Who moved Maine below the Mason-Dixon line while I wasn’t watching? This heat is crazy –but the produce loves it as long as we can keep the water to them.
Tomatoes arrive in your share this week along with a return to a wider selection of greens.
The next few weeks are going to really be the golden days of the CSA this year. Tomatoes, red peppers, and watermelon will all be coming in together and great meals will just seem to spill out of the bags you bring home from the farm.
We have been irrigating quite a bit this past week and will continue until at least the weekend. It’s great to have the option of adding water to the fields (much easier than taking it off, which is what we needed to do last year!). The process is complicated though as we have a single well for irrigation that must serve all of our fields on both sides of Pleasant Hill. To do this we run aluminum pipe in 30 foot lengths through the woods, along the ditches and under the roads. The aluminum pipe ends at a green reel that holds 400 feet of black tubing with an irrigation gun at one end. To water sections of the field we pull the black tubing off the reel and set up the gun at the end of it. When the water is pushed through the tubing and out the gun it sprays a 120 foot swath and once the tubing is pressurized a winch on the green reel pulls the tubing back in very slowly. With over 400 feet of tubing we can water over an acre each time we set up the system. The downside is that to add an inch of water to this big area requires about 10 hours. The real kicker for the farmer is that if we irrigate during a sunny day we lose a large percentage of the water to evaporation which means we try to water in the evening and at night, times when farmers would rather be sleeping. Pray for rain everyone and we’ll keep the coffee brewing.
Here’s what to look for in your share this week:
Chard Arugula
Kale Summer squash
Eggplant Lettuce
Green Peppers Tomatoes
Cucumbers Cabbage
Asian Greens Chickories
Superstar farmhand Bethany has two cats that she is looking to find a temporary home for. If you have space and would like a couple quiet feline guests talk to Bethany at CSA distribution this week or email her bethanylallen@gmail.com
This is the last week of Farm Camp here at Crystal Spring and it has been a solid success thanks to Maura and Emily’s efforts over summer. The young farmers have been working hard around the farm caring for all of our livestock (feeding and collecting eggs has been the favorite chore) and helping out in the fields. Yesterday they transplanted over a thousand Swiss Chard plants that all of you will be enjoying in your shares come
late September. We have all really enjoyed having their energy and enthusiasm around the farm. The smiles on kids faces when they get to share in true meaningful work recharges us all and reminds us how even in this modern world we all still have some basic need to get our hands dirty.
Stay cool and eat well.