New CSA pick up location -and- upcoming events!

New Winfield CSA box pick-up location option
We’re excited to announce that we’ve added Winfield (near County Farm and Geneva Roads) as a new CSA box pick-up location. This pick-up will be on Wednesdays between 5p-8p. If you’ve already signed up and want to switch your pick-up location to Winfield, feel free to contact us (sweethomeorganics@gmail.com). See this link for full sign up details.

Upcoming events
Below is a summary of a few events we’re participating in or hosting. Full details can be found on our website. Keep an eye to our Facebook page for reminders.

• Fri., Feb 10th 7:15p free screening and discussion of Forks Over Knives in Naperville.
• Sun., Feb 12th 7pm screening and discussion of The Greenhorns at the Hideout in Chicago.
• Sat. and Sun., March 24th and 25th, 9a-3p Women’s History Weekend Event at the living history farm.
• Sun., April 22nd, 12p-4p, Fullersburg Woods Nature Center Go Green! event.
• Sat., May 19th, 10a-4p, Geneva’s Gardenology.
• Sun., June 3rd, 12p-2p, our annual CSA Open House.

Grow your own! Pre-order your 2012 seedlings

This goofy weather downright feels like spring, which reminds us of raising a new crop of seedlings. We’re excited to see the first green growth pop from the soil and love the thought of our young plants flourishing and feeding folks beyond the farm.

We’re once again offering our vegetable and basil seedlings for pre-order – check out this link for details. We’ve added some new varieties to our list, such as sweet and unique ground cherries and various lettuces, many of which will produce for weeks if you harvest the leaves instead of the whole heads. While seedlings will be available for sale at the farm stand, pre-ordering will ensure you get the varieties and quantities you want.

We start our plants in March, so please let us know your order by 3/9th so we’re sure to have your favorites ready for planting in May. Pick-up at either the farm stand starting mid-May or our booth at Geneva’s Gardenology event, May 19th.

We apologize for the cross-posting. Aiming to spread the word!

2012 CSA memberships now available

Are you looking for tasty produce grown locally and organically? Would you like to have a connection to the farmers growing your food? Are you excited to try new vegetables? Sweet Home Organics can fulfill your hankering for healthy and delicious food with our CSA program, available in full (18 weeks) or half-share (9 week) memberships. Each week you’ll receive a box full of seasonal vegetables and herbs and a newsletter outlining your box contents, as well as links to recipes and our popular “Get to know your veggies” videos. Your box will be available for pick up Thursday or Saturday at either our on-site St. Charles farm stand or our Villa Park pick-up location.

To help you get a better sense of what you can expect, we suggest perusing this past year’s newsletters by visiting this link.

The 2012 membership sign-up forms are available at our website.

• Full-share (18-weeks) membership – $650
• Half-share (9-weeks, pick either odd or even weeks) – $370

We anticipate selling out, so we encourage folks to sign up soon.

If you have questions, please feel free to give us a call (312/927-3726).

We look forward to being you and your families farmers!
Kim and Rachel

2011 Season in Review

As the 2011 growing season comes to a close, we wanted to share our deep appreciation to those who have visited and supported the farm and farm stand and shared their love of food. A few generous and loving folks have joined us in the fields - planting, weeding, harvesting, and building - and we’re very grateful! Special thanks to Lia, Caitlin, Claire, Keith, historic farmers Jon and Kirk, John Breslin (who guided us through our tractor purchase), Seamus, and others. We’ve had many reasons to brim with pride and appreciation this year and many opportunities to broaden our knowledge and skills.

All that’s left for this season are Saturdays at the farm stand in October, planting garlic and cleaning up the fields for the winter. The winter months give us time to attend farm networking and trainings, catch up on bookkeeping and data entry, pore over seed catalogs, and have endless year-in-review discussions and next-year plans to help make our operation run even more smoothly. Next season’s ball will begin rolling in February, just a few short months from now.

The farm stand has been a great success, starting in spring with honey, Breslin black beans, and seedling sales through our current selection of seasonal produce, fall decorations, Earth First Farms apple cider and Primrose’s wheat berries and flour. See this link for full details of what will be available at the farm stand this week. We’ve met lots of great new folks and have deepened our connections with existing friends of the farm.

Our CSA memberships sold out by early May, and we enjoyed getting to know a new crop of members when they picked up at the farm stand or attended the annual CSA potluck in August. We’ve also had fun doing a few new veggie videos for our YouTube channel.

Starting November 1st, we’ll open up 2012 CSA member sign-ups to the general public. Pricing is listed below. Full details, including sign-up forms will be available here.
Full share (18 weeks, 5/9 bushel box) – $650
Half-share (9 weeks – even or odd weeks, 5/9 bushel box) – $370

In spring, our pre-ordered seedling offerings were popular, and we will do it again for the 2012 season. Watch this link for more details. Or ask Kim  (sweethomeorganics@gmail.com) to let you know when the list of offerings is posted.

Thanks again to everyone who has joined us (from near and far) on this journey!

Early cucumber and summer squash on metallic plastic with staked tomatoes in the background.

Our favorite lettuce...doesn't it look like a snuggly pillow?

Snap peas and Sun Gold cherry tomatoes

Fennel

Spring salad mix

Our 'new' tractor...thanks John for helping us find this beaute!

Seamus, our favorite farm mascot!

Upcoming classes – and – CSA sold out

Our 2011 CSA is sold out! If you missed signing up this year and want to receive information about next year’s CSA memberships, send us an email (sweethomeorganics@gmail.com) and we’ll add you to our CSA notification mailing list.

Check out our Farm Events page, where you’ll find info about two classes being held in the coming weeks:

This Saturday, June 11th, is an Eat Greens class hosted by Jenn Downing of Nourish. Grilled, fruited and wilted greens will add a welcome lift to your table. You’ll whip up some interesting light and creamy dressings, too. Char-Grilled Little Gems, Herbed Garlic Flan with Arugula, Fruit and Mixed Lettuce Salad with Honey-Spice Vinaigrette and Salad Lyonnais with backyard-fresh eggs. Register by contacting Jenn directly, nourishcooking@comcast.net.

Next Saturday, June 18th, we’ll be hosting a Picking Veggies class. Learn when to harvest and how to store various types of vegetables for peak freshness and flavor. Please bring gloves and wear clothes for getting dirty. Visit this link to register.

Hickory Knolls grand opening extravaganza this Saturday!

Join us this Saturday, April 30, from 1 to 4 pm for the grand opening of St. Charles Park District’s environmental education center, the Hickory Knolls Discovery Center. Located at 3795 Campton Hills Rd, just west of the James O. Breen Community Park, the event is free and open to the public.

Sweet Home will be there selling vegetable seedlings and Breslin black beans. We will be joined by Chris Saad of Honey Trails, who will display an (empty) bee hive for curious folks to explore. He’ll also be selling his honey products.

Event highlights include:

• An “Incredible Bats” presentation featuring live Egyptian Fruit Bats.
• Tours of the environmentally friendly (LEED-certified) building
• Nature-themed face painting and craft sessions
• Live animal displays and hourly “critter talks”
• Kane County Audubon Society’s bird watching lecture and walk
• Musical entertainment by the Fox Valley Drum Circle
• … and more!

We hope to see you there. Check out our Farm Events page for more upcoming events.

Go Green! event Sunday

Sunday, April 17th, 12-4pm DuPage Forest Preserve’s Go Green event in Oak Brook at the Fullersburg Woods Nature Center. We’ll be selling our ready to plant vegetable seedlings, as well as delicious on-site raised honey.
Loads of fun activities for the whole family! Learn about composting, explore the woods, discover how prescription burns help natural areas, bring old crayons and recycle them for new ones, take a ride on an energy bike, and much more!

We look forward to seeing you there! And keep an eye on our Farm Events & News for other upcoming items.