העלון השבועי של חוות ח'ביזה

Messages… August 26th-28th 2013

Changes in delivery dates over the holidays:
• § During the week of Rosh Hashanah:  The Wednesday delivery will be moved up to Tuesday, September 3rd.   (Monday deliveries as usual.)
• § The week between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur: All deliveries as usual.
• § During the week that Sukkot begins: The Wednesday delivery will be moved up to Tuesday, September 17th.  (Monday deliveries as usual.)
• § During Chol HaMoed Sukkot, there will be no deliveries, thus you will not be receiving boxes on Monday and Wednesday, the 23rd and 25th of September.
If you wish to increase your vegetable boxes before the holidays, please advise as soon as possible.

Open Day at Chubeza:
In keeping with our twice-yearly tradition, we invite you for a Chol HaMoed “pilgrimage” to Chubeza to celebrate our Open Day.
The Sukkot Open Day will take place on Tuesday, September 24th , the 20th of Tishrei (fifth day of Chol HaMoed), between 12:00-17:00.
The Open Day gives us a chance to meet, tour the field, and nibble on vegetables and other delicacies. Children have their own tailor-made tours, designed for little feet and curious minds, plus special activities and a vast space to run around and loosen up.  (So can the adults…)

Driving instructions are on our website under “Contact Us.” Please make sure you check this before heading our way.

Wishing you a Chag Sameach and Shana Tova from all of us at Chubeza
We look forward to seeing you all!
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In preparation for the upcoming holidays, here are some fun new products you can add to your boxes:
• Manu, our bread baker par excellence, resumes her baking next week. You are welcome to add her delectable bread and other pastries to your boxes.
• Tamir, our beekeeper from Moshav Sha’al, visited us with Zohar, his sweet daughter, and brought along a new stock of raspberry honey and a slice of beeswax. May we all have a sweet year!
• Eliezer and Rose of Shoreshe Zion have two new seasonal products for the end of the summer: chili sauce and pickled okra.

All these new products are updated in our order system for easy addition to your weekly boxes. For instructions on how to use the system, if needed, take a look at this explanation.
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Still no newsletter this week, but we promise to return next week!

A note about the corn:
We know many of you have been anxiously awaiting the corn, but over the past few weeks the ears have arrived wormy and not so attractive. We would like to promise a wormless future, but unfortunately we are at the peak of the season for corn borer worms, moths that lays eggs in the corn which hatch and become caterpillars… Some years they do not do a lot of damage, but this year we are facing a large, hungry group of worms, and I fear we will be seeing still more of them this season.
We are attempting to confront this problem using biological pesticides, by spraying “probit” on our plants. It contains the BT bacteria which damage the caterpillar’s digestive system, preventing them from nibbling at our corn. But with biological and organic pest control, the results are usually gradual and require a lot of patience… When I worked in the U.S. where the worm situation was even worse, there was a saying that wormless corn is probably not organic. We would comfort our clients by saying that what’s good for the caterpillars must be good for us too…

We recommend you try to wash the corn, slice off the tip and see if the clean cob works for you. If you are very deterred by the worms and do not feel the need to do your part for the worms of the world, just request we remove corn from your box this season. But as the weather cools down a bit, the problem should be solved.

In the boxes this week:

Monday: cilantro/mint (nana), butternut squash, pumpkin, tomatoes, potatoes, Thai long beans/okra, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, green onions/chive, corn/peppers, leeks

In the large box, in addition: New Zealand spinach, eggplants, parsley

Wednesday: green onions/chive, butternut squash, pumpkin, tomatoes, potatoes, Thai long beans/okra, cucumbers, leeks, , parsley, cilantro/thyme, lettuce/carrots/sweet potatoes

In the large box, in addition: eggplants, mint (nana), cherry tomatoes