Hi Everyone!
Early in the season we sit down and draw a farm map. We number all of the rows in the main field and the little fields and we decide what will go where and how many rows of each thing there will be. So then we start putting seeds in the ground and starting seeds in the greenhouse that will be transplanted into the field when the time is right and slowly, the field fills up. This week we planted the last empty rows, 17 rows in the big field which were reserved for fall storage beets and carrots and we have reached a milestone: the field is full.
We will start harvesting potatoes for the CSA this week. If you are eating your potatoes each week, storage shouldn't be a big issue, just keep them in a dark cupboard or in a paper bag. Long term potato storage is pretty cold (40 degrees) and pretty high humidity (80-90%), not in a plastic bag in the refrigerator which would be too cold and too humid, but in the coolest place in your house, bagged or wrapped in something slightly breathable.
There will not be kale in the share for a while, but we will have bunches available at the farmstand for all of you kale-eaters. The kale is doing its typical mid-summer lull. The winterbor, that green curly variety, is always the most vigorous which is why it is the most commonly grown kale on a commercial scale. The other varieties need a little break.
Photo tour
•Here is Kyle seeding the fall beets. This simple little seeder has a hopper that gets filled with seed. Gravity feeds the seed into a divoted disc that turns as the seeder is pushed and drops the seed as it goes. There are different interchangeable seed discs with different size divots and spacing to accommodate different kinds of seed.
•This is a little field that we have up above the irrigation ditch which is planted with a mixture of things this year: winter squash, zucchini, cabbage and sweet potatoes.We always think of the soil as not being as nice as the soil in the big field, more rocky and less rich, but everything up there looks great. The infamously prolific zucchini has started producing its fruit. Every evening we get a sharp knife and a bucket and harvest the zucchini that are up to size. If we skip a day they get larger than we like. The plants are very prickly and I like to wear my full PPE to avoid getting all scratched up every night. This year I have two enthusiastic zucchini scouters (who refuse to wear their PPE) who run ahead and tell me where the good ones are. We will see how long the enthusiasm lasts...
•It dried out enough to run the cultivator up and down some weedy furrows. The cultivator is an implement that is essentially a weeder drawn by a single horse. It has a bunch of little shovels on it that uproot any weeds that it passes over. It also fluffs up the soil and reforms the furrow. We try to cultivate our furrows frequently, but can only do it if the crop is not sprawling and if the moisture is right. Here are Nell and Kyle cultivating the fall cabbage rows.
Each week I send out a wholesale list to a few restaurants and buying clubs. These items are available in bulk at a slightly cheaper wholesale price. If anyone would like to order from this bulk list, just let me know by email by Sunday evening and I will bring the order on Tuesday.
from the 2021 CSA Archive