As a follow-up to the last newsletter some of you have asked, “Hey Farmer Chris. Did you resolve the sock six-pack problem? Do you just not wear socks on the seventh day? What a pain.” Great follow-up question. I did in fact solve the sock six-pack problem. I bought seven six-packs. Now I don’t have to do sock laundry for six weeks!
Here are a couple of more important things than discussions about socks then onto Farm News!
Some of you have asked when the season will start. I have to assume you are getting excited for the fresh veggies! Well, my current guess is the week of June 20th. Despite this newsletter’s title, we are still weather dependent so this might change. If you are putting it in your phone’s calendar I suggest using the pencil font so it is easily erased.
We have one EggShare left. If you want eggs and find they are sold out let me know. If I can get another 15 dozen sold we can get another case delivered. We have unlimited CoffeeShares and ‘ShroomShares. There are a couple FlowerShares left and just a few WinterShares.
If anyone — especially the long term members — has any good advice, good easy recipes –especially for some of the more obscure crops like okra, fennel and kohlrabi, or any great tips for surviving a CSA share please send them my way and I will compile them into a future newsletter to assist our newer members. I recall doing this once a long time ago but I can’t find that newsletter.
Farm News
Well we had a great run of nice weather for the first time this spring Unlike some of you in the northern suburbs and even those as close as Woodbury, we did not get hail last week! Yay! In fact, contrary to what all the weather folks on the TV are saying, up until today we were short on precipitation. Our last reasonable rain was on May 12th when we received 1 3/8″. The last few rain events gave us a total of less than an eighth inch. Plus it has been windy with low humidity. So today’s rains is welcome for us! Once it hits the one inch mark it can stop and get warm and sunny though. No need to drag this out for more than necessary.
Speaking of weather. Another beneficial event in the weather department occurred this past weekend when we did not get any frost. Maybe that is a non-event — you be the judge. It was a bit nerve-racking at the time since we had planted quite a few warm season crops that are susceptible to frost damage but luckily for us it only got down to 36 degrees. However, a farm member who rents a small part of our farm did have frost in his section and lost some of his warm season crops despite covering them for the cold nights. He uses a lot of straw mulch which I believe prevented the heat of the earth from keeping his plants warm. You can read more about this in the newsletter from last season when the same thing happened.
Besides no rain, no hail, and no frost, what other kinds of weather did we not have? Just the usual, no typhoons, no cyclones and no hurricanes so that’s positive. Once you rule out all the weather we didn’t have you can conclude that we have had a pretty good run for a couple of weeks. This allowed us to catch up on all the planting. We’ve also done a fair bit of hoeing and will need to increase our pest managing as soon as the rain stops. We’re starting to see insect pests on some of our crops. Plus the deer are being especially obnoxious this year. (Oh oh. Don’t get me started on deer! Too late!)
The deer seem to be eating some of everything this year. When we first started farming here at the beginning of the century we had deer ramble through the farm but rarely ate anything or if they did, they wouldn’t eat much. Then they started getting a hankerin’ for certain crops like beets and lettuce. So we made some hoops out of electrical conduit and covered the susceptible crops with netting. Then the deer expanded their palate to include celery and fennel and peas and carrots and beans so we started erecting a temporary eight foot tall fence around certain sections of crops. Now it seems they eat everything. I saw the tops of some of the tomato plants missing. Last season they ate a substantial number of our sunflower seedlings. This season some of our perennial flowers are missing their flower stalks. I even found some onions they pulled out of the ground thinking they would be tasty! I’m running out of ideas on how to keep them away other than erecting a tall fence around the whole property and living like we’re in a prison. I’ll never understand why there is a limited hunting season for deer in this area. I doubt we’d ever run out of them.
Ok enough about deer. Or perhaps enough in general. I don’t want you overwhelmed with a wall or words. So as always, do not hesitate to send in questions, comments, suggestions, jokes, puzzlers or ideas for surviving a CSA share.
This week’s joke of the week:
Why should you keep your secrets to yourself while walking through a cornfield?
Because there are many ears!