Just want to say You are Awesome!
We just want to say thank you for being part of our CSA community! It was so good to see so many familiar faces and new faces at our first pickup last week! Did you know that CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture? Well, we feel very supported by our community-YOU! There is no way that our farm could exist without you! It's so wonderful to get to know the people we grow for, sweat for, and sometimes ache for:). You make it worth it and we want to make sure you know that! As the season progresses, we'd love to chat and get to know you better!
Are you part of our private CSA Facebook group? Go here to join our CSA Facebook Group. It's called "Redfearn Farm CSA" It's a great way to get information from us, share storage tips and recipes, get inspired and connect with each other. When you go to request to join, make sure you answer the questions. We only allow CSA members to join so it's sort of an elite club:).
What if I forget my Share (NEW INFO!)
If you are part of the private Facebook Group you probably saw our post about needing to rearrange a bit for our missed pickup shares (lost and found shares if you will). Here's what we posted in case you missed it:
1 If you are scheduled for Friday self serve at the farm, your share will stay the same. It will be in the little shed that looks like a cooler and will remain there until you pick it up or we donate it on Tuesdays.
2 if you pick up at the farm on Thursdays, or at Lee’s Summit Connection Point Or at Overland Park Farmers Market and forget to pick up your share, we are now storing those shares In the walk in cooler closer to the house (the trailer looking thing). Don’t look in the shed, only Friday self serve shares will be in the shed.
3. If you pick up in Brookside, we don’t have your shares. Missed pickups there are a little more problematic. Tamara will be donating missed shares, so they should go to a good cause, but we don't ask our site hosts to try to keep them cold and arrange for pickups after the scheduled pickup date.
We needed to make these changes in storage because of lack of room in the little shed cooler. Hopefully this will make things easier for everyone. We have some signs outside to coolers to help direct you.
If you forget to pick up, we’ll store your share through the weekend until Tuesday morning when we donate all remaining shares to the local soup kitchen, where they definitely appreciate the extra veggies.
Bread and Cheese Shares
This week's Bread is Great Grain Sliced and the cheese is a block of Applewood Smoked Cheddar.
Farm Update
What amazing, beautiful weather!!! This is the spring we've been waiting for! The effects of the cold slow start to spring still linger but boy do we enjoy the end of April and the opening to May! The sugar snap pea plants look fantastic. We have 3 rounds of plantings to help space out and extend the harvest. Still no flowers yet. They're behind by 3 weeks from where they should be. We're hoping we can not go straight into summer weather because these peas just can't handle hot hot weather, so being behind like this will most likely mean that the end of the harvest season will be cut short. Outdoor planted lettuces are looking really nice but still behind and a couple weeks away. Broccoli was hit really hard by the cold even though we had them covered. We had so many plants get severe damage a couple weeks ago that we had to purchase organic transplants from Sullivan's Greenhouse to fill in. This will make a weird stagger of maturity and we hope they'll be able to yield before the heat of summer sets in. Tomatoes and cucumbers are looking fantastic in the tunnels and since they were protected and heated during the cold times, they are pretty much on schedule, which means they aren't that far away....When they do start coming in, there won't be enough for everyone. If they show up in your box before June 1, you should feel lucky that you won the Harvie lottery:). As the plants get bigger, so do the harvests and barring disaster we hope to have plenty of tomatoes for everyone soon enough! All this being said that we may be greens heavy in the CSA boxes for the next couple weeks while the crops catch up. It also means we may have the best variety ever come June, when the delayed May crops collide with the crops "scheduled" for June.
The delays do put a little stress on Dave's planting plans. You see we are always successively planting crops. Some crops we plant once, some we plant every month, some we plant every single week. When one crop is harvested we plant something else in its place. Since crops aren't going to come out at the normal time, that means space won't be opening up to plant as early as normal. That's caused us to have to slow down on our train of planing and transplanting a bit so we don't run out of room entirely.
With farming, as with all of life really, we have to make plans but hold them loosely. Faith comes to play here. As farmers, parents, business owners we do our best to trust God, not worry, adapt, make wise informed decisions with the information we have, do what we feel is right and trust God some more that he will bring "harvest" wether literally or figuratively.
I was reminded of James 3:18, "And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness." A Just and Righteous and Good society can be reaped when each of us individually is transformed into peacemaking and peace-sowing people. I want to be that kind of person. I think in order to "be the change I want to see in the world" I'll need God's help to change me first. If I'm honest, there are a lot of weeds in my that need to be rooted out. I'm not the person I want to be. I do worry and get angry when my plans are thwarted. It's humbling to be reminded over and over again, that I'm not in charge of my garden, the weather, or my own life.
How do you deal with things outside of your control?
Did you give up on changing the world? Can it start with us?
Hoping to sow seeds of peace along with the radishes!
your farmers,
Dave and Sheri
