Here Comes the Sun (CSA Week 10)

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Hi Friends & Farm-ily,

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Firstly, wow! We’ve had an amazing response to our upcoming Winter CSA Season and we only have a dozen shares available for the winter growing season!  There are still shares available and our current members have sign up priority for one more week – until July 29th (or until we’re full.. whichever comes first)!  If there’s room, we’ll open it up to new members on the 30th!  For those of you who aren’t currently in the CSA and are interested in signing up, please fill out the CSA Sign up form and you’ll be put at the top of our waiting list!

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We’re offering two Winter CSA options: Weekly & Bi-Weekly.  To read more about the details visit this link:  All About Our Winter CSA: https://workinghandsfarm.com/winter-csa/

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How to Sign Up?

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Step 1. Fill out the CSA Member Agreement here: https://workinghandsfarm.com/winter-csa-sign-up/

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Step 2.  Pay your deposit/make a payment.  In order to reserve your share we require a $150 deposit that is non-refundable and is applied toward the total cost of the CSA.  The deposit is due within two weeks of submitting the CSA member contract.  Once your deposit of $150 is received we will send you a confirmation email welcoming you to our CSA program.  *Keep in mind it’s first come, first serve so be sure to get your deposits in as soon as you can!*

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Bees in the blackberrys, our 3 spring calves are growing leaps and bounds, and a baby pepper is forming!

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Now onto some updates from the farm.  The ten-day is looking and feeling a whole lot more like summer.   Don’t get us wrong – we’ve been loving the cloudy, 70 degree weather the past few weeks, it’s been amazing to work and plant in – but we’re also anxious for summer crops: i.e. Tomatoes!  Peppers!  Eggplant!  Melons!  Tomatillos!  Etc!  With the heat on the way it’s sure to bring on the ripening of all our summer favorites.    Planting these summer crops into “geo textile fabric” this season seems to be a game changer for us.

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Geotextile fabric has a substantial upfront cost but unlike other cheap plastics used in farming this one is durable and can hold up to 12+ years.  Not to mention the other benefits:  It helps to conserve water by preventing evaporation, soil temperature (for those warm soil loving crops) and of course, mitigates weed pressure.

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Captain Ahab maning his ship getting ready to go for an evening walk about the farm, seeding cover crop, and Una taking in the sunset!

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We had an incredibly hot season last year and despite it being a whole lot cooler this year we actually had our first tomatoes at the same time as last year.. and besides your farmers being the amazing farmers that they are (wink wink) we can chalk up some of this success to the fabric.   It’s also taken away the annoying, exhausting and time consuming element of weed pressure and having to cultivate every week, having to manage them through the season and then fighting them when it comes time to harvest.    We’ve only had to weed these crops once and it was just around the hole that it was planted into.   By now they’ve all grown so large that they shade out any possible weeds that might germinate (win!!)  We hope it invest in more fabric next season, namely crops that are in the ground for some time (i.e strawberries, possibly sweet potato, melons etc etc).  We think it would make our lives a whole lot better and our members of course would reap all the benefits of more productive crops (for all the above reasons).  Plus, next year we won’t have to burn all the planting holes again… which can be time consuming.. it’ll all be ready and waiting for us next spring when we go to plant our crops!  (win again!!)

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As for the warm weather loving crops that weren’t planted into fabric i.e. sweet potato, melons etc we’re hoping that the upcoming warm weather really gives them a boost as they’ve been missing the sun!

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Share 8 & 9 and a farmer high five on our first succession of sweet corn.  

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It’s looking like our first succession of sweet corn will be ready for shares next week (fingers crossed).  It’ll be the earliest in the season we’ve ever had it!  We decided to do 4 successions of corn this year.  In past years we’ve done 3 successions that were all seeded directly into the field in early June.  This means a whole lot more weeding, thinning and more work for the farmers.  This year I seed started them in the prop house in 128 cell trays (2,500 plants per succession) and planted out a few weeks later.  They are all different varieties with a similar harvest date so I was able to space them out 14 days apart so there isn’t any cross pollinating (which would mean sad, starchy corn).   Our first succession went in mid-may which means we’ll all be enjoying it soon!  It’s a risk trying new things but it’s also really exciting and brings up a whole new slew of possibilities.  We’re growing better all the time.

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Over the weekend Brian and I planted out our first Fall crops:  romanesco, cauliflower and broccoli – over 2800 row ft/1850 plants!!!!  We still have loads more to plant over the next few weekends… kale, collards, chard, cabbage, storage crops, roots, beets, our last succession of cucumbers and squash, a second fall succession of broccoli, cauliflower and romanesco etc.  So. Many. Plants.   We started our overwintering crops – purple sprouting broccoli and ow cauliflower too!  And got our final round of storage carrots seeded (1,500 row ft) that we will hopefully flame in the next 5 days.  So many things to look forward to – we’re lovin’ it!

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Summer Broccoli!  Woot woot!  The G tractor in the new pole barn and the herd enjoying some lush pasture.  

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So many things happen this time of year…. just when we think June is crazy… July, August and September roll around.  We’ve got quite a list of giant to-do’s in the coming weeks… our massive onion harvest will get under way in the next month, potato harvest, bucking 30 tons of hay (60,000lbs) in the barn to feed our cows all winter long, building a couple of 30×96 high tunnels, planting all our fall and winter crops…. All while making three square meals (well, who are we kidding.. there’s second breakfast too and usually a mid day berry smoothie) that fuel these two crazy farmers  Is anyone else getting sleepy just reading about it?  😉

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The pole barn project is also coming along nicely.  The next step is finishing up the electrical wiring, then installing the insulation and getting the garage doors on there.  We should be only a few weeks out and are excited to start utilizing the new building… just in time for curing storage onions!

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Summer chicory!, Brian and one of the many farm jobs, and our most recently flamed carrot beds just before the carrots emerged!  

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We hope you’ve been enjoying the first tastes of summer and hope that with all the sun and heat the summer bounty will arrive at our doorstep.. or, your CSA farm pick up!

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With kind regards,

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Your Farmers

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Jess & Brian

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dirty hands, clean hearts

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3/4 of an acre of winter squash… think we planted enough?  😉