Dear Friends and Members of B & H Organic Produce,
This season has begun as quite a roller coaster of weather. I learned many years ago to quit complaining about the weather because it makes no difference anyway. I feel so grateful to wake up everyday and be able to spend the day outside. And on those 100-degree days I smile and remember January.
We have finally moved through our 2-week delay of produce. We all stood around begging the plants to grow, grow, and grow. And after last week’s 2 inches of rain and plenty of sunshine they grew. I am at the farm everyday but it seemed like Monday morning everything had doubled from Sunday.
Now we have bigger things to pray for…Weeds to grow slower than the vegetables. Fat chance. This is just the same as complaining about the weather. Will I ever learn?
Weeds are our biggest labor expense and challenge at the farm. Although, I have a hardworking staff we still can’t seem to keep up with the weeds. This year we implemented quite a few new tools and techniques to give us an upper hand.
First of all, I am proud to say that Paul has really got our cultivating tractor, Rosie, humming. The cultivating tractor is a tractor with many hoes on the bottom. I can drive this through the field and weed enough in 2 minutes to replace 4 people working for ½ hour. This is big improvement.
We are using quite a bit of woven ground cover to plant into. Many farms plant into plastic. It is what has made produce affordable. It keeps weeds down and gives summer crops a jump on the season. I have avoided using the plastic because well, it is plastic. Most farmer’s use a plastic which cannot be reused or recycled and ends up in the landfill. Our woven fabric mulch is about 5 times the price but we can reuse it year after year after year.
And last but not least cover cropping. I know many of you have heard me say we were taking a field out of production to put it in cover crops. What are cover crops? They are crops such as rye, oats, or peas grown simply to cover the soil and prevent erosion and build up humus. The crops are grown until they create ample mass and then are tilled into the soil, feeding the microorganisms a green food. Kind of like a green smoothie for the worms. Most of field one was planted with oats this week. So the brilliant green lawn you will see behind the store will actually be our “cover crop.”
A little note about the harvest list in the weekly emails. It is really hard to make. It is amazing how much the garden changes between Friday and Tuesday, especially this time of year. I try my best. I will admit that there are often items harvested and put into boxes on Wednesday that were not on the list on Friday. It is not an easy job and has not gotten easier over the past 10 years. I do my best and try really hard to make sure your boxes are balanced and not the same from week to week. Also, the quantities will certainly increase. A few items such as carrots, cucumbers and squash will increase in amounts. For now I just wanted to vary the boxes.
Volunteer hours. We had our first volunteers this week. And they worked very hard. We could not have gotten the planting done today without them. Thank you very much. It led me to understand that Tuesdays and Fridays are not the only days we could accept volunteers. I will open the volunteering to Monday through Friday from 7 am till 4 pm. We will be offering Saturday hours soon and certainly in the fall. In the fall we will need lots of help to bring in the storage crops. Any help at any time is wonderful. Stay tuned for Saturday hours opening.
Any member out there computer savvy? I need help figuring out how to create members as subscribers to our blogs. I thought this would be simpler. Please let me know if you can help. This would certainly count towards your hours.
Thank you all so much and have a super week,
Erica
Harvest list for this week:
- carrots
- salad mix
- beets
- arugula
- radicchio
- squash
- cucumbers
- lettuce
- kale
- chard
- basil
- cold summer squash soup with basil: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/curtis-aikens/summer-squash-soup-with-basil-recipe/index.html
- homemade spelt pizza with a sun-dried tomato and broccoli pesto, sauteed squash and onions.
- Butterhead lettuce salad with radishes and a homemade fresh herb ranch dressing.
- Swiss Chard Tart: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2010/10/swiss-chard-tart-recipe-tourte-de-blettes/ This will knock your socks off. It is not what you would think in either flavor or texture. You will look at swiss chard differently.
Thank you all so much and have a super week,
Erica
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