Welcome!

Hi Everyone,

We wanted to take a moment to say welcome to all the new members of our CSA and welcome back to the CSA veterans. Our membership is full for 2011 and we’re very excited to get things going or maybe we’re excited to be done with this cold weather. We’re sure there’s much more cold weather to come, but that’s not stopping us from getting a start on the up coming season. Over the past few weeks we have been spreading plenty of “nature’s fertilizer” better known as manure, on the fields and building the PH of one field a little with wood ashes from our wood stoves. That particular field was a bit lower than the others in organic matter too, so it gets all the produce scraps that the chickens won’t eat as well. We have received most of our seed for this year and await the plants that will be shipped at our correct planting time. We are currently getting our tables and grow lights set up in the basement as our seed planting for transplants will start next weekend. That always makes us feel like Spring isn’t all that far off! Speaking of transplants, we planted about 1500 onion plants last year. Due to requests for more onions through the season, we are planting over 6000 plants this year. If any of you are interested in helping on onion planting day, the pay’s no good, but lunch will be tremendous. That will be in April and we’ll keep you posted. Also keep in mind Asparagus always comes in before the CSA start date, so we will offer up asparagus that you can come over and cut fresh or hold the bag as we cut it in mid April or so.

Please be aware of the risks involved with farming. There is no guarantee that everything we plant is going to be a success. Pests, disease, drought, etc. can be a factor and growing organically sometimes makes it a little tougher to fight the invaders.

Keep in mind everything we provide you is grown right here at the farm. Along with the produce, that includes our eggs, chicken and honey. You all have an open invitation to visit anytime and see how your food is grown. Please feel free to ask any questions any time. We’re proud to be your farmer and look forward to a fruitful season.

Steve and Vicky


P.S. Remember money due no later than 3/31

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!