Week 24 The Final Countdown and Thank You!

Hi Everyone,

Hard to believe, but this is our last week of the 2010 CSA. It's been an incredibly interesting season full of a lot of smiles, challenges and many learning experiences. I think if we had to pick one thing that really opened our eyes about farming this year, it would be how thoroughly dependent we are on the weather. I know I have written before on all the various trials we faced because of hail, drought, heat and flood, but it was consistently amazing to us what pawns we are to the big picture. We were also constantly surprised by how crops would struggle through and would almost hibernate until a favorable weather factor would arrive and off they would grow. Most importantly, we want to thank all of you for having the faith and trust in us to supply you with much of your food supply. We have never taken that lightly and never will.

We will send out a short survey in the next couple of weeks that I hope you will take a couple of minutes to fill out. It will help us make our CSA better in the future. We hope to see you all next year, but if we don't, thank you again and have a wonderful fall and winter.

In your crates this week:

Rousedale Farm Chicken
Salad Mix
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Cabbage
Turnips
Kale
Peppers
Rosemary
Kohlrabi
Snow Peas
Butternut Squash

Just a reminder we will continue to have eggs and chicken year round. Honey is sold out until next Summer.

Vicky and Steve

Week 23 and covering the crops

Hi All,

Things are really winding down on the farm now. We have been cleaning things up around the fall crops that are still in the ground. This past week, taking out the tomato stakes and cages ended up in a tremendous pile of stakes and stacks of cages. Looking at them all reminded us of the work that went into starting the seedlings last spring, transplanting them in the ground in May, putting in the cages, staking the cages and wiring them together in June, mulching them all, watering the plants during the dry times of June and July, harvesting in July, August and September, and now, in October,the clean up and tilling the soil so it looks like nothing was ever there...... a lot of work, but they sure were good!

Thursday My Dad and his wife Joyce were visiting. We were talking in the kitchen when I looked at the outside temperature gauge at about 11pm and it read 39 degrees. I immediately panicked that a frost was on it's way, but decided to wait another hour to see what the temperature did. We are in a little "dale" so some of our planted areas do get frost, when higher areas may not. At midnight it was 37. At 12:30 it was 36. I hated to, but I told Vicky we had better get up to the front barn, grab the row covers and get the lettuces and peppers covered. So under the light of the full moon, we trudged to the barn, grabbed the covers and headed for the crops. We were back inside by 1am, the temperature was 35.6. I was up at dawn to see how far the temperature had fallen and it had fallen to......44! Apparently preparing our crops for the first frost had shot the temperature up to spring like conditions! Unbelievable. All the covers were out and crops were covered the next night and we had our first frost of the year on Friday.

In your crates this week:

Butternut Squash
Mild Lettuce
Spicy Lettuce
Swiss Chard
Basil
Turnips
Acorn Squash
Pumpkin

Enjoy, there's only one more week.

Vicky and Steve

Week 22 and the winners of the coveted Napa Cabbage

Hi Farm Friends,

Before we announce the winners of the cabbage lottery, a word of warning. If you have won a Napa Cabbage and have Korean friends, watch them very closely. With the shortage of the cabbage in their native country, they may be willing to chance the loss of your friendship and snatch your cabbage. Please be careful.

The winners of the cabbage lottery are:

#1 Mel and Keith
#3 Rohini and David
#4 Tina
#5 Clara and Co.
#6 Jeni, Harold et al
#8 Nan and Jim
#9 Catherine
#10 Tracy
#13 Barbara and John
#14 Susan and Jerome
#15 Tina and Tom
#18 Amanda and Kirk

Congratulations to one and all!

In your boxes this week:


Cabbage
Hot Peppers
Potatoes
Carrots
Broccoli
Turnips
Tomatoes
Parsley
Kale
Garlic

Thank you,

Vicky and Steve

Rain

Right oh yea

Week 22 and the cabbage lottery preview

Hi Everyone,

Week 21 finds the fall produce coming into it's own. It's just my opinion, but when you plant the same thing in the spring and then in the fall, the fall stuff just seems to taste better. One of the bonuses in the fall is that the bugs are about gone for the year. I pulled up a few turnips today, just to see how they were doing, and they looked beautiful. Maybe that's a little strong language to described a turnip, okay, it looked better then it's spring counterpart. This week you'll be getting a pumpkin that should be large enough for use as a jack o lantern, if you would rather display it than eat it.

Vicky came in the other day and asked me if I had heard about the Kim Chi shortage in South Korea. I hadn't. Apparently Kim Chi is a side dish that most Koreans eat with every meal. It's mostly made up of Napa Cabbage and due to weird weather in Korea this year, the Napa Cabbage crop has been the pits. Usually Kim Chi is a free addition to any restaurant meal, much like bread is here. Well, it's not a freebie anymore, because Napa Cabbage is going for upwards to $14 per head! Guess what? We, somehow, got a few Napa Cabbage plants mixed in with our other cabbages we planted and it should be ready for week 22. There's only 7 or 8 of them in the field. So we figured that it was so rare this year, everyone just couldn't wait to get their hands on a Napa Cabbage. We don't have enough to go around, so next week all of your crate numbers go into a hat and we will conduct a cabbage lottery. More on the lottery rules and regulations after the farm lawyers have figured out the do's and don'ts when it comes to a cabbage lottery next week. Wow, now that's excitement!!

In your crates this week;

Broccoli
Pumpkin
Radishes
Peppers
Kale
Eggplant
Butternut Squash


Vicky and Steve

9.3 Inches of Rain!

2010 Flood

Week 20-Rain

Hi All,

Remember when I asked you all to do what ever you could to bring us some rain? Well, stop it.....really. 9.3 inches Thursday along with 2.5 Sunday, Monday and Tuesday for a grand total of 11.8 inches should do us just fine for a while. Actually Thursday was pretty scary around the farm. I've never seen anything like it. I will upload some pictures to the web site in the next couple of days. Flooding and run off that was devastating. Our small run off creek was over it's banks with fast moving water and wiped out the chicken fence at the front barn. Along with the fence numerous chickens were swept away. I was watching as the water made it's way under the bee hives, expecting to see them tip over and go, but thank God they remained. The lower garden was totally under water for most of the day with the strong current wiping out one of the raised beds that was full of lettuce and carrots. The erosion to the fields that were laying fallow was unbelievable and water was rushing through the front barn like a river. We have 300 strawberry plants waiting to go in the ground, but it's still way to wet to plant. The garlic will go in Columbus Day, we're hopeful it will be dry enough by then to plant that. As I came in from checking everything Thursday I said to VIcky,"OK we've had hail, drought, the hottest summer on record and now a flood, when's the earthquake expected!" I don't know how, but stuff keeps growing. This week in your crates you'll find:

Butternut Squash
Tomatoes
Carrots
Radishes
Mild Lettuce
Spicy Lettuce
Summer Squash
Rosemary
Eggplant
Peppers

Also, we want to thank John and Susan, the innkeepers of the Van Diver Inn in Havre De Grace for putting on a delicious farm to table dinner this past Saturday night. All the stations at the Inn's outside pavilion were dishes made from local products. We contributed Chicken, Butternut Squash and Swiss Chard and Susan turned these ingredients into incredible dishes. All the dishes were paired with organic wine from Bonterra. More on the dinner and other contributors on another post on the web site.

Have a great week.

Vicky and Steve