Week 15

Hi Everyone,

What a week..first tornado warnings, then an earthquake and then a hurricane, I'm sure California residents are feeling a bit jealous! Hurricane Irene hit the farm with a vengeance, as I'm sure it did with your places, Saturday into Sunday. We received 8 inches of rain and the high winds blew a large tree down by the back barn, sheared a fence post and collapsed part of a fence and flattened a couple of our young apple trees. Most of the crops seemed to fair pretty good, considering. Of course the summer squash was beaten down. I know someone has a summer squash voodoo doll that they're constantly stick pins in. I'm sure it's some member from last year when the summer squash was very, very prevalent...to prevalent. I know many are still without power. We usually lose power if there's a lightning flash any where in the world, but this time our power miraculously remained on.

We are combining a couple of things this week due to limited quantities because of the storm. You will either get eggplant or summer squash and you will get either a butternut squash or a Kabocha ( an orange winter squash that tastes very similar to butternut squash). We dug a few sweet potatoes just to see how they were doing and when you come Wednesday, I will show you the biggest, most beautiful sweet potato you've ever seen...it's huge! We planted the salad greens today, so we hope in about three weeks, we will get back to the delicious salads. We have 5 or 6 watermelons left..the early bird catches that worm.

In your crates this week:

Tomatoes
Beans
Winter squash
Summer squash or eggplant
Basil
Garlic
Onions
Carrots
Hot pepper assortment

We will have corn as well again this week.

See you Wednesday!

Steve and Vicky

Week 14

Hi All,

First thanks to Liz and all the farm hands for holding down the fort as we went back and forth to the ocean a couple of times last week. Driving through the eastern shore we noticed a lot of corn fields that were ruined from, I'm guessing, a lack of rain early on in the season. It breaks your heart to see something like that as that might be a farmers main crop and thus income for the year. It's not an easy living, that's for sure. I just talked to a big produce grower Sunday and they were hit by a hailstorm over the weekend in northern Harford county. They were assessing the damage, but it didn't sound good. One two minute hailstorm wiped out all our strawberries last year.

I am beside myself with our summer squash situation this year. Last year members were begging off yellow squash and zucchini as it kept coming for months. I even included squash blossoms in shares not only because they are the coolest things to stuff and deep fry or bake, but to cut down on the squash production. This year I can't get a squash plant to last beyond a couple of weeks once it matures. I've checked out everything I can think off and still not sure what's killing them off. We keep planting them so we can get at least a few. The patty pans seem to be doing a little bit better, but not much.

Another batch of our chickens head to the processor tomorrow morning and will be fresh and in the coolers through the weekend.

The fall transplants seem to be off to a pretty good start. I think we got the Chinese cabbage slaughter I talked about last week, under control.

It was such a beautiful day today, but as we walked around the farm we could start seeing signs that the season is beginning to change. The tomato plants are beginning to die off, all the onions have now been pulled from the ground, all the winter squash has been picked, and the watermelons are pretty much done. As soon as we get a few more cooler days and nights, we'll get the salad green seed back in the ground and in three or four weeks be munching on those fresh salads again. I think they always taste better in the fall.

You'll be getting another winter type squash this week, spaghetti squash. Bake it or microwave until fairly soft then take a fork and drag it across the inside of the squash. It will pull off in strands that look just like spaghetti.

We will have corn on Wednesday.

In your crates this week:

Spaghetti Squash
Green Beans
Red Onions
Tomatoes
Rainbow Belles (grape tomatoes)
Watermelon
Patty Pan Squash
Sweet Peppers
Jalapenos
Parsley

See you Wednesday!

Steve and Vicky

Week 13

Hi Everyone,

Just got back from a couple of days down the ocean and farmhands Liz, Tina, Maggie and Barbara have helped out a lot. It's a lot of work each day here with 400 chickens to take care of along with all the produce, the bees and everything else. All the Fall transplants and many seeds have been planted and received a nice shot of rain to get things started. The Chinese cabbage has been immediately inundated with flea beetles and we had to spray (organic) and cover the rows with row covers to try to save them. As the weather cools down the bug problem becomes less and less, but they're in full force now. This week you will see a little pie pumpkin in your crates. It can be used for a pumpkin pie or cut up, steamed or boiled and mashed like a winter squash for a tasty treat. We mash them and add butter, salt and pepper and a little maple syrup...very nice. The summer squash this week comes in the form of green and yellow patty pan squash. Just cut them up and use them like you would any yellow squash or zucchini.

We will have corn again this week.

In your crates for week 13 will be:

Tomatoes
Rainbow belles (cherry tomatoes)
Cucumber
Potatoes
Watermelon
Pie Pumpkin
Onions
Green Beans
Rosemary
Patty pan Squash
Hot Peppers

See you tomorrow,

Steve and Vicky

Week 12

Hi CSAer's,

Hard to believe that we find ourselves at week 12 already. We are half way through this year's CSA! DON'T FORGET THERE WILL BE A PICK UP NEXT WEEK. Jeezs, that article in the Mason Dixon Arrive magazine, that most of us get for free in our mailbox every month, really has excited a lot of folks that there is an organic farm in their neck of the woods. In the last two weeks we have seen a lot of new faces dropping by. Speaking of dropping by, the folks from MPT dropped by on Friday again. They wanted to get some shots of ripe tomatoes on the vine. Well, their timing was impeccable as we had, just minutes before their arrival, finished picking the last ripe tomato. Through the magic of television, we were able to "arrange" some of the just picked tomatoes to make it look like they were on the vine.

I know a lot of you may have been disappointed that we went through the new crop of honey so quickly, all 65 pounds sold in one day, but....I was checking the bees today and we have at least one hive that is still going gang busters, so we should have a bit more towards the end of summer.

The end of summer may be a ways off, but believe it or not this past weekend and this week we are planting many of our fall crops. We will welcome back many things we offered in the spring. Things like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, kale, lettuces, spinach, radishes etc. It's interesting that many of the lettuce and spinach seeds won't germinate until it gets a bit cooler. We attempted to keep the salad greens coming through the summer, but nothing would even start in the heat.

This week we add eggplant to the list for the first time and it may be the last time. It's weird, the eggplant plants look the best I think they have ever looked, but they aren't setting much fruit. Also with all the melons coming in now, instead of having you choose this or that, we are giving everyone a half of a honeydew, a half of a cantaloupe and a half of a watermelon. We thought giving you three whole melons in a week might be a bit much.

This week in your crates:

Tomatoes
Eggplant
Cucumbers
Beans
Squash
Honeydew
Cantaloupe
Watermelon
Basil
Garlic
Sweet peppers

We'll have corn this week as well.

See you Wednesday!

Steve and Vicky

Farm Photos 2

It's been a long day
Liz with her wagon full of heirlooms
The kids were never this heavy!
Another Rousedale Sunset a nightly treat at the farm.

Week 11

Hi Everyone,

Wait until you taste the cantaloupe. Wait until you taste the honeydews. Wait until you taste the watermelons. There really good, if I do say so myself. Along with the cantaloupes and honeydews we have two types of watermelon this week, the sugar babies and the rattlesnakes. The sugar babies are round and weigh in at around 8 pounds, the rattlesnake are the big oblong melons and one we weighed hit the scale at 25 pounds! Out of the four items, you pick two. We will have melons for at least three weeks, hopefully longer. We got a very needed bit of rain tonight, whack will help to keep the dust down this week as we clear out some garden areas and get them ready to plant the fall crops next week. Hard to believe that we are planting the fall stuff already!

Also please note.......I've decided not to go away the week of the 15th, so you will have a pick up on the 17th. I repeat...there will be a pick up on the 17th. I just couldn't bring myself to miss you guys for a week and....I couldn't bring myself to just let the veggies hang in the field for a whole week and not be around to take care of them. Vicky will go and hopefully I can join her for a couple of days. So now you get 24 weeks instead of the promised 23. 23 never sounded right to me anyway.

Great news for some, this will be the last week for beets for awhile! Also this week, you may see some yellow wax beans mixed in with your green beans and you might even have some purple string beans (that turn green when cooked) in the mix as well. Don't be frightened there all just bush beans with a similar taste.

I just heard on the news that July was the hottest month on record ever here. An average 24 hour a day temp all month of 81. A few things, that I had hoped would pull through didn't, the onions are way smaller than last year because of the heat, but all in all I think things did pretty okay considering.

We will have corn Wednesday and every Wednesday through Friday for the rest of the corn season. Remember I won't have the corn back here until 9am.

Our thanks to Vicki Franz and Rae Hamilton from the Arrive Magazine for the nice article they did on the farm in the August issue.

So to summarize.....melons yummy, fall planting soon, not missing a week of pick up, weird colored beans, July hottest ever, corn on Wednesday and beets on hiatus.

This week:

Tomatoes
Basil
Cantaloupe
Watermelon
Honeydew
Potatoes
Carrots
Onions
Swiss Chard
Beets
Beans
Hot peppers
Cucumbers

See you Wednesday

Steve and Vicky