Welcome to week 3 of the summer CSA season!
As usual, I have a few logistics to cover first:
1. This week will be the first delivery of summer flower bouquets! If you signed up for a biweekly flower delivery, your first delivery will be coming EITHER this week OR next week. You can always log into your member account and click the Deliveries tab to see what orders you have coming on a given week.
2. Summer fruit boxes will begin when strawberries are getting ripe, which is looking like the first week of July at this point. We'll keep you posted on how the crop is progressing and when those boxes will start.
3. If you have biweekly boxes, the Harvie software team is working on aligning them so all of your boxes come on the same week. This process is a manual process unfortunately and is taking quite a bit of time, thanks for your patience as they get your deliveries in sync!
4. Lastly, as farm work here takes over my time, Karra (my co-manager for the CSA) will be the one getting back to you via phone or email if you have questions about your order. She's been helping build the deliveries since this past winter, and knows her way around the ordering software better than I do! "Teamwork makes the dream work" as they say, and we're incredibly grateful for her hard work each week in making this CSA run. In addition to helping manage this CSA, she also works at the Bayfield Apple Company!
Here on the farm, our heat loving hoophouse crops have been growing like crazy. These cucumbers are shoulder high and bearing a healthy crop of immature cukes. I expect we'll have the first cukes available for your veggie boxes in 2 weeks! Meanwhile, our cherry tomatoes have already started to bear a few ripe fruits - who's excited for tomato season? We'll have a very limited quantity available for a few lucky people this week, with more to come each week as the season progresses.
How do we have ripe tomatoes in early June, you may be asking? Planting early under the protection of the hoophouse is an important part, but the other key aspect is pruning and trellising them. Removing the lower leaves and shoots (suckers) as the plants grow helps make sure the plants put energy into fruits instead of just making more leaves and vines. It also helps maintain good air flow, a cultural (instead of chemical) practice that helps to prevent disease. Yesterday we took advantage of the cooler temps and spent the day inside the hoop pruning tomatoes again, and we'll come back about every 2 weeks all season long to maintain the plants in this way. It's a lot of work, but it's a labor of love!
Speaking of cooler temps, with the cold weather on the way tonight (37 degrees!) we'll be taking this afternoon to get all of our row cover out over as many tender plants as we can juuuuust in case old Jack Frost decides to pay us a visit. The hoophouse crops will stay warm enough without any covers down to about 29 degrees outside, but our tender field crops such as winter squash, green beans, and strawberries will be getting tucked in for the night. Our farm is strategically located to minimize the potential for frost in times like these - we face south (so our soils warm up quickly and hold the heat longer than a north facing slope) and we're located at the top of a hill, which allows cold air to sink away from us down into the White River valley. Hardy field crops like carrots, broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower will be fine with colder weather, and even sweet corn (our first 2 plantings are up and looking good!) will be able to recover if it's leaves get a little frost nip. Potential frost before June 15 just comes with the territory when you are growing veggies up here in the Northwoods. Too bad that cold weather won't knock back those mosquitoes, eh? Here's some of the winter squash we'll be covering up tonight.
Ok, that's it from me this week - time to get back after those weeds again. Have a great weekend, and thanks so very much for making us your farmers this summer!
Yours in community,
Chris Duke
Farmer, Great Oak Farm
