As we are preparing to launch our CSA for next Tuesday, we walk the fields after the farmers market to check the condition of all of the produce. We estimate the amount of bunches we can make from what we see. It takes practice, but you have to take into account the last time you harvested, the size and number of items you were able to harvest, how many days until harvest, and what the weather looks like up to that point. We are looking at some hot summer days ahead, so things grow fast!
There isn’t much time to dwell on the past week. It has been rough. There were intense storms coming through on Wednesday, and a tornado did touch down in West Bloomfield, not far from our farm. We lost power on Wednesday night when the storms came through, but no major damage to our buildings, or animals. The wind blew off some of our landscape plastic we staple down for weed barrier. That will take a lot of work to get back down. A lot of our irrigation lines were also blown around. That will also take a lot of time to reattach and place in the right places. The vegetables don’t really appreciate being whipped around, but the inch of rain does make them grow better. We eventually got a generator hooked up to keep our freezers going, but our well is hard wired, so we didn’t have running water for 2 days. Luckily, our neighbors offered us everything we could need, our town has a community artesian well and joyfully the power was restored in time to wash and cool produce for the market. We didn’t have a lot of wasted product, because we pick everything fresh right before we need to sell it.
The CSA list will look similar to last week, with the addition of salad turnips, and fresh herbs.
Reminder: Please leave your empty wooden crate out on your delivery day. We will swap it for your full one.
On a side note, we are working towards selling our flock of sheep. Although we have enjoyed raising them and caring for them, we want to simplify things here and focus more on our vegetables, cut flowers and also be able to get away from the farm easier. Here is the ad from Craigslist: https://appleton.craigslist.org/grd/d/king-sheep-california-red-katahdin/7496840164.html
