WEED ERADICATION!

DEALING WITH WEEDS!

Hundreds of millions of weed seeds lie in every acre of soil.  And if even a tiny fraction of them are able to grow, and compete with our desired crop, the total harvest of our choice vegetable will be severely curtailed.  One method of getting rid of weeds that have germinated (started to grow) is to burn them off. Here is our tractor-mounted LP burner that we use to burn (and thereby kill) the weeds that are growing in amongst the carrots seeds that were planted about a week before.  So in an ideal situation, just before the carrot seeds are about to pop out of the ground, the weeds that are quicker to germinate can be eliminated, leaving an 'open' field for the carrots.  Does it work?  Yes, if the timing is right!  Do we still have to hand weed the carrots?  Unfortunately, yes!  The weed seeds in the soil continue to germinate, when given enough warmth and moisture, so it's a never-ending, continual process. But at least we can keep them at bay, usually!

LOTS OF CHOICES OF VEGGIES!

We are getting far enough into the season now where we find many different vegetables are ready at the same time.  And depending on how we enter the data into the system, your eventual boxes can look quite a bit different from other possibilities.  For example, we have the choice of highlighting one or more vegetables, which would result in your box being filled with that veggie or those veggies even if you have not rated that vegetable very highly on your preference list.  This will at least insure finding a home for a vegetable that we would greatly like to find a home for, or, in the case of new veggies, we want to make sure that everyone will get them, at least in the beginning.  We can also list the veggies in different orders, with the ones being listed first having a slight priority of finding a box that the ones lower on the list.  Also, if we list a much higher quantity of several veggies that are needed to reach the value of all of the boxes, then there would be extras with which you could swap after we send out the e-mail, and more variations possible depending on your list of preferences.  We can also change the basic unit amount of each of the vegetable, so that, for example, with this week's onions that we are just starting to harvest, we could specify that everyone who ends up getting onions get a minimum of two, or three, (or more) onions.  Obviously, the more onions we would include in the basic unit amount of onions, the more value it would have, and then consequently the less 'room' there would be for other crops.  After we feel that we have a good mix of quantities and varieties, we can test run those estimates, and then check out your boxes, and if we find something strange (like small shares getting 2 bags of beans, or 2 cabbages), then we know we have to tweak it some more, so we go back to the drawing board and make slight changes.  Of course, with the swapping option, you can change the contents of your box again, on your own!  And if you see other items that we have available, they could be purchased as well.

CHERRIES FOR NEXT WEEK

You can still order cherries for next week's delivery. See below for adding onto this week's order (even though delivery for the cherries is not until next week!), or sign-up for separate AddOn Sweet Cherry share, by clicking on "SignUp" from our website, scroll down to and click on "Choose AddOns", then the Sweet cherry option will be evident.  For those getting blueberries with tomorrow's delivery, look for them in a separate box with your name on them!  They will not be in your normal tote!