secret cafe, partnerships, wic, gap, markets, csa, oh my!

Wow! It's a beautiful day outside. The snow is melting, the ground is thawing...it's about time for the days of the muddy boots. We're still working through a lot of details for this growing season, collecting CSA sign-ups, getting prepped to start our work in the greenhouse, and dreaming of mornings in the sunshine pullin' up weeds.  

Here are some updates from the Big Muddy Urban Farm...

• Friends of the Big Muddy Urban Farm are hosting a "Secret Cafe" on Friday, February 24th starting at 5:00pm. Come have a delicious meal and drinks served to you. On the menu: greens, bean and beer soup, potato leek soup, homemade bread by James, rabbit, and homemade pies and cupcakes for dessert. This is a fundraiser to help us buy materials for our raised beds at the 33rd and California Plot. $5.00-$10.00 suggested donation. Also, the infamous Matt Cronin (and perhaps a few other musical guests) will serenade you while you dine. Location details coming soon... but save the date!

• We had a really great meeting with Omaha Economic Development Corporation this week about a potential partnership that would truly be awesome for the Big Muddy Urban Farm. We will reveal more soon, when we can. In the meantime, check them out, they do some cool work in the neighborhood. 

• We're on our way to becoming certified to accept WIC vouchers! 

• Ali and Brent attended the GAP training, which stands for Good Agricultural Practices. This means Big Muddy Urban Farm is officially trained in GAP practices. From the UNL Extension page "Safe, locally grown produce is a important to the producers as it is to consumers. The purpose of providing Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) training is to reduce the risks of microbial contamination of fruits and vegetables. The overarching aim is to help increase safety or quality of local foods and this starts by developing a farm food safety plan that is achievable."  

• We mentioned this before, but just so everyone knows we currently have plans to sell at the Benson Farmer's Market and Gifford Park Farmer's Market this season. The GP Farmer's Market is pretty new, and we hope we can help get more vendors and customers traveling through this season. Our friends from the Minnelusa House and GP Teen Market folks also sell there. Let the countdown to Farmer's Markets begin! 

• Don't forget to request a CSA Member Agreement today. One by one our spots are getting filled. 31 days until registration for this growing season closes!

xoxo,

Caitie

We get by, with a little help from our friends

What good would life be, if not for friends? I'm not sure about you, but I am constantly made happier by my dearest friends, and their constant support for me and my crazy ideas... moving to Nebraska for instance, would have been a little less lovely had I not had the support of so many people, both family and friends alike. 


The more I think about it, I see how much this applies to our current situation with Big Muddy Urban Farm. To me, community supported agriculture (CSA) has so many implications; not only does it imply that the producers are directly tied to our customers, in our case it acknowledges the important connection between us as farmers and the continued support of our community; both in the immediate sense of our local community and in the larger sense of the greater sustainable agriculture community here in Nebraska and in the midwest. As we continue to explore the network of other growers, it seems there are more and more inspiring individuals we meet, who are willing to share their knowledge and wisdom (and resources!) with us. I feel so fortunate to be a part of a new business venture that is receiving support from many directions. 

And how exciting it is to join the ranks of others growing food in Nebraska! 

Brent, Caitie, Tyler and I will be at the Healthy Farms & Rural Advantage conference in Nebraska City this weekend, and we look forward to meeting more of our farming friends. 

Thanks for you support,

ali

p.s. speaking of support, our lovely seed garlic donations from various farming friends, have safely made it into the ground before last week's snow! They are nesting in the ground covered with a generous layer of mulch and a tarp to keep them warm in the coldest days of winter. Can't wait to see them in the spring!

Quick facts about the Big Muddy Urban Farm CSA

1.
We offer flexible payment plans. Please let us know if you'd like to work a different payment schedule out.

2.
We're only offering 20 Full Shares this season. (or the equivalent in half share)

3.
As a member you'll get a weekly newsletter with storage tips, recipes, and other quirky things written by us (maybe jokes?)

4.
We have two pick-up locations -- Benson Farmer's Market (Military and Maple) & Gifford Park Farmer's Market (33rd and California)

5.
We are interested in offering add-ons to the CSA (for an additional cost). We'd like to offer a weekly share of local/organic eggs, cheese, and/or meat. We will let you know if this becomes available!

6.
We love kids. Even more we love kids who want to eat veggies and/or learn about growing food. If you have kids and you want to come hang out with us at one of our plots for a morning or afternoon we're totally into that.

7.
Sign-up for our CSA is open now. All you have to do is shoot us an email (bigmuddyfarm@gmail.com). We'll send you a Member Agreement, you can look it over, ask us any questions, and voila! mail that form in with your deposit and we'll save your spot.

seed garlic!

check out those beauties!

Seeds and dreams!

We've gotten about half of the seeds we ordered in so far and are anxiously waiting for the rest.  We are committed to buy from pesticide free seed sources and I just wanted to showcase some of the varieties I am most excited to grow for the CSA (and have been dreaming about)!


Japanese Black Trifele

I ran into this tomato while working on Friendly Farms in Iowa City with my friend Bob Braverman. Doesn't crack as much as other large heirlooms and has the best taste. We got our seeds from Seed Savers and hope to have a bunch of these in our CSA shares from July on!









New England Sugar Pie

We are excited to be growing one of the best pie pumpkins for our CSA this year and hope to have at least a couple to put in each share in October so kids (and adults) can get their pumpkin pie fix. I learned the value of buying good pumpkin seeds last year when we went to market with pumpkins from an unknown source. This year we corrected that mistake and purchased from the Missouri based, Baker's Creek Seed Company.






Bull's Blood Beetroot

Finally we have this dark red beet that is great for pickling, boiling, eating raw, or dyeing your hair with (I know from personal experience). Some people say they don't like beets because they taste like dirt, I say great, that leaves more beet for the rest of us.









Hope you enjoyed a look at some of the varieties we are itching to get in the ground for this next year, I personally can't wait, only a few more months to go.

See you in the fields,
Tyler

inching closer and closer...

Well... we pushed our goal "Find Land" back from January 15th to January 31st, but things are still moving along. We have a few more plots to look into before making our final decisions. I think we all have good feelings about things coming together. It would be nice to have more time, but doesn't it always feel that way before the growing season starts? It seems like you're ordering your seeds, starting your seeds, and mapping our your garden with plenty of time before the last frost hits and everything shifts into full speed ahead. Then it feels like you're in a marathon race all summer long. But perhaps that's why so many of us love growing food... it keeps the blood pumping. :)

In other news...

• The collective decided to make our plot on 35th and Cass (at the Gifford Park Community Garden) a "pizza garden." We'll grow tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, onions, oregano, and basil with the help of youth from the Gifford Park neighborhood who are interested in learning more about gardening.

• Almost all our seeds are ordered! We even struck while the iron was hot and got a little discount from Baker's Creek. Woo woo!

• We got some great seeds from the "Seed Swap" at City Sprouts last Saturday. A special thanks to Betsy for organizing and City Sprouts for hosting. I also caught a glimpse of the book, Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners, which I've been told is a "seed saving bible" of sorts. I think seed saving would be a great workshop to host toward the end of the season. It is a skill I personally need a lot more practice with. 

• Matt and Brent and working on a composting service that will collect from a few restaurants in Dundee. This is a great way to help local restaurants use their scraps (rather than throwing them in the trash), which we'll stir into our compost, and with some time voila! soil is built. 

• We're getting closer to opening registration for our 20 share CSA. Can't wait to find and meet our members...

• Ali is getting excited about add-ons, a few ideas at the top of our list are -- making our own herb vinegars, definitely jams and jellies, and dried herbal tea mixes.

• A few of us attended a CSA training at Tomato Tomato yesterday. It sounds like they are going to offer 500 shares with their CSA this season (wow!), which they source from many local farms. Our friends from No More Empty Pots will also offer the Market Basket program again this year, which allows folks to purchase a CSA using SNAP (Food Stamps). So Sweet.

xoxo,

Caitie

Big Muddy Urban Farm

Land Acquisition!

Big Muddy Urban Farm is now the proud lessee of three plots located just east of 33rd and California for the grand sum of $1. We have alot of work left to accomplish but the train is picking up speed and things are looking up. Wish us luck in the next coming weeks, so many things are up in the air and we can only try and make them fall in the right places.

XOXO

Big Muddy