Lots happening here on the farm! But before I get into all that here are a few brief messages.
Keep pestering your friends, neighbors and relatives to buy Fresh Earth Farms CSA shares! We still have a bunch of shares left and could use a hand selling them.
Keep ordering add-on shares. We don’t make a ton of money on these but every little bit helps. If you eat fruit, cheese, ice cream, meat, salmon, eggs or drink coffee please consider ordering these from us. You’ll help our farm and other small farms as well.
We have the herb plants ready for those who purchased them. On Wednesday I put them on a table where the pick-up area normally is. Feel free to stop by anytime to pick them up. No need to contact me prior to picking them up unless you want to get a tour of the farm or want to talk to me.
Farm News
So far we have planted garlic, onions, green onions, shallots, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, green cabbage, red cabbage, cauliflower, kale, kohlrabi, summer squash, zucchinis, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers, eggplants, snow peas, snap peas, carrots, parsnips, radishes, lettuce, beets, Swiss chard, fennel, celery, celeriac, bok choi and potatoes. I think that about covers it. Still to go are sweet corn, popcorn, rutabagas, cucumbers, flowers, herbs, watermelons, hot peppers, beans, edamame, winter squash, pumpkins, gourds and probably a few other things I forget. With all these different vegetables and their unique requirements I don’t know how anyone could possibly start a vegetable CSA farm these days. It is just too complicated and requires too much knowledge to be successful. I’m just glad I did it when I did. It seemed so much easier back then.
Other than planting we are weeding/cultivating, caging the indoor tomatoes (don’t want them running willy-nilly around the hoop house), and scouting for pests. I saw the first of these — the flea beetles — on our broccoli. Flea beetles overwinter in MN so they are typically the first insect pests we see. It won’t be long before we see cucumber beetles, potato beetles and our worse pest deer. We haven’t found an effective organic pesticide for deer yet.
So that pretty much covers it for this week. As always, if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, jokes, brain teasers or organic deer repellent please send them my was.