Blueberry harvest begins this week and I can’t wait for two reasons. Mostly because I’m excited for the process of pulling what will hopefully be thousands of pounds of berries from these little wild bushes, but also because I am tried of the preparation! Since June, getting ready to harvest has consumed my spare time. So much so that my family and the farm crew get glassy, uninterested stares when the word “blueberry” is mentioned. Our lease on 70 acres of blueberry barren right next to the farm was signed this winter and after some spring weed control most of my efforts have been focused on the logistics of getting a whole lot of little berries off their mother bushes and up to Ellsworth where they will be cleaned, frozen and sold. This involved buying a harvester, hiring folks to run it with me, lining up a trucker and lastly figuring out how to get the berries on the truck!
The berries in your share this week are our first harvested this year. There are not certified organic (which is why the vast majority of them will be sold wholesale) but they are transitional. What does this mean? We took the lease on this field knowing that it had been managed conventionally up until 2 years ago. For the past 2 seasons (including this one) the field has not had any herbicides or pesticides applied to it. The rule for organic certification is that three years after conventional management a piece of land is eligible to be called organic, which is our plan for next year. We will still have organic berries available for pre-order starting this week with delivery next week.
Organic Maine Wild Blueberries…Preorder This Week for Delivery Next Week… 
We are just doing one week of fresh blueberry orders year. Order this week for a delivery next week. Because our berries are not organic (yet) and are going directly to frozen, the Harvey family will be raking beautiful, high quality berries for us again this year in Oxford Co. They will rake the day before, if its not raining in western Maine, so the quality will be amazing. Berries will be offered by the quart (quarts are 1.7 pounds each (3 qts.=5lbs.) for $9 each. Pre-order at pick-up this Tuesday or Friday for delivery next Tuesday or Friday. You can also order by email (by Saturday at noon for pickup Tuesday or Tuesday at noon for pickup Friday).
Farm Yogurt
We now have quarts of incredible farm yogurt for sale at CSA pick-up. This rich cream-at-the-top product of Wholesome Holmstead Farm in Winthrop is some of the best I have ever had. Perfect with fresh blueberries! We are gauging your interest with the hope of having them deliver a yogurt/cheese share next year.
Crystal Spring Pork
We will have pork for sale by the cut starting this week. These are a group of pigs that spent the winter with us eating brewery barley and gelato-based dairy products and so far, they taste great. Browse through the freezer to shop for your next grilling event or Sunday breakfast.
What’s in the Share this week?
Blueberries
Kale
Tatsoi/Baby Bok choi
Summer Squash
Carrots
Summer onions
Kohlrabi/Napa Cabbage
Lettuce
What’s in Upic?
Snow Peas/Snap Peas (Last Week!)
Green Beans
Flowers
Most Mondays I sit down to write this post and have to shake of the obsessive desire to talk about the weather. This one variable of what I do is so big, so uncontrollable that I can never get it completely out of my mind and quite often can’t help but want to burden you readers to boredom with the tidbits of rainfall per hour or sustained windspeeds. Weather makes farmers feel like a kids on the playground trying to have fun amongst the next possibility of pain or humiliation at the hands of an older child. When I was a younger farm hand in Western Massachusetts I watched a hail storm blow through our farm and in the matter of 30 seconds take all the crops of late June and transform them into mud. My boss, who was superhuman in his skill and insight, fell to his knees and cried in front of all the crew that day, then we started re-planting. Come to think of it that really tells the whole story of what its like to farm (minus the good days of course).
Working outside everyday I often forget the forest for the trees. The daily list of tasks and the infinite adaptations often needed to get them done is all-consuming to the point that I tend to hit my head on things a lot, focused on the task at hand and not the branch overhead. Lately for some reason I have been looking up and finding some amazing things above. The sky has been particularly dramatic this year with color and clouds. Watching cold fronts blow in as solid lines of rolling grey or the heat of the morning sun evaporate away the fog, it’s been a good year. Hopefully I can continue to keep my head up, at least to avoid the branches.