Neighborhood News

Sign up now for a CSA with the Adams Morgan Farmers Market

Atlas Corps has fellows looking for job opportunities

DC Taxi Drivers now have an App: DC Taxi

Resources of interest to small businesses

Sign up now for the CSA with the Adams Morgan Farmers Market

The 2016 CSA SEASON is rapidly approaching! You can start signing up for our CSA.  This year, the Early Bird deadline is April 20.

The 2016 Membership Form is now available from Esther and Mike by emailing Esther Siegel esiegel2@igc.org . We will send our tentative produce calendar in a future reminder.

This is a long message because we want to be sure how we operate our CSA is a clear as possible.  So please read the whole text and don’t hesitate to ask us any questions you might have.

A CSA is not for everyone.  Our demanding lifestyles, eating habits, etc., may not make it feasible for your family in its different stages.  Some find cooking meditative.  Others find it a wonderful way to bond with their children, partners and friends.  But mostly, it is an assurance that we have a relationship with the people who grow our food, that our food is grown without chemical pesticides and that the soil is not polluted with herbicides.

Also, a CSA does not provide all the food needs for a week.  It provides fresh, sustainably grown produce to include in your meals for the week and beyond.  Often not all of the week’s produce is consumed, so we will try to give you ideas on what to do when there is a lot of one item.  We’d also appreciate your suggestions that we can share with our members.  We suggest you think like a squirrel and during the season preserve some of the yield for the winter.  We also will be increasing the amount of fruit in season.

CSA starts in June
The CSA will start the first week in June.  Again we'll have 4 sessions - June-July; August-September; October; and November.  You can sign up for the entire season or by session. Either way, you need to pay before the session begins.  The intent of the CSA is to partner with the farmer by providing a cash flow to enable the farmer to purchase seeds, hire staff, tune up and purchase equipment, plant, nurture and harvest.  All of this happens months before the farmer can begin to realize income from the sale of produce.  The pre-purchase of membership also gives us a good sense of how much of our yield is needed for the CSA, which is critical to a smooth operation.  So we encourage you to plan accordingly.  You will get a reminder about two weeks before the beginning of each session, so you should have plenty of time to get your payment to us.

Membership fee
We are not changing the prices from the last two years even though prices have risen across the board on seeds, equipment, salaries, etc!  If you start off with the early bird price, we will honor that throughout the season if we get your payment before each session begins.  If not, then the regular price will apply for that session.  If you know before you pay that you won't be picking up on particular dates, prorate your amount and make sure you write on you form the dates you will not pick up.  That is essential for our weekly counts.  The membership form lists the fees.

Below are explanations of how we work and disclosures so that there won’t be confusion during the season about credit, pickup hours and details for the individual market pickups, etc.

Credit
We do not give cash refunds.  As is our practice, if you let us know in enough time you will not be picking up that week, we will give you credit towards the next session.  Enough time means, before Monday for the Tuesday pickups and before Friday for Saturday pickups.  If you just forget to pick one week, we donate your share to a good cause.  Obviously, emergency situations are different so please let us know and we will make adjustments.  The best reason we've had for not picking up was, "I'm so sorry, I went into labor Saturday morning".

How we operate weekly
To understand why we need to know the numbers each week, here is how we operate.  I call the farm the day before each pick up.  So I call in early (before 8am) Monday mornings for our Tuesday CSA and early Friday morning for our Saturday CSAs.  The staff first pick for the CSA.  The produce is washed, herbs and greens are tied in bunches for you, counted and boxed.  Then the staff picks for our markets and wholesale.  So, if I don't have the correct number, we either don't have enough for the CSA, or we have extra that could have been used at our markets for sale.  That is why it is so important we have the correct number.

On a lighter note, the processing shed we built last season to wash, bunch and box our produce along with new equipment for the processing has been working wonderfully. We also added more solar panels, which are showing a significant electricity savings (adding to our ability to keep our rates affordable).  The fences we built last year around our vegetable field are keeping the deer and other wildlife out.  We discovered we had significantly more yield than in the past.

We have changed the varieties of some of our veggies.  We planted Parsnips last season.  We hope they will be a nice addition to our boxes for the fall harvest.  Burdock, an Asian root vegetable that is super healthy and great in low heat stir fries.  We hope to have Rutabaga, which is a fall crop.  Also, we established an Asparagus Patch last year.  If all goes well it will be potentially harvested in the second year on a limited basis and in the third year enough for our CSA.  We also started Gooseberries and Currents three years ago which we hope to harvest this year.  We are adding new varieties of tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and we might be experimenting with some African vegetables. We also hope to increase the amount of edible and medicinal weeds this year.  We hope you will enjoy experimenting with them.

Pick up hours
We encourage you to try to pick up as soon as possible especially when it is really hot.  We keep what we can in water or on ice, and we mist, but the heat can be brutal, as you know, so the sooner you can get your produce in the refrig or inside, the better it will keep for the week.  If you need to be late, please let us know (for market pickups, we can't stay longer than it takes up to pack up).  And for Takoma Park pickups, PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO TAKE YOUR NAME TAG SO WE KNOW YOU HAVE PICKED UP.  We will not be calling you to remind you.  The best way to contact us on pick up days is by phone.  301 587-1739 (home) or 240 505-6281 or 6282 (cells).  On market days, we rarely have time to check email so phone calls are best.  If someone else will be picking up, even with their good intentions, they often forget, so please give us their contact information.

SATURDAY PICK UPS:

Adams Morgan market CSA pickups start around 9:00am until about 1:00pm.  (The market opens at 8:00am). The sooner we can pack up and leave, the sooner we can bring the CSA to the Takoma Park pick up!  You can call 240 505-6282, 6281 or 717 491-6842.

Don't hesitate to ask us questions.  Check out our web site ( www.lickingcreekbendfarm.com ) and our Instagram @lickingcreekbendfarm which we update as much as possible with wonderful new pictures and information.

We are excited about the new season.  Thanks for your support.

Michael, Esther, Charmaine, Justin and Kyla
Licking Creek Bend Farm

Atlas Corps has fellows looking for job opportunities

Our team and I are in the midst of finding May 2016 hosts for our more than 600 outstanding Emerging Global Leaders!

Can you please look over these 10 phenomenal Atlas Corps Fellow candidates and forward their profiles on to members of your network you believe could benefit from this diverse talent?

We are looking for social change organizations (nonprofits, foundations, for-profits, businesses, even government) that are growing and would benefit from one the world's most talented nonprofit leaders. Here is a link to their bios: https://drive.google.com/a/atlascorps.org/file/d/0B84GYM1XXwWwdjRURWpDblpXZmc/view?pref=2&pli=1

You will need to fill out this form and an Atlas Corps Team Member will reach out to them shortly. Again, we have more than 600 vetted finalist candidates in our pool; these 10 are just a sampling!

My team and I cannot thank you enough for your continued support and encouragement.

Scott

Scott Beale
Founder & CEO
Atlas Corps

P.S. Atlas Corps in the Washington Post! www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/in-the-reverse-peace-corps-future-leaders-from-abroad-hone-their-skills/2015/07/27/57faaff8-03c5-11e5-8bda-c7b4e9a8f7ac_story.html

DC Taxi Drivers now have an App: DC Taxi

Hailing a Cab Has Never Been Easier

The DC Taxi Cab Commission has launched a new app that enables riders to hail a cab with the push of a button. This latest technology will provide local cab drivers with another tool to compete with wildly popular ride companies like Uber, Lyft and Sidecar.

The second major city to launch a dedicated app, DC is rapidly working to modernize the city’s taxicab industry. In addition to “DC Taxi” , the city has passed legislation that requires all taxis to have a uniform color scheme, accept credit cards and install new dome lights.

The fine print:
There are no dispatch fees associated with the app
The cost of the trip will be the same as if the passenger hailed a cab the traditional way
Drivers will continue to use private company apps (ie: Yellow Cab, Curb)
Passengers will be able to pay fares using “DC Taxi” or by swiping a credit card in the vehicle
Vehicle options include regular, large, and wheelchair-accessible taxis
The app is free to download and use
The app is available for iPhone and Android

For more information, visit www.DCTaxi.com

Resources of interest to small businesses

Both of these resources have been mentioned in the past. We just want to make sure everyone knows about these.

DCSmallBizHelp ( http://dcsmallbizhelp.cnhed.org/ ) &

DCSmallBizLoans ( https://www.dcsmallbizloans.com/ )