A Full Month of Community Supported Agriculture

School is out, the pool is open, so it must be summertime in Kentucky, right? Well, not technically. There’s still another month of Springtime to enjoy until the Summer Solstice arrives on June 20th to officially usher in the season.

May 28th marks the 4th week of the CSA–we’ve now been through one whole month of local seasonal eating in rhythm with our natural environment. Our CSA boxes have been brimming with big leafy greens, as these are the vegetable varieties that thrive in our climate during the Spring when we still have cool nights and shorter daylight hours. We hope you’ve tried some new recipes and even found some new favorites. And as is always the case with shifting seasons, change is on the horizon. So far this May we’ve seen the following items in our CSA boxes:

Microgreens	Lettuces	Arugula	Spinach
Kale	Collards	Swiss Chard	Bulb Onions
Strawberries	Broccolini	Kohlrabi	Garlic Scapes
Summer Squash	Beets	Radish	Fennel

As the dog days of summer arrive in the next couple of months, we will say bye-bye to most of these leafy greens until cooler weather returns in the fall. We were delighted with our first harvests of summer squash last week and are excited for cucumbers right around the corner. In the weeks ahead, you can also expect potatoes, eggplant, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, and fresh herbs (basil, thyme, oregano, sage). Of course, I wouldn’t dare forget to update you on tomatoes! Our goal post for fresh ripe tomatoes is typically by the 4th of July, but depending on the weather, they may pop in a little earlier or later.

We hope that being in a CSA brings you closer to the rhythms of seasonal eating. There is a lot of joy, wonder, and a fair bit of discipline, too, in eating a local diet. We listen to the Earth, and she tells us what to eat based on the natural limitations of our region’s climate. We live in a modern age where anything we want to eat is typically available at our fingertips year-round, but that convenience comes with many costs, and we can disconnect from how our home place and the natural world should influence how we eat year-round. It can be a new practice to connect with our food seasonally, our landscape, and our farmers by eating what is possible and abundant in the place we call home. Thank you for joining this CSA journey with us. We are just getting started!

Meet Bree, Ben, Hazel, and Sage!

Each week, we will introduce you to the people who make up Rootbound Farm. We are a growing, mighty team from many different backgrounds and talents, all working together to cultivate, harvest, wash, pack, deliver, and merge spreadsheets to make the CSA program happen. To kick off our Meet the Team series, we interviewed Bree and Ben, the owners of Rootbound Farm.

We started the farm ten years ago, after working on many other farms in Kentucky and across the country. We are now in our 9th season of Community Supported Agriculture. In 2015, our first CSA year, we had 75 members – and many of those initial 75 members are still with us today! Over the past decade, the farm has grown steadily to now more than 700 weekly CSA members.

Our family lives here on the farm, and we have two children, Hazel (8) and Sage (6). Ben and I (Bree) met in college at the University of Kentucky and were drawn to agriculture because many of our passions intersected–passion for the natural world, environmental stewardship, and cultivating healthy people and communities that have the resources they need to thrive.

We feel really lucky every day that building this farm business is our life’s work and that we get to build something that we really believe in.

What’s your favorite job on the farm?

Bree: Lambing season is my favorite eight weeks of the year when I get to spend most of my time with the sheep while they are birthing the new generation.

What’s your favorite veggie that we grow, and how do you like to prepare it?

Ben: Right now, I’ve got summer squash on the brain. I love to pan-saute it in strips and eat it on a sandwich along with a fried egg and whatever green crunchy thing we have growing on the farm, like arugula.

Sage: Broccoli. Raw.

What is your favorite animal on the farm, and why?

Hazel: The dogs, because you can cuddle with them!

We Started off the Season with a Solar Eclipse!

This April, we were lucky enough to be graced by the path of near-totality during the Solar Eclipse. As we sipped and snacked on our celestial-themed Sunkist sodas and Cosmic Brownies, we caught glimpses of the sun and moon crossing paths through the clouds. We couldn’t have asked for better timing as farmers who returned for the season bonded with new members of our team over–actually under–this otherworldly event right before we embarked on our 2024 CSA journey. We can’t wait for the next one in 2044!

What is Kohlrabi and How Do I Prepare it?

This month, Kohlrabi debuted in all our CSA Share Boxes. Kohlrabi is a brassica, a vegetable closely related to cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale, and turnip. It is a popular vegetable in Germany, referred to often as the “German turnip.” Because the climates in Kentucky and Germany are similar, we are able to successfully grow this incredibly versatile vegetable and provide it as a consistent produce item in the CSA. While we do grow common vegetables like turnips, cucumbers, kale, and tomatoes, we want to provide a unique experience to try a new vegetable that you might otherwise not choose at the grocery store.

So go forth and take on the challenge of the Kohlrabi. If you are intimidated by this new vegetable but remain curious, we’ve got your back. Here’s an article about preparation along with recipes for three tasty dishes you can eat at any time of day.