My dear community,

It’s hard to imagine we were at the beach last weekend. As we head into California winter, things slow down and with the wet weather, get a little dirtier. On the farm we have more greens and less variety. But what we do have is geared especially to keep you healthy during these months. Our farmacy in a box is loaded with antioxidants, vitamins and mineral rich food. Eating locally grown, seasonal produce is the most flavorful there is.

The heavy rain forecasted this week is great and needed for the land, and will definitely keep us busy. We’ll be going off our mental checklist of running around remembering to cover the hay bales and chicken feed, and wading through muddy fields picking veggies. It will give me a chance to catch up on paperwork as well.

We’ve added a Twitter account to our media outlets to keep you inspired with new recipes. Find us @somethinggoodorganics on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @johngivensfarm. Tag us with any new creations you make and we will make sure to share. Keeping our community fed, nourished and inspired to keep eating more plants is our mission.

With connective intention,

CSA Contains:
RED BEETS
LEEKS
BUNCHED SPINACH
LACINATO KALE
RED CABBAGE
GARNET YAMS
ARUGULA
RED BUTTER LETTUCE
SATSUMA TANGERINES
CARROTS
BIG BOX ADD: CARROTS, BLUEBERRIES, ROMAINE LETTUCE, BROCCOLI, DILL

JUICE FEAST:
RED BEETS
BUNCHED SPINACH
LACINATO KALE
RED CABBAGE
ROMAINE LETTUCE
CELERY
ITALIAN PARSLEY
FUJI APPLES
EUREKA LEMONS

JUST the BASICS:
BUNCHED SPINACH
CARROTS
GARNET YAMS
RED BUTTER LETTUCE
SATSUMA TANGERINES
BROCCOLI

FRUIT EXPANSION: SATSUMAS and BLUEBERRIES
LETTUCE of the WEEK: ROMAINE

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My dear community,

It’s been a wild week to say the least. We’ve been enjoying the summer weather, but looking forward to the possibility of rain next week. Rain and cooler temperatures help our orchards produce when springtime finally comes. As much as we love posting up at the beach on a Sunday afternoon, we’d rather hunker down inside and watch the rain quench our parched land.
I’ve been renovating all things chicken. We’ve been trimming trees to make room for more sun to shine through where the chickens are grazing. We are moving the chickens around and planting grass for them to graze on. I’ve made use of a homemade chicken tractor and I’m moving our newest flock around the orchard every day. We’re looking forward to lots of eggs come spring. We will notify you if you are on our Egg Subscription wait list as soon as they become available.
Back by popular demand – Deux Bakery’s Blueberry Walnut Multigrain Sourdough. Enjoy it on the side of a bowl of cauliflower leek soup in the company of your quaranteam.

With connective intention,

CSA Contains:
RED BEETS
LEEKS
GARNET YAMS from QUAIL H. FARMS
SATSUMA TANGERINES from GLEN ANNIE ORGANICS
RED LEAF LETTUCE (you might receive green leaf or red butter as we don”t have enough of one variety this week)
BROCCOLI from SUNRISE ORGANICS
WHITE CAULIFLOWER
BUNCHED SPINACH
COLLARD GREENS
CARROTS
BIG BOX ADD: CARROTS, SALAD MIX, LACINATO KALE, TANGERINES, ITALIAN PARSLEY

JUICE FEAST:
RED BEETS
FUJI APPLES from GOPHER GLENN ORGANICS
ROMAINE LETTUCE
CELERY
BUNCHED SPINACH
COLLARD GREENS
CARROTS X2
LACINATO KALE
ITALIAN PARSLEY

JUST THE BASICS:
SATSUMA TANGERINES from GLEN ANNIE ORGANICS
RED LEAF LETTUCE (you might receive green leaf or red butter as we don”t have enough of one variety this week)
BROCCOLI from SUNRISE ORGANICS
BUNCHED SPINACH
CARROTS
CAULIFLOWER

FRUIT EXPANSION: SATSUMA TANGERINS from GLEN ANNIE ORGANICS and KIWI from WILD RIVER FARMS
LETTUCE of the WEEK: ROMAINE

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My dear community,

I’m taking this week’s blog to focus on something important to me, non-veggie but community related. If you thought the San Marcos Foothills were protected you were only partially right. I just thought the topic needed an intro For the past few months, the local community and CSA members have been working on trying to raise awareness about the impending development of the San Marcos Foothills Upper West Mesa (the base of highway 154 if you’re heading to the Valley). SMFoothills are the last grassland foothills that are publicly accessible from North Santa Barbara to Gaviota. Channel Islands Restoration is tasked with fundraising and Save San Marcos Foothills is spearheading a plan to buy the property from the owner and developer. We are running out of time as the road grading permit was approved on Dec. 17, 2020. We need more people to know about this wonderful place so more people are willing to donate. The CSA program has commited to make a donation and we hope you will too, if you are in a position to do so.

We are extending our CSA store hours until Monday evening at midnight to accommodate orders, with the exception of Deux Bakery bread orders which will remain Sunday at midnight (starting NEXT WEEK). Our CSA software will let you order bread until closing on Monday at midnight, but we will be monitoring orders and removing any bread that is ordered past cut-off. We hope this will come as a better service to you and your weekly meal planning.

With connective intention,

CSA Contains:
CARROTS
CILANTRO
GREEN BEANS
FENNEL
SATSUMA TANGERINES from GLEN ANNIE ORGANICS
RED BUTTER LETTUCE
GREEN CURLY KALE
BUNCHED SPINACH
ROMANESCO CAULIFLOWER
BUTTERNUT SQUASH
BIG BOX ADD: FUJI APPLES, CARROTS, SALAD MIX, NAPPA CABBAGE, RED BEETS

FRUIT EXPANSION: FUJI APPLES and SATSUMA TANGERINES
Lettuce of the Week: ROMAINE

JUICE FEAST:
CARROTS x2
CILANTRO
FENNEL
GREEN CURLY KALE
BUNCHED SPINACH
FUJI APPLES
RED BEETS
CELERY x2

BASICS BOX:
CARROTS
GREEN BEANS
SATSUMA TANGERINES from GLEN ANNIE ORGANICS
RED BUTTER LETTUCE
BUNCHED SPINACH
ROMANESCO CAULIFLOWER

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My dear community,

Happy 2021 everybody. 2020 was definitely a blurry mess, but here we are ready to welcome the new year. While we took a little break over the past two weeks I feel like the veggies did too. The cold weather and short days keeps them from getting big enough to pick. We are on the verge of a big cauliflower crop though, and I’m looking forward to having it in the boxes in the next few weeks. I drove up to Avila to grab a few pallets of freshly picked Fuji apples from Gopher Glenn Organics and I’m working on sourcing local tangerines for the upcoming weeks. The local orchard we source from a lot was sold and I had to make sure we can still have fruit in the future. I’m working on gathering more recipes and sharing on Instagram. Please continue to share with our community what you are doing with your CSA boxes so we can encourage new ideas by using the hashtag #somethinggoodorganics or tagging us @somethinggoodorganics.

Through your feedback, we’ve launched a new smaller box called our Basics Box. While we love loading up your fridge to the max and encouraging a plant based diet, we understand various household sizes vary and so do personal preferences. Our Basic Box will contain 6 items and the contents will be listed weekly along with the other boxes on our blog, as always. For reference, a regular box has 10 items and a large, 15. If this sounds like the best option for you, log into your account at www.farmigo.com/account/somethinggoodorganics, click on the “change” button next to your subscription and toggle between the sizes with at least 3 days advance notice.

Do you make new year’s resolutions? Intentions? Or have other January traditions? I have an annual word. Resilience is my word for 2021. I hope by setting this as my intention it will help ground me in my decision making and goal setting for the year. If there’s anything I’ve learned from 2020, it’s that anything can be done if we rally together.

With connective intention.

CSA Contains:
CARROTS
BABY SPINACH
LACINATO KALE
RED LEAF LETTUCE
BROCCOLI from SUNRISE ORGANICS
RED BEETS
FUJI APPLES from GOPHER GLEN ORGANIC APPLE FARM
SATSUMA TANGERINES from HEATH RANCH
CELERY
ROMANESCO CAULIFLOWER
BIG BOX: GREEN CABBAGE, CILANTRO, ROMAINE LETTUCE, CARROTS, HASS AVOCADOS

FRUIT EXPANSION: SATSUMA TANGERINES from HEATH RANCH and FUJI APPLES from GOPHER GLEN ORGANIC APPLE FARM
Lettuce of the Week: Romaine Lettuce

JUICE FEAST:
CARROTS
BUNCHED SPINACH
LACINATO KALE
RED BEETS
FUJI APPLES
SATSUMA TANGERINES
CELERY
GREEN CABBAGE
CILANTRO
ROMAINE LETTUCE

BASICS BOX:
CAULIFLOWER
CARROTS
BUNCHED SPINACH
SATSUMA TANGERINES
ROMAINE LETTUCE
HASS AVOCADOS

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