First CSA pick up of the 2007 season! and Newsletter

I'm nervous; I'm always nervous for this first pick up. Later on it gets easier but this first one always gets me nervous. To add to my nervousness is that our spring weather hasn't been totally cooperative--very cold and little rain. We've always come through, but. . . .

So here's what we have for you this first pick up:
Spring Onions
Easter Egg Radishes
Braising Mix (with some Spinach added in)
Butler's Strawberries
Kale/Collards

In the Pick Your Own (PYO):
Lovage
Sage
Oregano
Thyme
Mint
Lemon Balm
Catnip
and. . .Sugar Snap Peas

click here for this weeks CSA member newsletter

See you soon.
-adrienne

A Gaggle of Goodness

Hey! It's a picture of us after a hard morning of planting! We just put in hot peppers, basil, and cherry tomatoes. We'll have to wait a few months before harvesting them, but they're on their way to being productive plants/food.

In other news, Saturday, May 19th is scheduled as our "Welcome the 2007 Farm Season Gathering and Muffin Potluck" from 10am to Noon. Put it on your calendar. There will be more news about it coming your way shortly.
-adrienne

Seedlings Ready for Planting

The growers have been working this week to ready our plants for setting out in the fields. We hope to begin transplanting flowers by the end of the week and we may be able to get our early tomatoes in the ground as early as next week!


The above photo is of our growers laying out the irrigation in the roots patch!

This photo is of of our garlic- we are gowing about a half acre of garlic this year!

A cold stretch slows us down, but . . .

. . .that doesn't keep us from going. We've been doing a bit of farm maintence. Tree and brush pruning; rock removal; barn cleaning, etc.
We're waiting for the sun to come out and dry out the soil. Hopefully, the seeds that are in the ground now are just waiting for some sunshine to come along and grow into beautiful plants/food!

Here's a picture of a few of the guys riding in the wagon on a cold day.

Bluebirds Abound

All this past week our crew of growers sited numerous couples of Eastern Bluebirds scoping out nesting sites on the farm. We are all hoping they will choose our location to settle and make baby bluebirds this spring. We are working closly with Park Naturalist, Denise Gibbs, to provide habitat for these very personable creatures. My armchair reasearch tells me that these little birds love to eat cutworms during the spring and so we are quite happy to welcome these workers to our team. It takes a village!
Woody

Spring is Here!!!

The growers spent some time this week in the 60 degree weather cleaning and sharpening our hand tools. Once the ground warmed up our Field Manager was able to begin discing our early planting fields. Dispite a warm winter we have found the early spring to be quite cold and wet. Thus, we feel our planting is running about a week late at this point.
We are grateful to Park Naturalist Denise Gibbs for supplying us with 15 bluebird boxes. We will assist in monitoring these boxes for bluebirds throughout the spring and summer. Here in this photo the growers are installing one of the new boxes. These are now 20 bluebird boxes ringing our 12 acre farm! habitat.

Growers begin the new season's work

Last week the growers began cleaning seed flats (photo above) and planting seeds. We already have kohlrabi plants germinated and growing under lights in the office. About 20 other flats are seeded and being watered and watched for germination. This week we are setting out new blue bird boxes (thanks to the MC-MNCPPC park system for their assistance) and we are preparing to plant potatoes, onions and peas as soon as the ground can be worked. Our CSA is full to capacity with 80 "shares" pre-sold and now it is time to begin the planting season! We have a great team of growers led by Adrienne Altstatt, Red Wiggler Field Manager, who has spent the winter preparing for a productive season. 2007 is looking to be a great year! WW