On a hot Saturday afternoon I figured you’d need something to read on your phone as you ignore your children playing in the pool or at the beach! But first a few announcements.
We are suddenly in need of another part time employee. I’ll put the job posting at the end of this newsletter. If anyone knows of someone who’d like to farm send them our way!
We are still taking orders for VeggieShares. I wish it weren’t true but alas it is. We keep getting a few trickling in but I’d be happier with a flood of orders. Anyway, tell everyone and maybe we can sell the remaining shares! As always, all help is appreciated! Feel free to order from our store!
We still have a few EggShares, WinterShares and FlowerShares. Plus we have CoffeeShares and ‘ShroomShares!
The plan is still to start the week of June 19th but of course this is still subject to change. Please plan accordingly. I’ll send out pick-up instruction sometime soon.
Please remember to send in your final payment if you haven’t already or are not on a payment plan.
Farm News
My current least favorite veggie to grow is broccoli. I think I mentioned this in the past so it has been in the top ten least favorite for quite a while. The thing I find challenging about broccoli is that each variety seems to work well in specific circumstance but you never know what circumstances you will have in any given year or time of year. I was reminded of this recently when we noticed that one variety of broccoli we planted for the spring had already started heading up despite it not being very big. The size of the broccoli head tends to be proportional to the size of the plant so the goal of growing broccoli is to get the plant large quickly before it heads up (but not too quickly otherwise you get a physiological issue called hollow heart).
The last two seasons we participated in a trial with the University of Minnesota to find broccoli varieties that were resistant to certain broccoli diseases. This trial also gave us an opportunity to see which varieties did well on our farm without having to buy a bunch of different seeds. One variety that seemed to do quite well and was quite early was Castle Dome. It didn’t grow tall but it grew big and it grew fast. We figured it would be great as an early broccoli that might be ready by the first week of the season. So we planted some in our first planting this year.
But as I mentioned, it is already heading up and won’t provide any broccoli for us to give to our members. It worked great last year, why not this year? It could be any number of reasons, but I have to believe it is due to different weather. Last year we planted it in the third planting so it grew during warm weather. With the earlier planting this season it was exposed to colder spring temps. This could be a factor in it heading up early. But without a rigorous experiment we may never know. Seed catalogs don’t tell you this. The only way to find out is to try it. But there are so many factors that affect plant growth — especially it seems broccoli — that you can’t control for all of them. So finding the specific reason for the success or failure is exceptionally challenging.
That is why it is so frustrating to grow broccoli and puts it into the “least favorite to grow” category. We end up growing far more broccoli plants than we need just to cover the many weather situations we may encounter in a given season. Some do well. Some fail completely. And some fall somewhere in between. Then if we replicate the same planting for next season we will get completely different results. As I’ve said before, doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity and that makes us farmers insane. But we’ll keep trying and keep succeeding and failing and everything in between until they find a cure for this type of insanity.
That’s all for now. As always, feel free to send questions, comments, jokes, share orders, potential employees or anything else you think might be helpful!
Joke of the Week
How did the organic vegetable die?
Natural causes
Job Opening
Fresh Earth Farms (www.FreshEarthFarms.com) is a Community Supported Agriculture farm located just east of the Twin Cities (south of Afton). We are seeking an enthusiastic person to assist in the laborious, never-ending task of supplying fresh, wholesome vegetables to our CSA members.
The ideal candidate will have:
- An overwhelming interest in sustainable agriculture
- The ability to lift 50 lbs – over and over and over and over again
- Experience in farming or farm related work
- The ability to work independently
- An enthusiastic attitude
- Boundless energy
- The desire to hoe vegetables for hours at a time
- An interest in crawling around in the dirt
- A sense of humor
- Raincoat
- Mud boots
The opportunity starts immediately and ends at the end of October.
This is a part-time position that could evolve into full-time.
We are looking for someone 2 to 4 days per week (Monday – Friday); the days can be flexible. The workday starts at 7:30 and ends by 5:00. Start and end times are flexible as well. Additional days may be added depending on interest and workload.
This is a paid position.
We do not provide housing though we are a convenient commute from the Twin Cities (20 minutes east of downtown St. Paul).
This is an excellent opportunity for the right candidate to experience farming while maintaining some level of sanity. There will be many educational opportunities while hoeing, harvesting and washing produce.
To apply: send a resume or similar document with a cover letter explaining how you would fit into our organization to: chris@freshearthfarms.com
Fresh Earth Farms is an Equal Opportunity Employer.