Dear Tahoe CSA members,

We have been honored to have been your CSA farm for the past 21 years.  Bryan started selling at the Tahoe City farmers’ market as a beginning farmer, and without the support of those market customers and the Tahoe CSA members over the many years, Natural Trading Co wouldn’t be the thriving, abundant farm it is today.

The farm has grown in many new directions, and we have an opportunity to run and manage the Tahoe City farmers’ market.  With the new responsibility, we realize we don’t have the resources to continue to deliver boxes all around the lake.  We will be at the Tahoe City Farmers’ Market on Thursday mornings, with Tahoe City CSA boxes available for pick-up at this market, and we will continue to deliver Truckee CSA boxes.  However, we have decided to discontinue delivering directly to Kings Beach, Incline Village, Tahoe Valley, and Squaw Valley.  This was a difficult decision for us, as we know that many of you have been loyal and enthusiastic customers for many years.

For those of you who have already subscribed, I will be refunding your credit card in the next few days.  If there is interest in a customer-organized pickup (i.e. members take turns picking up boxes from Tahoe City), we’re more than happy to help you out.

Mountain Bounty and other farms offer CSAs in your neighborhood – check out Local Harvest for a directory of farms.  And we hope to see you at the Tahoe City Farmers’ Market over the summer.  Thanks for your understanding, thanks for your loyal support through the many years, and most importantly, thank you for choosing to eat local and organic.  We’re very excited to do everything we can to support local farmers, food, business, and the community with the new Tahoe City Farmers’ Market.

Please don’t hesitate to call or email if you have questions.

Sincerely, the Natural Trading Co

It’s time to eat your greens! with the Winter CSA. From November 5-February 4, with a 2-week break during Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, receive 12 weeks of winter health — greens, roots, shoots, and fruits. Space is limited so sign up soon.

With the cool weather continuing to roll in, it’s the time of year when leafy greens packed with vitamins and minerals flourish to boost your health against cold and flu season. Beyond basic lettuce, greens can be a mystery in mainstream American diets, but there are 2 simple things you need to know about greens — what to generally cook, and what to generally eat raw. Everything else is an experiment in cooking and taste. Try it raw and taste it, cook it and taste it — do you like it? success! (I do not recommend eating mature chard or beet greens raw, and proceed with caution with turnip greens also.)

I’ve listed all the greens we grow above, starting at the top with veggies you cook longer proceeding down to things you typically serve uncooked. I’ve included my somewhat subjective taste characterizations. Also, hooray for the taste of bitter! It’s complex, it’s interesting, it’s part of a mature sophisticated palate, it’s a good thing. It’s time to eat your greens (and roots, shoots, and fruits) with the Winter CSA.

Sign up for a 2014 Natural Trading Co summer harvest box, and get ready for 24 weeks of the freshest, most delicious, good for you-good for the community-good for the earth weekly treasure chest of organic veggies.  This year, our season runs from May 19th through October 31st.  Choose a family box (recommended for 3-5 people), or a small box (for 1-3 people).   Whole season prices for boxes are $840 or $35/week (family), and $600 or $25/week (small).  3-payment installment plan available only prior to start of the season. Pick-up sites span Roseville, Rocklin, Granite Bay, Lincoln, Newcastle, Auburn, Truckee, and Tahoe.

For an extra bountiful share, add on our popular organic, pasture-raised eggs or tomato share, in addition to wheatgrass, pea shoots, and sunflower greens.  Mid-season sign-ups are welcome – CSAware will automatically pro-rate late subscriptions.  We can’t wait to start sending veggies your way, reserve your spot before we run out of shares!  We had to close the Winter CSA this past season due to an overwhelming interest in new subscriptions.

And yes, we’ve decided to take the CSA in a slightly different direction this year with the passage of new California legislation AB-224 regulating community supported agriculture.  Read more here…

And for those of you who would like to help get the word out about our Summer CSA, here’s a printable flyer to post in your community space.

A few weeks ago, a group of Early Head Start kids and their families came to visit us at the farm.  On their tour, wee hands harvested tomatoes, dug potatoes, and giggled at the antics of the piglets.  We’ve been packing CSA boxes for local Head Start programs for a few years now, and we’re so happy to be a part of this community so dedicated to the healthy development of young children.  I know a farmer and his daughters who refer to responsibly-raised, unprocessed, seasonal, local farm food as “normal food”; and what we typically label as conventional food they call “the other stuff.”  What an idea right?  A generation of little ones whose norm is veggies, fruit, grains, milk, eggs, and meat from a farmer or gardener they know (maybe themselves) – that’s what I’m holding in my heart.  

THIS Saturday, June 22, we will be at the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-Op’s 40th Anniversary Bash from 12-4pm.  We will have a market booth, amid entertainment, food, and beverages.  It’s free and open to the public!

Meanwhile, summer harvest is in full swing here at the farm.  We could talk for hours about all the beautiful and delicious bounty coming out of the fields, but for now you can learn a little bit about our potatoes, since all of our varieties are now in circulation to CSA members and markets.

Whether you eat many pounds of potatoes, or just a few french fries perhaps, they are an enormously important aspect of history and modern food.  Over the course of 7-10,000 years of domestication, people have created over 1,000 subspecies and about 5,000 varieties of potatoes (3,000 of which exist only in the Andes).  This diversity has led to potatoes being a staple of diets worldwide, and it was the initial lack of diversity in the European crops that made it vulnerable to disease, and which ultimately led to the terrible Irish Potato Famine.

We grow a handful of potato varieties here at the Natural Trading Co.  Although the healthfulness of potatoes is sometimes debated, the truth is that they provide nearly everything a human body needs to be healthy, aside from vitamins A and D.  So a healthy human diet could be merely potatoes and milk or butter.  Some researchers believe that the Purple Majesty might soon be described as a “super food” (AKA really healthy), as it has very high levels of antioxidants.  The Desiree has red skin, light yellow flesh, and a creamy taste – ideal for mashing or sauces.  The Nicola is waxy and golden yellow inside and out.  The waxy quality means less starch and more moisture, making it ideal for potato salads.  Also…boil, mash, roast, or fry!  German Butterball, a staff favorite, is a golden, buttery russet-type and the red-skinned Sangre is excellent for baking and boiling.

Don’t forget to visit us at the farmers’ markets to try these tasty treats:  Truckee and Roseville on Tuesday, Tahoe City on Thursday, and Auburn and Rocklin on Saturday.

We are taking part in an upcoming benefit for Slow Food Lake Tahoe, Cooking Outside the Box, on June 5 at Dragonfly Restaurant in Truckee.  Guests will learn recipes for seasonal vegetables, many of which are found in a weekly CSA box (Community Support Agriculture). Enjoy a diversity of tastes and wine pairings as Dragonfly’s chef and owner Billy McCullough creates dishes using fresh, organic produce from our farm.  Cooking Outside the Box is a benefit for Slow Food Lake Tahoe, which supports good, clean, fair food. Cost is $35 for Slow Food members, $40 for non-members, Wednesday, June 5, 6-8 p.m. at Dragonfly Restaurant, 10118 Donner Pass Road, Truckee. For reservations call Dragonfly directly at 530-587-0557 and for event details visit http://www.slowfoodlaketahoe.org.