Shares officially for sale!

Hello Dear Local Friends!

We are writing to officially announce our CSA farm, our offerings for this year, and to invite you to come and be a part of this venture in Community Supported Agriculture! We are offering an 18-week program, where you will receive fresh, local, naturally-grown produce once a week (with a few breaks here and there) throughout this growing season (grown by yours truly, here in Eagle). We strive to follow the principles of organic and sustainable farming, while forming nourishing relationships with our 'eaters.'

What is a CSA?
A CSA consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farming operation where the growers and consumers share the risks and benefits of food production. In a CSA, full payment is given in the beginning of the season, so that the farmers can pay their expenses at the time they incur most of them. Members have the benefit of knowing exactly where their food comes from and how it is grown. Each week members receive an interesting variety of the freshest possible produce, and are often introduced to vegetables they may have never seen before. They will have the opportunity to visit the farm and even get their own hands dirty in the process.

Our Story
When we moved to Boise 11 years ago, we brought with us our concern for the Earth. Kristin had a career as a wildlife biologist, and we had only begun learning about how our everyday choices affect the Earth and it’s wildlife. We did some research, and came to learn that if you want to have a big positive impact for wildlife on a world-wide scale, eating local and natural is the number one thing you can do. It’s all about our voracious use of fossil fuels and how this is drastically altering the Earth’s habitats. The average piece of food on the American plate has traveled 1200 miles to get there! The other issue is how big agri-business is ruining habitats for not only wildlife, but people too, in countries of the world that can still be exploited due to lack of environmental laws. So, we started gardening for ourselves, and signed right up for the first CSA we could find and found it quite enjoyable for many reasons! Then we had a baby and became even more concerned about what, exactly, we were putting into our bodies and hers. Due to an intensive organic farming class that Kristin took last year, and the acquisition of some land, we grew much more than we could handle ourselves! So, this year we were inspired to share the harvest in the form of a CSA farm.

What You Can Do
We are looking for 10 or so families who would like to join in this adventure. The CSA shares will start in late May/Early June and end in late Sept./Early October. We are offering both full and half shares. Full shares are meant to supply one family of 3-4, and half shares are for couples or folks who don’t want quite so much produce. We are selling a full share for $375, and a half share for $225. This is 25-35% less than established CSAs in the valley, being that we are beginning farmers. Each week’s share will come with a newsletter about farm happenings, the produce of the week, and how to use it. Delivery will be to one or two pick-up points in the valley, locations TBA.

To secure your membership, please send a check (made out to Hasselblads) for $50 to us at 3439 Shadow Hills Dr., Eagle, ID 83616. Our payment deadline is May 1st, and you can make payments as you like up until that time. Memberships will be sold on a first come, first serve basis. As members, you are welcome to come spend time on the farm and see what we do first-hand, which we encourage.

Later in the season, we hope to be able to offer you some ‘extras’ of our orchard fruit (apples & pears), flowers, and chicken eggs, once the baby chicks are old enough to lay. These will be sold as add-ons and we’ll let you know as they become available. In the long-term, we will offer more fruits as they mature over the years…strawberries, raspberries, peaches, and plums. And if the birds don’t get all our cherries this year, we will certainly pass some on to you! ☺

I know many of you are growing your own local food…for you, this is an opportunity for you to pass this info on to others who may be interested. Thank you!!

If you would like more details and are wondering a bit more about what the heck a CSA is, please feel free to message me back or call (333-9637). Please come check out our new facebook page, “Evenstar Farm,” and our blog, http://evenstarfarm.blogspot.com.

Many thanks and happy eating!

Kristin & Isaac Hasselblad
EvenStar Farm


What do we grow?

We will be growing at least one, but usually several different varieties of these items:

Arugula
Basil
Green Beans
Edemame soy beans
Beets
Bok Choy
Tat soi
Broccoli
Cabbage
Carrots
Chard
Sweet Corn
Cilantro
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Garlic
Peppers (hot, sweet, roasting)
Kale
Collards
Lettuce & Lettuce mixes
Melons & Watermelon
Onions: scallions, & yellow and red storage
Parsley
Peas
Potatoes, 7 varieties
Pumpkins
Radishes
Various winter squashes
Summer squashes and zucchinis
Tomato (paste, slicing, cherry)
Tomatillos
Ground Cherries
Celeriac
Cauliflower
Gourds
Sorrel
Turnips, summer and storage
Various flowers

Seeds and Chickens ordered!

I think it took a whole week or so...geez! I spent over 700 bucks (not including the seed potatoes!) so I hope that's enough! I tried to pare it down as much as I could, but I didn't want to sacrifice much variety. I love to go through and read all (or as many as I can stand) of the descriptions of varieties...and then try to pick what I need. I can't even tell you how many varieties we have of tomoatoes, peppers, and squash, but it's a lot. I like variety, how about you? Plus I like to experiment and see what will grow best in our conditions. I loved, loved, loved reading the seed catalogs, and learning all kinds of things, like where paprika comes from...it's a ground up pepper!

Anyway, it's DONE and I'm so relieved! Now I hope it gets here soon! We need to start some seeds, and ideally we would started some by 3 weeks ago. Isaac found some materials at a second hand building material store and built some shelves where we can start the seeds. He got some used flourescent lights too. Soon our dining room will be full of this operation, heated by our wood stove.

Isaac went to a local fruit tree workshop put on by U of I today. I think he learned a lot about caring for our sad old orchard trees. He is officially our orchard person now, thank God! I'm not sure the orchard thing is for me...it's pretty crazy what you have to do to grow fruit, especially organically.

I also just ordered our chicks we will grow for meat...50 Red Cornish. They are coming April 5th!

The Beginning!

So...I've been wanting to keep a blog about our farm for about a year now, but we didn't have a name to attach to a blog. This blog is the story of our farm...how we got here, how we started, our journey as we continue.

Presently, I am taking a break from seed ordering. It has been a daunting, week-long job, with many interruptions from my 2 yr old sweetie of course. Checking out 4 different seed companies or so, reading the descriptions of each variety... in fact, it was through this that I realized the name for our farm! There was a variety of something, Tat Soi I think, that was called 'Evenstar' which of course took me back to Tolkein, and that is something that our whole little family can agree on, and we all actually liked it, so it stuck! And that was that, after almost a whole year of agonizing over the name choice. I really wanted 'owl' or some kind of raptor name in there, since that was what I studied (and loved) in my previous life, and we have plenty of around here, but alas, it was not meant to be. I like stars though too. The name EvenStar is an old name for "Evening Star" which is the planet Venus, who is also a goddess of fertility. Fitting for a farm, no?!

A big reason why we have this farm is because of my Dad, Don. He was also a lover of the stars and anything 'outer space' really. Stephen Hawking's stuff always blew him away, and it was fun to hear him talk about it. I believe he is in the stars right now, looking down and watching over us, our very own EvenStar.