CSA- Week Two

   On to the second week of 2014 CSA shares, and still no rain. Everyone might consider doing a rain dance for us and other CNY farmers. While we can irrigate, it is a tedious job laying the pipes, and checking for leaks throughout the day, so some good old fashioned rain would be very much appreciated. 

    Work share members may start contacting us about coming in to start putting in hours. There are many weeds to be pulled and other tasks. If you are interested in simply volunteering, let us know as well. 

     While harvesting has started full tilt, planting has not ended yet. Celery, winter squash, pumpkins and seedings of greens are still in progress. Leeks and kohlrabi are awaiting transplanting for fall harvest, and our hot peppers are almost ready to go in the ground. We've also been busy planting cover crops and pollinator friendly flower varieties. Soon when you drive by the farm there will be stands of Sunflowers greeting you as you get off the highway! 

    Gavy, Adonia, and Freyja have been enjoying helping out on Sundays with mom and dad, transplanting on the waterwheel. They are pretty darned good at it too! 

    

Gavy and Adonia transplanting winter squash on the water wheel Sunday. What troopers they are!

 

Many of our greens were a bit stunted by the dryness and are finally catching back up, so we hope to be giving more variety in coming weeks, including garlic scapes next week. Some small shares will get rhubarb this week, and we hope to get everyone rhubarb next week. Some of our broccoli is bulking up, but so sporadically, I'm not certain you'll get it in shares just yet.

Potatoes are popping through the soil, and the new asparagus beds are tall with ferns, waving in the breeze. Blueberries and wild bramble bushes (blackberries, logan berries, raspberries) are all loaded with blossoms and beginnings of fruit. Tomatoes are blossoming and starting to fruit and will need to trellised very soon.  Garlic is about waist tall and setting scapes to harvested very soon! 

We will be offering a few varieties of medicinal herbs this season too, including, chamomile, lavender, and  holy basil. If you are interested in any of these either in your share or in bulk for making teas or tinctures, let us know. 

 We're also planning to get strawberries from Gingerich Farms in the coming weeks. These are NOFA certified organic strawberries from a small family farm in Williamstown. I have dealt with them over the years through Grindstone and am happy to continue doing business with them for some of the great crops they grow that we don't, such as strawberries, yams, and Joseph's infamous cabbages. Last spring's strawberries across CNY were quite bland due to too much rain, so ideally this season's should be sweet and firm. 

We will be starting a new Farmer's Market in Franklyn Park in Rome next week, Wednesdays from 2-7. It is a beautiful historic park near Fort Stanwix, and we hope that it will be a success. New markets are tough to get off the ground, but I feel the demand is there for it to grow. It is a bit of a hike to get to, mostly because there is no direct route on highways, and is the same distance from the farm as Syracuse is. So if you have friends or family in the Rome area interested in organic produce, send them our way

This week's harvest will include  the following:
kale, swiss chard, baby pac choi, lettuce, scallions, radishes, and Grindstone Farm's asparagus and  spinach or arugula.

I won't be sharing any specific recipes for this week as many wonderful ones were shared by members in last week's comment section, using many of the same crops we will be harvesting this week. If you ever have any questions about what something is in your share, or what to do with it, just ask; either myself or another member would be happy to help. 

Last week's CSA swiss chard