Garlic Planting THIS Saturday October 6th from 2:00 until done or dinner, whichever comes first. It is supposed to be the perfect Fall day on Saturday – crisp, sunny and smelling like garlic. Come join us and meet fellow members of the farm as we plant next season’s garlic. We’ve had a good response so far but can always use more help. There are tasks for people who like to crawl in dirt as well as activities for those who prefer to remain upright (though dirt crawlers have more fun). Following the planting we will fire up the bonfire and relax together for a potluck dinner (seeing what we do with the huge Hubbard squash is worth the price of admission alone!) I was hoping to provide all the food but the amount of work on the farm is currently overwhelming so I am shirking my responsibilities and spreading the load to you members. Please bring a dish to share as well as lawn chairs if you have them. This should be a great event and lots of fun for kids and adults alike. Let me know if you plan to attend so I know how many free-range, cage-free, organic lobsters to buy.
We have THREE more weeks of the season left. Please plan accordingly.
FruitShare this week will be Honeycrisp apples; red and green Bartlett pears; avocados; and crimson grapes. Sounds delicious! There will be one more FruitShare the last week of the season.
MeatShare arrives on Friday. This is the last MeatShare for the season. If you’d like to continue with MeatShare over the winter please get your order in soon.
CheeseShare arrives late Friday. This is the last CheeseShare for the season. If you’d like to continue with CheeseShare over the winter please get your order in soon.
FlowerShare will be pumpkins and gourds this week. We will have ornamental corn next week.
We are taking orders for the 2013 season. There has been a great response to date; thank you to all who have already sent in your orders. If you’d like to save some dough in 2013 now is the time to sign-up. Get your order in by the end of October and receive this year’s prices for next year’s produce. And if you are thinking about reducing your share size due to the overwhelming amount of produce you received this year please reconsider. Every year is different. Who knows what next season will bring.
This week continues our transition to cool season crops. Our plan for this week is to have Brussels sprouts, winter squash, pie pumpkins, potatoes (fingerling and German butterball), onions, scallions, maybe leeks, peppers, tomatoes, hot peppers, kale, cabbage, carrots and garlic. Wow! I didn’t realize there were that many things this week.
Farm Update
In farming – like in comedy – timing is everything. CSA farming takes that expression to a whole ‘nuther level. With CSA farming we attempt (yes, attempt) to provide a good mix of veggies each week over the course of nineteen weeks. This takes a lot of planning, practice and luck. Ok, actually it is 90% luck. But to paraphrase a famous golfer (depending on which web site you believe it could be Gary Player or Gene Sarazen or Arnold Palmer or someone named Anonymous), “The more I practice the luckier I get.” We’ve been practicing this CSA farming thing for about 10 years now. And each year we get a little bit luckier.
But planning has a lot to do with it as well. In some cases timing is all about the climate most conducive to growing a particular crop. Some crops are frost sensitive. Some succumb to heat. We need to know this to plan when to plant crops to ensure we aren’t doing a whole lot of work for little return. And sometimes with even the best of intentions and planning, the wrong kind of luck rears its head and you end up with a field full of bolted lettuce. But the tomatoes seem to be doing well!
Anyway, that type of planning is the easiest. The course-grained knowledge of what grows best when. The hardest planning is the more fine-grained timing, trying to get certain crops to mature at just the right time. For most of the season this isn’t a big deal since if it isn’t ready one week it can wait until the next to be given out. It might make one week a little light but the next few might be heavy with the overflow. Where this breaks down is in October as the season wraps up. If something is planted to mature around the last week or two of the season and isn’t ready there isn’t another week to give it out – and that, for lack of a better word, sucks.
A good example of this is the fall broccoli. Broccoli is a cool season crop. It doesn’t do well in the heat of the summer. So we grow some in the spring and some more in the fall. The spring broccoli is easy to plan but in seasons like this past one it can be hard to grow when the temps get high early in the spring. The fall broccoli is darn near impossible to get right. Three years ago our October broccoli matured in November – way too late for the season. And much of it never got very big. Two years ago we planted it a couple weeks earlier and it matured in September – 4-5 weeks earlier than planned. This was better but not great since we had a whole bunch of other stuff scheduled for September. Last year it seemed to work out just right. The broccoli was ready in October despite a freeze that almost killed it. So this year we planted it at the same time as last year. Should work out perfectly again right? Well, no. I can only speculate as to why but the broccoli is not quite as far along as we’d like. It has small heads that we hope will turn into big heads in the next three weeks. It has a reasonable chance, but we may end up giving out 10 heads of broccoli per share in the very last week of the season – not what our plan called for. But if it is anything like previous fall broccoli it will be the best broccoli you’ve ever tasted. Cross your fingers that it will all work out!
That is all for now. Please let me know if you will attend the garlic planting. And to paraphrase Micheal Pollen (or was it Jack Nicholas?), “Come shake the hand that feeds you.”