Farm Update

Hi Everyone,

Things are starting to crank up here at the farm. Snow and Sugar Snap peas were planted Saturday, the garlic that was planted last fall is about six inches high and I just noticed today that a few tops of the Asparagus have made an appearance. The Asparagus will be harvested long before the CSA begins, so we will let you know when you can come over and grab a bunch. In the next few days, weather permitting, we would like to get the potatoes in, the broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, bok choy, and head lettuce plants hardened off and in the ground and start planning for the carrots, spinach, leaf lettuces, beets, turnips, onions, kale etc. We actually are leasing some extra land this year, don't worry it has either never been farmed or only farmed organically, for melons and winter squashes and organic sweet corn.

The bees had a tough winter. Our state bee inspector Cybil, has told me that the cold winter claimed 50% of the bee colonies in the state. Mainly the extremely cold December was the culprit. You always leave plenty of honey in the hives for the colony to feed on during the winter months, I found the bees in three of my four hives all dead with plenty of honey right next to them. They just couldn't move to get to it. I'm not discouraged, our one hive left is already going gang busters and I have ordered 4 boxes of bees to start another four hives. I'm sure one of the colonies will swarm and if I'm around so I can get it before they take off for wherever, that will give me the start of another hive. So we're hoping to have 6 hives this year. That's our plan and we're sticking to it. (Honey Humor)

We know that many of you have signed up for egg delivery, but for any of you who haven't and would love farm fresh free range eggs delivered to your door every other Thursday evening, just let us know how many dozen you would like and your address and you'll be good to go. The eggs are $4 delivered or you can pick them up anytime at the farm for $3.50 a dozen. The next delivery is this Thursday 3/24.

Don't forget if you haven't gotten your check in yet for your CSA membership, we have to receive it by 3/31 for you to participate this year.

Rousedale Farm
2604 Fallston Rd.
Fallston, MD 21047

See you soon!

Steve and Vicky

Farm Update

Hi Everyone,

Yesterday was such a beautiful day around the farm, it really feels like we are on our way to Spring. The day inspired us to write you a short note on what is going on around here. So after fixing the split rail zig zag fence that the high winds blew down last week, and after pruning our 30 peach trees, 4 apples, one pear and 26 grapevines, brought in the last of the firewood, and washed a bucket of eggs, we sat down late last night and composed you the update email. As we finished up we checked out the correct spelling of Brussels for Brussels sprouts and internet explorer promptly stopped working and we lost everything we had written. We try again.

We received notification that our latest batch of strawberry plants have been shipped and we will have them this week.
These will fill the strawberry patch to completion and give us around 400 plants. We won't get many berries from the new plants this year, as we will pick off most of the blossoms to strengthen the plant for better production in the future years. Strawberry plants last about 5-6 years then should be replaced for optimum production.

We attended a seminar on blueberries Saturday. We got a few tips and we hope our three year old bushes will be loaded with fruit this year. They did quite well last year for two year olds, despite a very dry June. I think we had 4 weeks of blueberries for everyone, but hope to improve on that this year.

The cole crops are doing well under the grow lights in the basement and will continue as long as we stop hitting the light switch on the wall by the door every time we leave their room. The lights are on a timer and when the light switch is turned off, it messes everything up. It's the same reflex that we all have when the power goes out and we still go around attempting to turn things on. I think a nice piece of duct tape over the switch is in order.

We have a couple of birth announcements, other then Vicky's new seedlings. CSA members Brian and Jamie Kunkel Bartell welcomed Helena Isabelle in October and Kirk and Amanda Bolen welcomed Eamon James on January 26. We're sure that both of the future farm volunteers will be having some form of Rousedale Farm produce this summer or should we say produce in some form...strained beets anyone?

To summarize:

Strawberry plants going in this week
Cole crops doing well in basement
Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, brussels sprouts etc. starting next week
Raised beds being prepped for carrots and radishes
Being a member of our CSA could cause pregnancy

Have a great week.

Steve and Vicky

Farm Update

Hi Everyone,

We wanted to let you all know that some of your vegetables have started growing!! Vicky has begun to work her magic with cauliflower, cabbage, Red Russian Kale, Bok Choy and Broccoli. It's hard to believe that these little spindly plants will grow into a major food plant in a few weeks. We start them in the sun room of the house that is right next to the wood stove, as they need warmth to bust through the soil. Then once they do they need a temperature more like 60 degrees to continue, so to the basement under the grow lights they go. Broccoli seems to be the biggest challenge of all the spring veggies. Here in Maryland it usually gets so hot so quick in the spring , just about the time the broccoli heads are ripening, they will turn bitter. The fall broccoli is great, but spring is always a question mark for us. Actually last year we tasted every single head of broccoli that was going in the CSA crates. About half made it, the other half found a home in the compost pile. At the end of last year I even made the announcement that I wasn't going to waste my time again on a spring crop of broccoli. You can see how long that lasted. What we are going to do with a lot of the spring plantings is try to get them in the ground as early as we possibly can and then use fabric row covers to protect them, warm the soil and give them a nice start. We'll see if we can get the broccoli to ripen a week or so earlier then usual. We really don't want to eat 14 pounds of broccoli again at one sitting. The after effects are murder.

Steve and Vicky

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