today's harvest

Today, you will find your shares pre-bagged for you in the cooler. Full shares are on shelves around the perimeter of the room and small shares are on the shelves clustered in the middle.

EACH SHARE IS LABELED WITH YOUR SHARE NAME. PLEASE DON'T TAKE A BAG THAT ISN'T YOURS. (Sorry for the capitalization, but we've had problems with this in the past.)

Please take your bag, and bring it back next week when you come to pick up again. Please remember to check off your name on the clipboard outside of the cooler.

*If you are sharing a full share, it is your responsibility to split the full share bag. You do not have a small share.*

FULL SHARES:

4 heads lettuce

bunch spring raab*

bunch salad turnip**

cutting garden#

SMALL SHARES:

2 heads lettuce

bunch salad turnip** -or- 4 oz bag of spinach

cutting garden#

* The stems, leaf and flower of raab are edible. They are great sauteed w/ garlic and olive oil.

** The salad turnips can be eaten raw, or sauteed w/ butter. The greens are also edible. (recipes on our website)

Both the raab and turnips also fell victim to our unexpected surge in flea beetle population. Neither are as pretty as we desire, but are still delicious. Damage on the turnips can be cut away.

Please remember to wash all your vegetables before eating! We do wash them, but there's bound to be some grit, weeds, or bugs that make their way into your bags.

#CUTTING GARDEN: Herbs only today. The cutting garden is in the middle of the field, below the big black mat.

You are welcome to visit our bed of perennial herbs and cut a few small sprigs for yourself (.25 cent value). We have chives (flowers are also edible), sage, thyme, tarragon, and oregano. Please bring your own snips. You can visit the cutting garden at any point during the week. I'll try and get a sign out there describing how you cut the herbs.

today's harvest

Today, after 3pm your shares will be in the walk-in cooler located in

the back left-hand corner of the barn.

FULL-SHARES: Please take a 12 oz bag of mesclun and choose from either a

bunch of radish, a 6oz bag of arugula, or a 4oz bag of baby spinach.

SMALL-SHARES: Please take a 10 oz bag of mesclun and choose from either

a bunch of radish, a 6oz bag of arugula, or a 4 oz bag of baby spinach.

All veggies have been washed, but it's always a good idea to wash them

again before you eat them.

Please remember to check your name off the list located next to the

cooler door. The cooler will be on until Weds night. You may come

collect your share until dark tonight, and anytime tomorrow.

Please note: normally your shares will be in a bag with your name on it.

Today is a little different.

Enjoy!

Spring Update

The first CSA pick-up will be this Tuesday after 3pm. You'll have a variety of greens to choose from including mesclun, arugula, and baby spinach. We'll have more details posted on Tuesday. This pick-up will be different than usual — there will be no bags with your share name on them; instead there will be crates of bagged greens for you to choose from.

I ate my first mesclun and arugula last night, and it was amazing. Unfortunately, the mesclun and arugula are not as pretty as we're accustomed to. Many leaves have tiny holes in them caused by a common New England pest called a flea beetle. We haven't had much of a problem with them in the past, but this year, either due to the weather or just a gradual increase in population, they are a real menace. We can't do anything about our first beds of greens, from which we'll still get several cuttings, but we'll be using row covers from now on to keep the beetles out of any new beds that we sow. Fortunately they don't have much of a taste for spinach or lettuce!

The spring in general has been difficult due to the excessive rain and dimness. After we planted our first crops, the constant rain made it impossible to get the tractor into the field, or to use our push seeder. As a result, we were behind schedule. The lack of light also slowed the growth of our basil and tomato seedlings. This last week the field was finally dry enough to get the tractor into it and to use the seeder. We are now pretty much back on schedule — and all the plants (and weeds) have really responded to the addition of pure sunlight.

The initial delay means that some crops (radish, turnip, carrot, beet, raab) will be delayed, and the first share pick-ups will be slimmer than usual. However, as the season progresses we will be making up for it. We ask for your patience.

While the rain dropped, we were still able to plant certain crops like onions, head-lettuce, radicchio, collards, kale, broccoli, chard, napa, choi and cabbage. All those crops are right on schedule, and looking great.

The next few weeks we'll be doing a lot of weeding and planting. If you'd like to volunteer, please email or give us a call — all help is welcome!

Spring

The 2011 growing season began with the sowing of onions in our heated greenhouse back in late February. Since then, we've sown many more vegetables indoors, and have recently been sowing in the field.

Last week we added calcitic lime and sulphate of potash to our field, tilled it in, and built pea trellising. We then sowed our first beds of peas, fava beans, radish, turnip, beet, carrot, spinach, arugula, raab, and mesclun. Next week we will be sowing more cool weather crops, as well as planting potatoes and onions. All this work leaves one with a deep feeling of satisfaction.

We managed to grow a pretty decent cover of winter rye on a large spread of the field this past fall. That was also tilled in, but left the soil clumpier than was anticipated. It will need tilled again, and time to decompose before we can plant in that part of the field. This has caused us to change some crop planning and tweak the rotation, which thankfully was easy enough to figure.

The Spring has been colder than we've grown accustomed to. Some of our cold-weather flowering annuals were actually damaged by frost in the cold-frame — a first in the nine years I've been raising plants here. The wind has also been a bit maddening at times, pummeling us in the field and ripping up ground-cloth like great black sails.

We're fortunate this year to have a very diligent and hungry guardian hawk hunting the field. I've already seen him carry off two squealing rodents. We also have daily fly-bys from two Canadian geese who are likely nesting in the neighboring wetlands. They do not carry off any rodents, but cause our chickens to posture, which I suppose keeps them on their toes.

2011 Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Registration

Happy New Year Folks!
Suddhayu and I have been busy preparing for 2011; sowing pansies & violas, ordering veggie seeds, sitting at our computers (groan) . . . and we are super excited about the upcoming season! This year we will be offering another 60 shares in our CSA.  If you are interested in joining, or learning more about how our program works, check out our CSA page at our website.  Please feel free to contact us regarding your questions.  We will return emails and phone calls as soon as possible.  We look forward to growing for you this year!


1st Annual Harvest Dinner & Bonfire

 

Winter CSA 2010

If you'd like to participate in our Winter CSA, and continue to receive weekly emails, please respond to this email no later than Friday Oct. 22nd.

This year we'll be going week-to-week. Pick-up will still be Tuesdays after 3pm.

We'll send out a weekly email on Friday letting you know what we're likely to harvest. If you'd like a bag that week, you need to let us know by Sunday.

The bags will range in price from $10-$20 per week. You'll pay for the bag when you pick it up.

We expect to still be harvesting through November.

today's harvest

Full Shares:

weigh-your-own potatoes — 3lbs

bunch carrots

rutabaga or gilfeather turnips

2 cups dry beans*

bunch baby beets with edible greens

6 oz salad mix

bunch kale

last sweet peppers

bunch baby bok choi

bunch parsley

Half Shares:

weigh-your-own potatoes — 2lbs

small bunch carrots

2-3 tomatoes

rod of brussels sprouts

bunch broccoli or cabbage

bunch baby bok choi

small bunch french breakfast radishes

* The dry beans include either Vermont cranberry, black turtle, or Arikara. If you don't know how to cook them, there is plenty of info online. The Vermont cranberry beans were featured in the RAFT program this year. Arikara beans are a Native American bean (named after the Arikara tribe), and were crucial in sustaining the Lewis and Clark expedition. Thomas Jefferson also used to rave about these beans!

CUTTING GARDEN: There are still lots of herbs! Notably, marjoram, parsley, and oregano in abundance.

BAG RETURN: Please remember to bring back your bags. Also, if you could bring back the bags you take away this week, we'd appreciate it. You can visit us at the Portsmouth Farmer's market to drop off bags as well.

Thank you so much for a great season! We'll be sending you a survey soon. If you intend to sign up for next year, let us know soon.

More info on our Winter CSA to follow.