First, thank you for supporting our farm. It is only through the continued support of our members that our small farm can continue the practice of farming. CSF deliveries are not meant to replace you having to shop, but to supplement your veggie choices each week. As we like to say "
it is about more than just the vegetables
". Our methods of growing ensure we continue to build soil fertility and use natural practices to control pests. As the weeks progress, you will meet many interesting vegetables, some of which you may never have tried before. The most feedback we receive throughout the season is from members telling us how they were introduced to a vegetable that they never tried and simply love it. Some say they were "forced" to try it, as they didn't want it to go to waste only to find out they wished they had more. We try to include a variety of vegetables that may be eaten raw or cooked and will provide recipes to match your deliveries each week. Becoming a community supported farm member also connects you to each other. You are able to meet each week, share stories, and introduce others to the concept of supporting a local small farm.
We have new help this year and they are all working hard and learning a lot from Farmer Rich. Ali is our new full-time employee and Lisa and Jessie work part time. They all have grown up on farms in the area. We work between the farm in Wantage and the extra greenhouse in Franklin. In addition, an extra field at our long time "trading partner" Scott is committed for planting tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, potatoes, garlic and squash. We are also working on planting extra potatoes at Ali's farm. We do work with other local farmers to continue to provide a variety of produce to you each week that we may not be growing or if we have had a crop failure. They all are local and have similar growing practices.
Remember, you are eating seasonally, and these early spring deliveries are light, as most of the delivery is greens. The deliveries will get larger as the season progresses. We are actually delivering earlier than we have in some years past and some CSA's have not even begun their deliveries.
You will notice on our blog, that some members have sent us their blogs to include on our bloglist. If you have a blog that you would like to share, just e-mail me and we'll include it in our bloglist.
Now onto farm news......
From the Fields: We increased our growing area, by fencing in a nice field in the back across the brook. This probably has given us an additional 25% growing area. It has already been planted with celariac, cauliflower, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, basil, snow peas, fava greens, fava beans, and potatoes (mostly all-blue potatoes). Our main fields have also been increased by extending the rows. In these fields we have planted: chard, kale, a pick-your-own cherry tomato patch, tomatoes, red cabbage, kohlrabi, broccoli, cauliflower, strawberry spinach, summer squash, onions, garlic, We have direct seeded the following: beets, New Zealand spinach, Oriental greens, radishes, turnips and soy beans.
Weather Report: We have had cooler temperatures and just enough rain over the last few weeks. The field crops are responding well and Farmer Rich is turning on the irrigation system for the crops planted in our plastic field rows. The plastic helps keep the weeds to a minimum as well as maintain moisture in the soil.
Animal report: We have a new load of baby groundhogs just outside the entrance of the greenhouse in Franklin. We left the front door open while working and one tripped over Ali's feet, got scared and ran out. Luckily it hasn't been back since! Back at the farm, more seriously, a family of groundhogs are milling around the perimeter of the fenced fields. We guess they are watching the crops grow and we just hope they don't break in one night. We have had a decent amount of rain, so they have plenty to eat outside the fence. The terns have returned as well as our spring crop of geese paddling about in the pond.
Pick of the Week: click on the links below or to the right to bring you to the delivery specific to your pick-up location. Deliveries will be of similar variety & poundage, but may contain different items. Occasionally, some crops are ready to harvest but not enough to deliver to all our drop-off locations. What we do is start to filter them in each week to a different drop-off until there is enough to delivery to everyone.
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