then collapse (flatten) the whole box by gently folding the rest.

Give your account 48 hours to update when making changes. For example, when changing your account status from permanent hold to active by charging your credit card, the status may take up to 48 hours to update. The auto-pay option button is at the bottom of your account page. Please click it for auto-renewal of your CSA subscription and to ensure uninterrupted weekly veggie box deliveries.

Please check your CSA account for the most up to date information such as your delivery schedule.

  • Keeping it safe: with the Shelter-in-Place order still in effect in Yolo County, we continue to implement our COVID-19 prevention protocol on the farm per the CDC and Cal-OSHA recommended best practices. Prevention measures include: required face covering and glove wearing, 6-foot distancing in the workplace, hand sanitation and employees are not allowed to work with symptoms of COVID-19. 

  • Reminder: So that your subscription continues uninterrupted, please make sure your credit card on file is up to date on your CSA account. For those who need to end the CSA subscription before your deliveries end, you MUST contact the farm through email to request cancellation. You may put your account on a DELIVERY hold if you will be gone for periods of time. If you wish to cancel your account, you may email the farm and we can cancel it for you.

  • Please pick up your veggie box on your delivery day. As the temperatures heat up, it’s important to pick up your veggie the day of delivery to maintain freshness.

  • For any changes you need to make to your account, the cut off time is 12 noon 2 days before your delivery day Remember to make any changes to your account such as payment renewal or delivery holds by 12 noon 2 days before your delivery day. Thank you!

“Delivery hold” is used for short periods of time – you use this option 48 hours in advance to schedule the deliveries you are unable to pick up.

“Permanent Hold” is used for long periods of time – you use this option if you are gone for extended periods of time and wish to resume your account when you get back. You must change your status to “active” when you return in order to resume deliveries.

“Cancel” is used to delete membership details, this means you would need to re-enter delivery status, subscriptions, and credit card information when you resume the Riverdog Farm CSA.