Oh tomatoes! Aren't they lovely?  We start them in January in our basement, before the greenhouse is even fired up for the season. We baby them in their various growth stages, and tuck them into their beds in the high tunnels early in the season and outside in the Spring, in an attempt to have great tomatoes throughout the season.

Last year, our high tunnel tomatoes were ravaged by a tiny pest: the white fly.  Neem oil helps a little, but really the only method of pest control is prevention: find them early and remove them. 

Adam's been strolling the rows in the high tunnels each day looking for these little creatures. When he finds them, he takes the whole leaf and puts it in a sealed bucket.  A few times, he's had to take a whole plant in order to protect the plants around it.

We're hoping this will save those plants and help the tomatoes thrive so your baskets are filled with tomatoes this year. (If you want them of course). We think we've caught them early, but we'll stay vigilent!

​We’ve had a few people ask if we'll be able to, so we thought we'd say: the answer is a resounding YES.  

There’s never been a better time to know your farmer. We know you depend on us for healthy, local food, and we are finding ways to get that to you. We’re providing food… designated as an essential service.  

The CSA will start officially Tuesday, May 19 and Saturday May 23, but check your account to see when your start date is, if you sign up for every other week.  

To us, CSA isn’t just a bag of veggies or box of meats. It’s a relationship.  

We honor that relationship by getting good food to you. Right now, before CSA begins, we’re using the online store and taking preorders. We’ve opened an online store to be sure you can get what you need. We'll reload the store every Monday or Tuesday night.  Order by midnight Thursday for Saturday delivery. Order HERE.  

Main Season CSA We truly feel that feeding CSA members is like feeding our family. That means we will be making every effort to keep your food safe in the harvest and handling process, and following social distancing measures during this time of the coronavirus outbreak in our personal lives, and during pickups or home delivery.   We actually think getting our food is better than going to the grocery story. Why?              

• Your food is local, not part of the global food system where you don’t know where it comes from, or who has touched your food in the process.             
• Your veggies are organic, and meats are sustainably raised.  That means no synthetic chemicals in the soil or in your food. Better for you and the planet.            
• Your pickups are less crowded than a grocery store. Most are outside or in a remote location of a workplace. And you can always choose home delivery at any point.           
• You know your farmer, and know that we follow Good Agricultural Practices (GAP). These are practices and systems we have in place to keep your food safe from disease, including washing, sanitation, worker safety, protocol for worker illness, etc. We have been and continue to develop our food safety plan, and had already planned to undergo a third party audit of our systems this year.            
• Your food is healthy and nutrient-dense. An important part of staying healthy is getting good sleep and eating high quality food that delivers the nutrients your body needs. Being part of a CSA helps you get the veggies and high quality meats into your diet to keep you healthy.  

Will you make any changes because of Covid-19?

YES. All of the above said, we will be making some changes to keep the CSA running and keep you healthy during this time:

Pickup locations: as we get closer to the start of the CSA, we’ll reach out to our established pickup locations to be sure they can all remain open. If there are any issues with you being able to access the pickup location you signed up for, you can choose a different pickup location, or choose home delivery.

Social distancing: we’ll be developing policies and procedures for each pickup location to practice the proper social distancing to follow whatever guidelines we’re under at the time, including no-touch policies if needed.

Even more cleaning and disinfecting: In addition to the stringent GAP guidelines, we’ll establish even more guidelines for disinfecting and washing here on the farm and at any locations we visit.

Packaging: No more reusables, at least for this year. This one hurts our hearts.  Being able to use reusable bags is good for the environment, but is not something we feel we can do this year, out of an abundance of caution. We’re currently looking into other options for this.

“Farmers Market style” CSA pickups: At some pickup points, we have practiced a “farmers market style” pickup, where members bring their bags, and go down a line of produce bins to select their produce. We are still assessing whether or not we can do this. (Note the grocery stores haven’t changed their produce sections!). So stay tuned. “Worst case scenario” we’ll just pre-package everyone’s produce.    

We'll also continue to update our policies, following appropriate and research-based guidance.

So… this is all new territory for all of us! If I haven’t answered your questions, please reach out and let me know what questions you have. Chances are, if you have a question, someone else out there does too!    ​

As Spring buds here on the farm, the greenhouse is full, and farming is underway. We’ve completed most of our seed orders for the year, so thank you for those of you who signed up early to help us do that. It really helps!! We’re entering the busy season of preparing ground, planting seeds and transplanting baby plants from the greenhouse into the fields. (Above photo is Rosalio and Alex transplanting the first broccoli, cauliflower and other greens) So we are rolling forward.   We look forward to staying committed to the relationship we’ve entered with our CSA members.  Again, the CSA relationship is different than a typical consumer/business relationship, and we value that dynamic. We hope you do too!  
We’re in this together!  

Be well, Rae and Adam    ​

We're hiring! Do you enjoy customer interaction and love good food? We sell meat and vegetables at three Louisville Farmers Markets:

St Matthews Farmers Market, Saturdays 8am-noon
Douglass Blvd Market, Saturdays 10am-2pm
Phoenix Hill Market 3-6 pm

We will need a few people to fill openings at the above three farmers markets this year. Work hours for each market will include additional set up and clean up time from the above listed market hours. The St. Matthews market will need one person to have a vehicle large enough to load coolers to bring to the Douglass Blvd market.

Qualifications:
Friendly, reliable
Quick on your feet
Good attention to detail and table display
​Knowledge of cooking meats and vegetables preferred
Must be able to lift up to 50 lbs.

Pay is $50 per market, with an increase for the person who takes the St. Matthews items to the Douglass market.

We are taking the coronavirus seriously, and the impact on market help. We will provide gloves and masks, and will work to provide the safest working conditions we can.

To apply, email farmer@barrrfarmsky.com with your availability for which markets you're interested in, and a short description of your qualifications or why you're interested.

We are only opening the store to CSA members this first week, for a few reasons. First, as our core farm supporters, we take care of you first. It’s part of our CSA philosophy.  So if there are glitches, or anything looks funny in the ordering process or emails, please tell us so we can fix it. So, please order what you need, but don’t share the link with others, at least this first week.  


Community: how can we help, how can you help? 
This is a new online store for us… we got it set up quickly to meet the needs of people who are homebound but need food! Or, who wan a safe pickup option for quality food. We also know that connection to others and community is important! We’ll try to give fun updates on what’s happening on the farm, photos and videos of the kids and otherwise hopeful news to keep you feeling connected and uplifted. We’ll also continue to share recipes as you may be cooking more, and please share your recipes and strategies by email or on our FB page! 

Can you help feed another family? On a more serious note, some families are really struggling right now with food insecurity. We can make some food donations, but we need help.  We have some local networks that can get food to families in need. In the online store there is an option to “feed another family,” and price points for that. We’ll create meat bundles for those families based on what is entered. ​

Don't worry, that garlic won't get eaten by the lions. (At least not all of it. The grass was another story though). We've had some really awesome farm/family days the last couple of weeks. It's so fun to see the kids outside playing, creating castles in the mud and in their imagination! 

The garlic and strawberry plants look good. That's garlic in the foreground. We plant it in late fall so it begins to sprout and grow.  Then it goes dormant over the winter so that this time of year, it's already planted and ready to take off. That way, we can have garlic scapes, green garlic and garlic bulbs for you quickly in your CSA bags. So, the garlic is looking good this year. The strawberries are looking good too. In the above photo, the strawberries are covered with what looks like a giant piece of cloth.  It is. It's called remay, and it helps the plants survive the winter. We hold down the cloth with sandbags all along the edge. Here is a photo of a strawberry plant:

The edges of the plant are a little brown from the cold, but the new growth in the center looks amazing.  We're hopeful for great strawberries to start us out in the CSA bags in May.

This was a day that Adam was working with the bees, so the boys were playing "lion" while Adam had the hives open just a few feet away. It was a sunny day, so the bees were happy, and so were the boys!  This was just the start of their adventure. They also climbed a giant dirt mound from when we cleared out the pond last fall, rode on the tractor and helped mama pick up tree limbs from when Adam grafted.

​Spring goodness!

Remember when breakfast was a bowl of cereal or a piece of toast? (And maybe it still is?) Try re-thinking what breakfast looks like. Through much trial and error, I've discovered I need two things for breakfast to really feel good: protein and veggies.

I still will sometimes have some oatmeal with nuts or granola and yogurt, but the sweet taste in the morning just doesn't do it for me anymore.... and it definitely doesn't hold me over till lunch. Even the oatmeal with nuts feels heavy in my belly at first, but then I feel like I need more nourishment.

So I've created alternatives for myself.  This one is my favorite: kale with mushrooms and fried eggs.  I dice the mushrooms and throw them in a cast iron with a little butter, or just some water so they don't burn.  While those are cooking, de-stem and cut the kale small, then toss it in the pan. Let it wilt and then add a splash of vinegar, either rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar or balsamic vinegar), and then a little splash of coconut amino acids for a hint of sweetness. You could also use balsamic reduction or just skip it.  Then put those in a bowl or plate and use the same plan to fry and egg or two.

I won't lie, it does take a little more time than putting a piece of bread in the toaster. But honestly not that much more time. Maybe 5 minutes. And it's soooo worth it.  I don't do this every morning yet, but I'm working towards it because when I do, my whole day goes so much better. I'm energetic, my brain functions better, and I just feel better (as long as I've gotten enough sleep! But especially on those days, it's important for me to eat well to get through the day).

Making this one change has meant way more veggie intake for me, too, and is a great way to get through that CSA share! I'd love to hear your ideas for veggies for breakfast. Send them my way!

Last year, we bought bees. Three hives. Not for honey, mind you! For pollination. (We have maple syrup and sorghum for sweeteners). They have a job on the farm. It's to go around to all the flowers and "spread the love" so to speak so that fruits will develop from the flowers. Also, as I'm sure you know, bees are so important not just for vegetable and fruit pollination, but to make the whole system work. We need them. They did their job by being bees, and visiting all the flowers on the farm, and then around October we weren't seeing them anymore. The hives had died. We were very disappointed, but it was our first year, so we thought, "well, we'll try again next year."  Well, over the winter we've made friends with a new beekeeper, Monica. She wants to learn to keep bees to do her part to help out the bees.  She came over to see where we kept our hives, and she volunteered to manage the new batch for us for the year.  We took a family trip out to the hives to check them out, and low and behold: 

Nourishing Hope: Dinner and Ideas
(working title... anyone great at coming up with good titles?)

We're partnering with Farm to Fork Cafe for an exclusive dinner conversation! This is for foodies and thinkers. Adam and Rae will lead a conversation on topics that animate us, that we just don't have time to delve into in the farmers market bustle: climate change on the farm and farmer-led solutions, policy at the local and national levels that affect small family farms, ideas and practices around food justice and farm justice, including racial and economic injustice that are built into our current food systems, and more.  Bring your appetite and thoughts to the table and let your mind and tastebuds expand with delicious Barr Farms fare lovingly prepared by Farm to Fork Cafe. This will be a small intimate event to allow for depth of conversation.

Menu:
Appetizer
Salad
Barr Farms chicken dinner and two sides (vegetarian option available)
Dessert
One glass wine or beer  (or nonalcoholic beverage)

Thursday, April 2
6 pm
Farm to Fork Cafe
2425 Portland Ave, Louisville, KY 40212
$29 

We are REALLY excited about this event! It's going to be delicious... um, I mean fun. Look forward to seeing you there!

This event will be open to CSA members first, as a thank you to our members.

This recipe was submitted by Sarah Fritschner. She's an expert cook who likes to break it down to what is easy and what tastes good. She shared this with us cause it's all Barr Farms food! Sausage from the recent meat deliveries, and kale that she bought in the middle of the season to freeze for the winter. If you froze some greens, here's an idea of how to use them!  Thanks Sarah!​


Sausage, white beans and kale
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 ounces Italian sausage
1 to 2 cups frozen, chopped kale or spinach (8 cups fresh, chopped)
1 to 1 ½ cups cooked or canned white beans (navy, Great Northern etc.)
2 cups chicken broth
½ teaspoon crushed red pepper
½ teaspoon oregano
Salt to taste


Heat oil in a heavy, deep skillet over medium-high heat. If your sausage is in links, cut away the casings and break up the meat into the skillets. Brown well, stirring and breaking up the meat. Add remaining ingredients except salt. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until much of the liquid is evaporated, leaving a sort of thick sauce to bind the ingredients. Taste for salt. Serve over rice, with pasta or grits. Serves 4.