Farm Update

What's happening down on the farm! I have good news!!  We will have fresh chicken in the house Thursday afternoon through Sunday and again next Thursday through Sunday.(5/29-6/1).  This means that chicken CSA members will be able to grab there June chicken a little earlier than expected if you would like it fresh as opposed to frozen.  There will be more fresh chicken later during the month of June, if you would rather wait.  For those of you that are not chicken CSA members, remember you don't have to be a CSA member to enjoy our chicken.  These chickens will all be whole chickens, not in pieces. On the veggie front...everything is in the ground. Of course all the early stuff is plodding along.  In the last week we planted green beans, tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, winter squash, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, watermelons (and yes Rhoda, I planted your orange watermelon seed you snuck into our market) We have asparagus available everyday and by this weekend we should have radishes, spring onions, rhubarb and a few strawberries. Melanie at Putnam Hill Nursery, which is right down the road from us, asked if any of our customers might be interested in any herb plants. We have beautiful sweet basil, Italian oregano, french tarragon, Siam queen Thai basil and spicy globe basil plants. They are $4 per plant and really look good. We have found ourselves with a multitude of double yolkers.  Huge eggs that have double yolks.  It's like getting two dozen eggs in 12 egg packages.  You'll have to ask for them, as they are not in the egg cooler.  They require special Godzilla sized packaging.

Locally Yours, Vicky and Steve

Farm Update

What's happening down on the farm! Just a quick reminder of our planting workshops. Tonight at 6:30 and Sunday at 3. We'll talk about planting all the summer veggies in your garden or containers. Also Veggie plants are still available: tomatoes, melons, squash, cucumbers, peppers.  All organic plants.  Squashes and cukes are .50 cents. Tomato and peppers .75 cents and melon plants $1.00. If you're attending the workshop bring old shoes, notepad and chair if you want to.  Should last about an hour. We're off to plant!

Locally Yours, Vicky and Steve

Farm Update

What's happening down on the farm! Thank goodness we made out a bit better than I would have imagined after watching a literal river wash across the farm last week with the rain.  We ended up with 5.33 inches.  A few things were washed away, but not too bad.  The frustration at the moment is that everything seems to be growing so slowly.  Even the asparagus, that can grow three inches or more a day, just doesn't seem to have the old get up and grow.  Cold and wet slows things down.  Speaking of asparagus, we continue to have some available. It disappears in a hurry. So you may want to call first if you're making a special asparagus trip. There are a lot of blossoms on the strawberry plants and we think the blueberry bushes look the best they have looked maybe ever!  We've learned not to get to over confident, however, in this business. Our mantra is "we'll see what happens." We will have organic veggie plants available beginning Wednesday.  I will list what we have at the end of the newsletter. Vicky will be holding her planting clinics on Thursday evening at 6:30 and Mother's Day Sunday at 3.  Shoot us an email if you think you may attend, just to give us a rough idea. She says we will be going out in the field for demonstrations.  Make sure you bring old shoes, a chair if you like, note paper and pen.  She's threatening a pop quiz at the end of the clinic. I'm trying to talk her into a glass of wine instead of the pop quiz.  "We'll see what happens." We'll be talking about growing tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squash, melons and whatever else you may want to discuss like the Orioles or where my hair went. I would guess it should last about an hour.  This is a free event. I had a crazy idea a few weeks ago, to add some art work on our bee hives.  Everybody has the same old white hives.  There is a logical reason to have the hives painted white.  White keeps the hives a bit cooler in the hot summer months.  We're bucking the trend a bit and asked our multi-talented farmhand Ginny if she could add a little pizzaz to the hives.  They are looking great!  I'll put some pictures up on our facebook page in the next couple of days. Self serve eggs 7 days a week.  Market hours 10-7 Tuesday-Sunday.  Local raw honey is available during market hours.  We are sold out of chicken at the moment, but will be restocked in about 4 weeks. Plants available: Tomatoes...celebrity, big beef, Cherokee purple, Brandywine and San Marzano Peppers...red knight, California wonder, Hungarian hot wax Summer Squash...multipik yellow and Raven Zucchini Cucumber...marketmore Melons...athena and ambosia canteloupe. Crimson sweet and sugar baby watermelon Cucumber and squash plants .50 each Tomato and pepper .75 each Melons $1.00 each These are all organically grown plants.

Locally Yours, Vicky and Steve

Farm Update

What's happening down on the farm! Can't get much done today as I've begun work on the ark. Vicky keeps asking when Russell Crowe is expected. We have close to four inches now and it's still coming. We are getting some flooding in some of the freshly planted fields. We'll have to assess the damage if it ever stops. We do have asparagus now available. We ate some two nights ago and it's very good. Egg delivery is tomorrow night. Email us if you would like delivery. Check out our face book page for some scary, watery pictures around the farm. Self serve eggs 7 days a week. Market hours 10-7 Tuesday-Sunday.

Locally Yours, Vicky and Steve

Farm Update

What's happening down on the farm! You're probably wondering what happened to the asparagus? Well the initial spears were fantastically frozen and subsequently killed after a cold night a week or so ago. It is coming on again and we should have some available next week. If you have never had really fresh asparagus, you have never had true asparagus. And I don't mean the allegedly fresh grocery store asparagus that was shipped in from Asparagastan. The lettuces, chard, spinach, snap peas, kale, potatoes, beets, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, garlic, strawberries, blueberries, Chinese cabbage are all planted and beginning to show some promise. Most of our herbs are planted. Most things may start producing a little later than usual this year, but baring some polar vortex typhoon hailathon, we should be close We feel we are still on track for the CSA to start on 6/4. The chicken CSA also is on track to start that week as well. We now have jumbo eggs along with our normal large/extra large eggs. The jumbos are fifty cents more at $4.50 a dozen at the farm. Many have signed up for egg delivery. Our next delivery is May 1. Please let us know if you would like delivery. Our honey sales have been off the charts the last couple of weeks. We have a new stock of Cybee's honey bears. We also have bulk honey if you're looking for a bit more than a 12oz bear. Please bring your own container to be filled. Any type of jar will work. I know a lot of folks have come in for honey because of allergy problems. A lot feel that eating local raw honey helps their allergy problems. I went to to the dump today. I confronted the dumpster I jumped into those few weeks ago. I wasn't ready. I'll be seeing my therapist tomorrow. (For you new readers, I won't go into the whole story. Let's just say I had a near death experience at the dump) Self serve eggs 7 days a week. Market hours 10-7 Tuesday-Sunday.

Locally Yours, Vicky and Steve

What's happening down on the farm and egg delivery is back! Are you kidding me?!?!  How can it go from 80 to 20 in little more than 24 hours.  Not only that, I just came in from outside and there's snow on the ground and we have blowing heavy snow at the moment. You know how you feel with such drastic temperature extremes?  Our plants feel the same. With the prediction of freezing temps tonight, I went out to put covers on the plants we have in the field.  That was interesting in 30 mph winds.  Then tonight I went out to check to see if the covers were still holding and found a half inch of wet snow weighing them down onto the plants. It was tough to figure out what to do. On the one hand the plants were covered from the frost, but the covers were now soaking wet from the almost two inches of rain today and weighed down with a half inch of wet snow and falling on the plants.  I decided to just pull them off. I was sure I heard a cabbage plant whisper,"thank you."   The good news is that the asparagus has started!  We will let you know when it's really taking off.  Congrats to Cindy Martin Keefer our "When will the asparagus show it's face" winner.  Wear that Rousedale Farm t-shirt proudly Cindy. We hope to get the seed potatoes in the ground, maybe by the end of the week.  We have more onions to plant too.  Since it's been pretty wet, Vicky has taken some of the seed I was going to sow directly and started them in the house.  Hopefully that will help us stay on schedule and we'll just pop them in the ground when we can.  I do have to say that the strawberries are doing much better than I thought they would after the frigid winter.  Hopefully they continue so we can have some nice fresh, sweet berries by the end of May. Don't worry, I, hopefully,  have the berry loving raccoons under control.  Remember last year when the masked marauders ate every single strawberry we had before I realized what the heck was going on? We will begin our egg delivery this Thursday evening 4/17, and then deliver on the first and fifteenth of every month.  Our Rousedale Farm eggs delivered right to your door!  Delivery will be $4.25 per dozen. Usually I will head out from the farm around 6pm, Figure on sometime between 6 and 9.  Once the route gets established your delivery should be about the same time every other week.  If you're interested in egg delivery, email us and let us know: 1..How many dozen you would like (you can always change the amount) 2..You're address 3..If you won't be home, where the eggs should be left and where the money will be.  Just to give you some ideas, customers in the past have left their egg money: Under the mat In a shrub In the mailbox Stuffed in the gutter pipe Under the garden hummels hat In the beavers teeth Taped to the belly of a rabid dog One giant step to the right from the front door, then 3 steps to the sprinkler, make a three quarter turn and hop six times to the only solar light that still works, one step to the left, turn the sun dial to the 3 o'clock position, a hinged door on the sun dial pedestal will open and the money will be there. etc....

Locally Yours, Vicky and Stev

What's happening on the farm! We are finally getting a few things in the ground. We have planted over 1500 sweet onions. The broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage plants are in the ground. Swiss chard and kale plants are in. Snap peas are in, along with the radishes, turnips and carrots. We're hoping to have the leaf lettuces, spinach, Chinese cabbage, beets and spring onions in by the end of the weekend. Still haven't seen any sign of the asparagus yet. Asparagus is a perennial so it will show when it's ready. If you want to join in on our Facebook asparagus contest, simply email us the date you think the asparagus will first show it's face and win the coveted Rousedale Farm t-shirt! The new egg layer hens are adding many eggs to the daily egg count. We have an abundance of eggs which are available every day all day. Our beekeeper friend Cybil has replenished our honey supply with more of her Cybee's raw local honey. We are doing bulk honey, so make sure you bring a container to take home some of this delicious sweetness. We will be getting our first 100 broiler chicks next week, so if the kids want to see some baby chicks, the next couple weeks would work. Along with the normal weather challenges, we have spent a lot of time chasing chickens out of the freshly planted beds and rows. Just one rogue chicken can raise havoc eating seeds, plants and kicking seeds everywhere except the row they were planted in. If you want to get in shape real fast spend some time each day trying to catch a chicken. Hey, I think we just came up with the new, hottest exercise craze. I can hear it now," Sally, you look great! Have you been chasing chicken?" Spring plants are sold out. Vicky will have her planting seminar with the arrival of the summer organic plants in early May.

Locally Yours, Vicky and Steve