*if I had to choose a favorite vegetable to grow and eat, garlic is up there, photo by Adam Ford*

This Week’s Availability

This week we will have:

Greens: baby arugula, baby lettuce, spinach, curly kale, rainbow chard, parsley, and green cabbage
Roots: fresh red radishes, rutabaga, red beets
Alliums: onions, scallions
Miscellaneous: Rhubarb
Seedlings for your garden: parsley, basil, oregano, thyme, sugarsnap peas, green beans, slicing cucumbers, pickling cucumbers, morning glory, snapdragons, elderberries, and willows

We will continue to make a few varieties of seedlings available each week. This week, we will start listing some frost sensitive ones (basil, green beans, cucumbers, and morning glory) because the long term forecast looks ok. But if you do plant some frost sensitive plants outside, do pay attention to your overnight low temperatures where you live, to be sure to cover the sensitive ones if it gets in the 30s.

Click here to order your veggies for a delivered bag to Ludlow or Rutland

*so many, many seedlings ready to plant! photo by Adam Ford*

Farm News

As an old acquaintance used to say, this week was great weather for ducks. Fields were soggy and the days were grey. Fortunately, we had several fields prepared with ridges, onto which we were able to apply mulch to the valleys and compost to the ridge tops. In these ridges, we transplanted cabbage, lettuce, shallots, and kohlrabi, and also direct seeded beets, carrots, green beans, and cilantro. More and more this year, we are transitioning our fields over to mulched ridges. Preparing our fields in this way allows for excellent weed control because of the mulch, helps infiltrate water into the soil (rather than water running off over the surface), and maintains soil moisture even during dry spells unlike bare soil. I’m persuaded that growing on mulched ridges also allows for excellent gas exchange in the soil, to the benefit of our crops. Soil microorganisms respire like all other living beings, and need the carbon dioxide they exhale to be exchanged with atmospheric O2 produced during photosynthesis. Since soil microorganisms live in the soil, they need that gas exchange to happen in the soil in order to optimally function. My educated guess from seeing vegetables grow so well on mulched ridges is that part of their vibrancy comes from the improved air exchange capacity of a ridged field compared to a flat field, which, along with the generous additions of organic matter in the form of hardwood bark, compost, and composted poultry litter, allows for a robust, diverse, and highly functional soil microbial community. Next week I’ll write a bit more about some of what we know about the incredible interrelationships between plants and soil microbes.

Otherwise, the propagation house looks great with lots of healthy plants and many of them will be available at the barn in the coming weeks. In spite of the rain, the extended forecast looks quite promising as far as the low temperatures are concerned, and we’ve planted peppers and tomatoes in our unheated tunnels earlier than we ever have. Still, I remember the 25 degree hard freeze that we got on May 25 two years ago, so we’re far from being in the clear.

Have a great week,

-ESF Team: Ryan, Kara, K2, Cindy, Taylor, Leah, Natalie, Katie, Galen, Bryan, Vanessa, Georgia, and Hannah (and Sky and Soraya)

Savory Waffles

I know, I know… I post this recipe too often, probably once a season, but seriously, it’s a delicious staple in our home, and a great way to expand a kids’ vegetable diversity. These days, I am using mostly just rutabaga and onion for the veggies in it, with a nice healthy extra dash of fresh rosemary in the batter. Mmmm, rosemary rutabaga fritters… an excellent source of vitamin C!