On another note, several of you have inquired as to when we are going to host another dinner event here at the farm. Call it “spring fever” or something, but we’ve gotten motivated and selected Saturday, April 2nd to be our first dinner event for 2011. Jon Buchanan, Executive Chef at Trevisio, will be directing the culinary team. The Saturday evening dinner will begin with a reception staring around 3:30 or so, followed by a farm tour around 4:45, with our first dinner course to begin around 6:00, and the final course likely being complete around 8:30-9:00. You can then take a seat over next to the camp fire to finish your coffee or spirits if you'd like prior to heading home. The dinner menu, still under development, will focus on locally grown seasonal food, and will likely include four or five courses. To get a “grasp” and more info/photos about our five farm dinners held back in 2010 visit WDF Spring Dinners . A lot of participants in the past have put together groups of 4-12 to make a party within a party. Some rent a bus, some hire a limousine , and some just rendezvous here at the farm. Seating is "family style" so no matter if you are a party of one or twenty, you'll have more friends when you leave than when you arrived.
“Early Menu”
Field Greens with Fried Green Tomatoes, Pickled Red Onions,
Pola Cadoc Steel Eye Blue Cheese Dressing and Homemade Bacon
Gumbo with Pastured Chicken Sausage,
Texas Gulf Coast Shrimp, Oysters and Texmati Rice
Texas Red Fish with Remoulade and Veggie Slaw
Whole Roasted Hog, Braised Greens with Herbed New Potatoes
Strawberry Shortcake with "Way Back When" Whipped Cream
Coffee, Herbal Tea & Spring Water
Alcohol Welcome, BYOB
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| Lots of planting this past week at our Rogers Farm Lease, located just down the road about 2 miles from the farm. |
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| Broccoli, Cauliflower, Radicchio, and Onions being overhead watered. Nice clean beds now, but with water and sunshine later comes the weeds, arrggg! |
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| Pac Choi Plugs Ready To Be Transplanted. |
What’s Growing? Although it has been extremely dry here at the farm, the weather has been good for planting. Consequently, we’ve got a huge amount of planting taken care of since our last update, both transplants and direct seeding. Potatoes and green beans are in the ground too. We just ordered 20,000 linear feet of row cover for our warm weather veggies. Row cover is a thin sheet of “gauze like” fabric which helps keep warmth in and frost out; kinda’ like a blanket. While it can only protect plants down to about 29F, or so, it is good insurance for unpredictable Texas spring weather. Hopefully we’ll never have to use it. With that in mind, we’ll begin transplanting tomato plants into their cozy raised beds next week. Summer squash, zucchini and cucumbers are soon to follow. We’re still a little behind, so the spring CSA is not set to begin until possibly the 2nd week of April. Why? Well, back around Jan. 31st we went through two weeks of cold enough weather, about 19F, to freeze a lot of veggies that were set to be our early March harvest. Having to replant has resulted in us being a few weeks behind. Those of you that visit us at the Farmer’s Market know that we have not had any arugula or salad mix since mid January. We want your experience to be a good one, so please be patient as we’re confident this is going to be a great season.
New Clear Lake Pick Up Locations Added: We have been looking for a friendly location to provide for customers living in and around the Clear Lake/Sea Brook area. Well “low and behold,” we may have found two at the same time. We contacted the fine folks at The Coffee-Oasis located in Seabrook at 4650 Nasa Pkwy, 77586; a few weeks ago and after providing them more information about who/what we are etc, they’ve agreed to give us a try. For a map to their location visit Coffee Oasis Map . The other Clear Lake area location, Cullen’s, is located about 20 mins. north from the Coffee Oasis. We have known Paul Lewis, the Executive Chef at Cullen’s, since when he was the Sous Chef at the Four Seasons of Houston. Paul was the guest chef last summer at the Outstanding in the Field Event over at Jolie Vue Ranch located in Chapel Hill, so he really understands the “buy local” concept. We have been delivering our farm produce and herbs to Chef Paul since they opened a few years ago, so it seemed like a natural fit for us to have Cullen’s as a CSA pick up location. Cullen's Upscale American Grill is located at 11500 Space Center Boulevard, Houston, TX 77059 or visit this link for a Map to Cullen's. We’re looking for both of these locations to be Thursday delivery days, i.e. 4:30-7:30. We’ll have both of these on our website soon. As mentioned last week, we recently added The Beans Café & Coffee House, located in the Energy Corridor of West Houston. This is going to be a great location as it has great parking and is only about one mile south of the I-10 Katy Fwy on Eldridge Pkwy. For a visual, visit this link for a Map The pick up times are set to be Wednesdays between 5 & 7:30, possibly earlier. We’ll keep you posted if the times are adjusted to earlier in the afternoon. We are still visiting with prospective locations down near Pearland as well as in Spring. Smart Meals Location Changes? Our fine friends over at Smart Meals have decided to regroup and “close their doors,” while they refocus on a new business plan. Not to worry however, as our nearby Upper Kirby host Joyce has told us that she welcomes the CSA customers that were set to pick up at Smart Meals. Joyce’s house is only about three blocks away and can be found at 4208 McDuffie St. Houston, TX 77098. Visit this link for a map to the Upper Kirby Pick Up Location
CSA, What’s That? For those of you not familiar with the term, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and is a direct partnership between you and the farmer. C.S.A. members pay in advance for a share of the upcoming harvest, thus the farmer is ensured a consistent market and the consumer is ensured high-quality local produce. Produce is delivered to many of our Houston neighborhood pick-up locations within 24 hrs. of harvesting. For a link to where we deliver, visit CSA Pickup Locations For inquires email us at csa@woodduckfarm.com or call us at 713 876 8645 for more details. As mentioned previously, you can get an idea of what size volume a full shares is by viewing some photos on Our Farm Blog (You'll need to scroll down a tad from the top.) FYI Partial shares receive about 1/3 less than full shares and are geared towards the two member household. Our Spring CSA registration form can be found at this link Spring 2011 CSA Registration . We think we have simplified the registration process to be just a few clicks and some of contact info and then pay with your credit card. If you’d rather mail in your registration, you can go to this link WDF CSA Mail-In Form We have added an Alternating Week option to our Full share size. The Alternating Week option is for those not wishing to receive a full share every week. So with the AW option, a farm member receives a Full share every odd week of the ten week program, i.e. weeks 1,3,5,7, and 9.
Customer Survey Results & Comments: For those of you interested in hearing what some of our CSA members have said etc, please visit this link Customer Comments & Surveys
Grass Fed Meat/Egg Subscription Program: Visit this link to register online CSA Registration. Scroll down to middle of your screen. We listened to your comments and have created two options, 1) our Full Share priced at $210 for a three-month program and/or 2) our Poultry Share priced at $165 for three months. You can add on a dozen eggs with either program (a dozen eggs for the entire 3 month program for $15.) You can go to this link Meat Subscription Svc to read more. Too much meat for your family? Consider splitting a share with a friend. The first month will likely be March, which should coincide with our Veggie CSA deliveries
Twitter?: Find us @WoodduckFM.
WDF has facebook page, but this link will take you to Van's page, from there you need to search for Wood Duck Farm. Go figure huh. All the Best,
Van Weldon
Cell 713 876 8645
email csa@woodduckfarm.com
