Month: August 2016

What’s in the Share

Tomatoes

Carrots

Beets

Watermelon

Cukes/Summer Squash

Peppers

Tatsoi

What’s in Upic

Cherry toms

Herbs

flowers

Tomatillos

More good rain this weekend and after it a cool dry breeze that said very clearly fall is coming. That air felt great but are not quite ready to transition yet. We still have weeks of tomatoes, peppers and watermelon (solidly summer crops) coming to you.

Our other big transition is the loss of our summer crew. This solid group of high school and college kids have all gone to register for classes, begin pre-season practices or take a last week at the family camp. These kids are always focused and have an inspired work ethic as they keep up with the seasoned twenty somethings (or forty somethings) day to day and week to week during June, July and August. Beyond the obvious first job or summer job experience for these folks they are also doing something that is not so common by working with us -they are learning how to produce food. 100 years ago more than 40% of america was involved in agriculture, currently that number hovers around 2%. Most of these summer hands are women and in addition to learning the concepts behind growing food they are also learning the mechanics, quite literally. Many of them run our trucks, some of them run our tractors and all of them learn manual skills that in todays world they may never get anywhere else. We’ve had folks who are amazingly fast harvesters but had never held a screwdriver or turned a wrench before they arrived here. For most of them that is why they end up here, consciously or otherwise. There is a real hunger to see how the gears turn in a world where more and more is hidden from us by gigantic industry and small screens. In my 20 plus years on farms, few of these summer hand end up as farmers (they are sensible as well a smart) but all of them take away manual skills, an ability to work fast and a deep appreciation of what it takes to feed a little part of the world.

Late Fall Share

We still have shares in our late fall CSA. This is our “I don’t want to stop coming to the farm just yet” share. Here’s how it works… Every other Tuesday in November and December (including the Tuesdays before Thanksgiving and and Christmas) we will harvest fresh greens from our greenhouse along with carrots, cabbage, bok choi, chard and pair them up with storage crops like sweet potatoes, winter squash and beets to make a hearty share that will hold winter off. Like our yogurt, bread and cheese shares? You’ll be able to continue these during these months as well (sign-up for these will be in September). For more info and to sign-up click here.

Pork

We still have some whole and half hogs available but they are going fast…if you are thinking about filling your freezer with high quality local meat that was raised with care grab a form at pick-up or fill one out here and get it back to us.

What’s in the Share

Tomatoes

Lettuce

Asian Greens

Kale

Melon

Peppers

Broccoli

Scallions

Basil

What’s in Upic

Cherry Toms

Herbs

Flowers

All streaks must be broken and after setting a dryness record for us at this farm (14 years) we are so happy to have moisture. The storms on Friday and following rain on Saturday and Sunday brought us just over 1.5″. Not enough to dig us out of a drought but surely enough save the broccoli, carrots and scallions (in your share this week). You will notice a we are without greens this week and this is the result of relentless high heat and the minimal moisture coming from only from the irrigation gun. Rest assured our greens supply will be back in your shares soon (next week baring disaster) but in the meantime we have lots of good summer stuff to keep you busy. Look for beets, melons and roma tomatoes in the next couple weeks.

What’s in the Share

Tomatoes

Cukes

Summer squash

Carrots

Peppers

Broccoli

Scallions

Basil

What’s in Upic

Cherry Toms

Herbs

Flowers

Drought is a word not to be used lightly. I say this mostly for my own benefit as in years past when we have been without regular rain for a few weeks (maybe even a month) I have trotted out the term along with the drama associated. But this year in the usually temperate, lush and water laden Northeast we are really there. By my measurement we had a little over an inch of rain in July (average is 4″) and about two and a half for June (average 4.25″). This puts us behind about 4.5 inches as of this week, which for thirsty vegetables is pretty bad. We have been irrigating almost constantly for the past few weeks and keeping up with most things.  To do this we have to move water from our well in the fields anywhere from 400 to 3500 feet. The farm has a good supply of aluminum pipe that comes in 30′ lengths and connects together quickly much like the attachments on a vacuum (only a lot bigger and longer). We run these pipes up and down hills and under the roads to make lifelines that feed each field. To get the water to move and be able to spray it on the fields we have to pressurize the lines each time they are broken down and assembled, finding leaks and flushing dirt and detritus picked up in the moving. Once we have a field setup we water everything we can, trying not to lose the precious pressure that makes the flow from the well across great distances possible. Once we get to the fields we have guns that spray water on to a 60 to 120 foot swath at a time taking anywhere from 3-6 hours to saturate that area before they need to be moved over to wet the next swath. In this fashion it can take a day or two to water a field and this is with many late night gun movements. All in all there is nothing that difficult about irrigation, but it reminds us how much we like it when the water just falls from the sky.

What’s in the Share

Tomatoes

Cukes/summer squash

Eggplant

Peppers

Chard/kale

Lettuce

Leeks

What’s in Upic

Cheery Toms

Herbs

Flowers