The Final Harvest

We can't have one more week to go, there's snow on everything!!

Week 24 It's a Wrap

Hi Everybody,

As we come to the end of this year's CSA, Vicky and I want to say thank you to all of you for joining with us in making our little piece of the world a little more natural, healthier, and less dependent on industrial food. I have to say that I looked forward to seeing you every Wednesday and especially being Farmer Steve to the kids! It is so cool to see them so into all the stuff around the farm, the pool (farm pond) doesn't count. Our, what became, regular Wednesday evening happy hours weren't bad either! We hope we met your expectations. It's so interesting, in each of the three years we have done this, how different each year has been. If you like to have control of your business this is not the business for you. We are totally at the mercy of the weather, pests and disease and if you're not into farming it's impossible to realize the affect it all can have. I never did.

We're suggesting that you bring a bag or two for your produce this week, so you won't have to worry about bringing a crate back. Speaking of crates, please make sure you bring back all the crates you have. There are a few members that have two out.

Along with your regular produce in your share this week, we will have a few extra things as we harvest most everything left in the fields that we didn't lose over the wintry weekend. Some of these items will have a limited quantity so it will have to be a first come, first serve situation. I will have them on the list below.

Please email us back if you want to continue your egg delivery and for those that didn't have egg delivery let us know if you want to get on the list. We deliver every other week. Also remember we have a freezer full of chicken that is all natural, free range chicken that along with their range diet get an all vegetarian feed with no antibiotics, hormones, steroids, arsenic or animal by-products at all.

We will be harvesting Cauliflower in a week or two. If you want to drop by and grab one, it's on the house.

We want to thank the members and actually one non member, for your reviews you posted on www.localharvest.org Very nice, we appreciate it.

Let us know if you ever used any of the United Harvest Newsletter recipes. We really haven't heard anyone mention it and won't subscribe again if no one found it useful.

As far as next year, we're not sure exactly what lies ahead. There are many options that we are looking at right now, but you folks will be the first on the list to have first choice on joining next year's CSA or any off-shoot we may come up with. We have a huge waiting list for next year. I hope there's a way we can accommodate most of them as well.

I think that's all the business to take care of and now.... in your crates this week:

Carrots
Radishes
Turnips
Spicy Salad greens
Mild Salad greens
Sweet Peppers
Hot Peppers
Garlic
Kale
Chives
Basil
Green Cabbage

Limited quantities of:

Bok Choi
Napa Cabbage
Broccoli
Butternut Squash
Kabocha Squash
Butter Top Squash
Baby Eggplant

See you Wednesday (sniff sniff)

Steve and Vicky

Week 23

Hi All,

Holy Moly, next week is the last week! Can't believe it. What a weird growing season this year, but more on that next week. I just picked up rye seed that we will grow as a cover crop this year on most of our fields. I say most because we will leave the field with the lettuces, turnips, radishes and cauliflower alone and see how long the stuff will continue to grow. It's a very in depth scientific experiment....not really, we also have planted some garlic in that field for next year so we thought we will let the others veggies continue to grow and if you want any after the the CSA is done for the year, you can come over and grab some. I don't think the cauliflower will be ready for next week so that's something you may want to have. They look beautiful. Why rye for a cover crop you may ask, rye will actually germinate in very chilly weather and it's root system grows very deep, that will help with the tilth of the soil and it will add wonderfully to the organic matter in our soil when we till it in next spring. A cover crop will help with water and wind erosion during the colder months as well.

In your crates this week:

Green Cabbage
Butternut Squash
Mild Salad Mix
Spicy Salad Mix
Radishes (french breakfast and cherry belles)
Kale
Turnips
Basil
Chives
Broccoli (your choice)
Sweet Peppers
Eggplant
Yukon Gold Potatoes
Garlic

See you Wednesday!

Steve and Vicky

Week 22

Hi Everyone,

Some real nice Fall weather the last few days. It makes it nice on the farm cleaning up and bringing the season to a close when your able to be outside on days like this! Some of the frustration of this growing season continues this week with the broccoli. The broccoli is beautiful and tastes awesome, but....each head is the home to a few cabbage worms. A good way to get rid of them is to totally submerge your broccoli under heavily salted water, you may have to put a plate on it or something heavy because it will want to float, some even add some vinegar to the water. This will, at least, detach the worms from the the underside of the heads and kill most. At least they come off and you can catch them in your strainer and send them on their way. I'm going to leave it up to you whether you want to mess with this process or not. The broccoli will be here if you want it.

On the plus side, the eggplant still is coming which seems a little unusual for this time of year, peppers too! The lettuces and root veggies are doing pretty well and the hens continue to be happy! As we get close to the end of the CSA think about egg delivery and whether you will want to continue it or, if you never had delivery, if you'll want to start it.

In your crates this week:


Garlic
Eggplant
Basil
Yukon Gold Potatoes
Romaine Lettuce
Spicy Salad Mix (arugula and red mustard greens)
Sweet Peppers
Radishes
Turnips
Broccoli
Kabocha Winter Squash

See you Wednesday.

Steve and Vicky

Week 21

Howdy folks,

I was just out pulling radishes and some are the size of a banana. I couldn't remember what type they were so I came back in the house to check it out. They are a Chinese radish called Shunkyo, but the funny thing about it, the seed package said Shunkyo "semi-long"..not really.

We have got all the chickens from the back barn up in the new coop inside the front barn. They seem to like their new digs. There's been no drop in egg production at all and that usually happens when you disturb their schedule. Just a reminder that the chicken fence is close to the drive now and it's electric! (tell the truth, when you read "It's Electric" you thought of your favorite dance)

Just a reminder for you Fall soup makers, we have chicken necks, backs and feet to make your stock.

Went through all the bee hives today and there will be no Fall honey this year. A couple of hives had some excess frames of honey, but unfortunately a couple of hives didn't have enough for them to make it through the winter so I had to give them the frames full of honey. I just think that the incredibly wet end of summer didn't help.

In your crates this week:

Acorn Squash
Yukon Gold Potatoes
Spicy Salad Mix
Mild Salad Mix
Chives
Garlic
Sweet Peppers
Radishes
Turnips
Beets

See you Wednesday

Steve and Vicky

Week 20

Hi Everyone,

The temp is 47 as I write this message and sure feels like fall around the farm. A fire is in the woodstove keeping us toasty and I love smelling the smoke from the fire when we go out. We are working hard at keeping things growing, even though it refuses to stop raining. This time of year we are also trying to clean things up and get things put away so when the CSA is over on 11/2 we are ready to till and plant our cover crop and hopefully we have enough time for the seed to germinate and grab hold. We will be planting rye on the fields this year and till it back in the spring to give us some nice organic matter in the soil.

We are building another large chicken coop in the front barn so we can move the hens that are out back in the back barn up front. That way we will have all the layers together and it will make things easier for the daily chores. It will also free up some space out back for the meat chickens. It seems that the extra light we are giving the hens is working so far, egg production really hasn't dropped off as it normally would as the days get shorter.

We finally will have some salad mix for you this week. The arugula and red mustard greens should make a nice combo for a tender salad with some kick to it. The radishes this week are what we call watermelon radishes. They are greenish on the outside and red on the inside. They are actually called Red Meat.

In your crates this week:

Napa Cabbage
Radishes
Spicy Salad Mix
Spinach
Butternut Squash
Turnips
Basil
Garlic
Potatoes

See you Wednesday,

Steve and Vicky