12th Week of the Spring CSA season: Week of May 17th

May 13

*Galen, Taylor, and K2 harvesting scallions and spinach, photo by Adam Ford*

This Week’s Availability

Woohoo, baby lettuce and mesclun mix are back!

This week we will have red radish bunches, green curly kale, baby lettuce, mescun mix, pea shoots, rhubarb, scallions, green garlic, baby chard, red beets, chioggia beets, carrots, onions, daikon radishes, watermelon radish, and yellow potatoes.

Green garlic are like garlic flavored scallions. Use the entire plants: the green and white parts.

*carrots, onions, and beets are sourced from Juniper Hill Farm, also certified organic

Click here to order your veggies for a delivered bag

Ordering closes at noon on Tuesdays for Wednesday bags, and at midnight on Wednesdays for Friday bags.

You do not need to fill out the form if you plan to come to the barn on Wednesdays or Thursdays to pick out your items yourself.

CSA pickup and delivery days and times

dandelions are one of our biggest field weed…. I love dandelions for many reasons, and treasure their beautiful pops of color in our lawn, but they do make a tenacious mess in our veggie fields, photo by Adam Ford

*we manage weeds by solarizing the fields to kill weeds before planting… with dandelions, then we have to fork them all out to get rid of those fantastic tap roots, photo by Adam Ford*

Farm News

One tiny little miracle we found on the farm this week was a cute little bird’s nest with a single egg in it deep under the tall ground around some fruit trees. The first miracle is that it wasn’t harmed when we mowed right over it. The second miracle is that it hasn’t scared mama bird away because as of this writing, there are now 3 eggs in the nest. We are being careful to keep it safe and undisturbed, but it does make me want to never mow grass again since there could have been a different outcome.

This week Ryan and I met with Clover, the artist our farm was paired with for the Climate Farmer Stories grant program we are a part of this year. It will be really cool to see what art they create after visiting the farm, and getting to know a little bit about how this place hums. The purpose of this grant program is to better message to the world how farming is climate work, and the art created for last year’s cohort is gorgeous.

This week we finished transplanting the onions and shallots, and the team also got chard, fennel, and broccolini transplanted. This time of year is marked by moving row cover off and on strawberry beds for every frosty night. They need to be uncovered during the day for several reasons, most importantly to make sure the blossoms get pollinated. And they need to be covered at night, because we have had a few frosts these days, and those tender blossoms can’t get frosted.

Bryan and Cindy finished repairing the ramp into the barn. They found quite a bit of rot at the sill when they pulled the old ramp off, probably due to how we keep that sliding door open in all sorts of weather so we can all come and go, so we got all that taken out, replaced, and we will extend the barn roof a bit to prevent that problem in the future. That is the nature of projects though, right? Set out to fix one thing, and finish up by fixing 3, ha! Bryan is moving right along to the next improvement project on our wish list, which is a better enclosed space for trash and recycling. It’s fun to see all these improvements coming to life this spring.

Next week we will transplant out the zucchini, and cover it with enough row cover for the rest of the cool nights we can get through May. We’ll hope to also transplant leeks, the second round of tomatoes, and the earliest peppers that will go in a high tunnel. And we hope to get the pea trellis setup next week to stay ahead of their growth.

Have a great week,

ESF Team: Ryan, Kara, Galen, Taylor, Cindy, Katie, K2, Vanessa, Bryan, Molly (and Sky and Soraya)