Lots of stuff happening on the farm. But before I get into it please read the following important announcements to learn how you can lower your risk.
One aspect of community supported agriculture is the concept of “shared risk”. By purchasing a share of the vegetables the farm grows you share in the risk if something or everything fails. Good for the farmer but maybe not so good for the member. I imagine that if someone tried a CSA farm in the past and was not satisfied in the shares it would be highly unlikely they would try a new farm again; future CSA membership would be off the table. With the stories I’ve heard from members of our farm who have taken the risk and joined us after having a less than wonderful experience at another CSA farm I believe there are a lot of dissatisfied former CSA farm members who have given up and are not looking at other farms. I’d like to change that.
So this season we are removing the shared risk aspect of our CSA shares. We’ve been farming and running a CSA for so long we believe that new members no longer need to take the risk (old members already know the risks). So we have instituted a money back guarantee for all new members. If for any reason you do not find our vegetable shares working for you in the first three weeks of the season we will refund the full amount of your vegetable shares. No risk, lots of reward. Please let all your reluctant friends, family, colleagues and strangers know about our new program. Hopefully we can convert these risk-adverse people into current CSA members.
Likewise, for those of you who are hesitant to purchase meat from our partner TC Farm, here is an incentive to get you moving. For the low, low price of $1 you can sample their fan favorite brats! You can pick them up at your first vegetable pick-up of the season or at any of their other many local drop sites. To order your pack go to this web page and place your order — no commitment, no fuss — just amazing brats.
Speaking of fantastic food, and reducing risk, I highly recommend the other products we resell. The fruit is amazing. The cheese — especially the Parmesan — is out of this world. The coffee is to die for. If you consume any of these items I hope you consider purchasing them through us. And to take away the risk we are offering a one time single purchase of any of these items. No need to commit to the season. If you like it you can purchase the rest of the season. If not, you are not committed to continue. Give them a try. What do you have to lose? Go to our online farmstand to order.
I predict, but will not commit to, the week of June 17th being our first week of the vegetable season.
Farm Happenings
As I’ve mentioned in just about every newsletter weather is never the variety that we want. It’s either too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet, or a combination of them. What is so hard about providing a nice gentle one inch of rain every Friday evening? I’m not asking for much. But it never happens. Instead we get stuck in patterns of too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet, or a combination of them that persist for a week or two. We seem to be in a too wet phase right now.
The weather forecasters gave us a heads-up to expect it this week. It seemed like they forecasted rain every other day and so far they’ve been right. On the bright side we were able to get a lot of our vegetable starts planted before this rain pattern set up. Unfortunately we’ll need at least two — or more like three or more — dry days to give us dry enough soil to continue our planting. And for that matter any cultivating or hoeing we need to do.
So what have we planted so far? Well, from east to west we have summer squash/zucchini, lettuce, tomatoes, bok choi, more lettuce, Swiss chard, beets, kohlrabi, cauliflower, celery, celeriac, cabbage, leeks, Brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli, more broccoli, potatoes, shallots, onions, green onions, garlic, peppers, eggplants, okra, sweet corn, more sweet corn, carrots, snap peas, snow peas, radishes, tomatillos, cherry tomatoes, curly parsley, flat parsley, marjoram, oregano, thyme, chives, and garlic chives. I think that is all what we’ve planted in the ground so far.
In the greenhouse, cold-frame or sitting outside for drier times we have winter squash, pumpkins, gourds, more broccoli, flowers, popcorn, cucumbers, watermelons, other melons, hot peppers, rutabagas, rosemary, basil, and probably some other things I’m forgetting. As you can see there is quite the variety of stuff we grow! Hopefully we get a long break in the rain so we can get this stuff planted soon.
Other than planting we are also hoeing, and cultivating — activities that also require drier soils so they’ll be on hold for a bit. We also saw our first pest of the season — a bunny rabbit. We seldom get rabbits in the field since it is quite open and we have a number of hawks living in the area. After finding some of our kale eaten without seeing deer footprints I suspected it was something smaller than deer. Then a few days later I saw the rabbit not far from the kale. Then I haven’t seen it since and haven’t lost any more kale. My guess is nature solved our rabbit problem. Sometimes letting nature do its thing is the right approach.
So that is pretty much it for now. As always do not hesitate to contact me with questions, comments, suggestions, jokes or other interesting tidbits. Spread the word about our farm to your risk adverse friends and give one of our other add-on shares a try. We appreciate your support!