Shares, weeks 1-5

WHEW!!! We've survived four weeks of harvesting and distribution, and we've entered week five. It's hard to believe that we're almost a quarter of the way through the CSA. We're getting a lot of positive feedback and constructive suggestions, and we've already made a number of adjustments along the way. Here's a quick recap of weeks one through five.

Week 1 was, as expected, a fairly small harvest as we're just beginning to harvest. It included some beautiful tender lettuces, kale, mizuna, radishes, spinach and rainbow Swiss chard. Some hungry deer made our sugar snap peas a bit later than expected, but everyone got a handful -- enough to nibble on the way home!

Week 2: Everyone was excited to see plentiful snow peas! They are definitely popular among our members. We also harvested our first arugula and red Russian kale. In addition, we had various lettuces, mizuna, radishes, spinach and spring onions. We swapped with another local farmer who uses a high tunnel farming technique to get some early zucchini and squash. We also started to cut some herbs and wildflowers. People with cats especially enjoyed the catnip!

Week 3 brought our first harvest of kohlrabi! It was a first-time veggie for a lot of members. Early-season greens continued; to avoid palate fatigue, we allowed members to weigh (1.75 pounds -- that's a lot of greens) their choice of greens from arugula, tatsoi, mizuna, kale and red kale. Leaf lettuce greens continued, as did snap and snow peas.

In week 4, we continued to offer a choice of greens, including arugula, tatsoi, mizuna, kale and red kale. Leaf lettuce continued, as did sugar snap peas, snow peas, kohlrabi and radishes. We also offered yellow squash, which was not harvested in time to make our picture.

Week 5 began the transition to some of our popular summer crops -- broccoli, green beans and cabbage! We also had zucchini, yellow squash and the tail end of snow peas. We had three kinds of lettuce to choose from (2 heads total). Our choices of cooking greens continued, with a choice from arugula, tatsoi, mizuna, kale, red Russian kale, and Swiss chard. Our herbs really came on this week, with several available for cutting.

Harvest Pick-up Begins Monday!

We are so excited to start harvesting! Our member pick-up begins on Monday. Here's a sneak peak of what's coming.

Kale

 

Radishes -- these are Easter Egg radishes. See how they are shaped like Easter eggs?

Lettuces will be small "baby" lettuce.

Rainbow Chard

More baby lettuces

Spinach. Use the small "baby" leaves for salads. Use the larger leaves in cooking.

Mizuna. You can use this raw or cooked.

If you haven't received your email with your pick-up dates and times, please contact us at the farm as soon as possible!

Rainy Days & Plastic

Starting the weekend with a rainy day is a little gloomy, but after a hot week our crops really needed the rain! We now have some of every kind of crop planted -- but there's still lots more planting to do. Weeding, too!

Every crop that we're planting with black plastic is now in the ground. That includes peppers, tomatoes and melons. The plastic controls weeds and also provides extra heat to the plants. Laying the plastic over a former vineyard has been a challenge -- those old vines keep getting in the way. We're glad to have this particular task behind us.

So far we're on track for our first crop distribution in mid-June.

Planting Seedlings

Purple cabbage seedling

For the past couple of weeks, we have been planting seedlings, which were started in the greenhouse. Some crops will only be planted from seedlings. For other crops, we will plant both seedlings and seeds to extend the time when they are available. The first weeks will come from plants grown from seedlings, and the following weeks will come from the plants grown from seed.

Paul and Debbie planting on the water wheel planter

If you've ever planted seedlings or small plants at home, you know that getting on your hands and knees, digging a hole and putting in the plant takes time (and is hard on your back). With more than 2,000 seedings to plant, we needed a more efficient process. That's why we invested in a used water wheel planter, which has been a godsend for planting seedlings. The water wheel, which you can see between Paul and Debbie, makes a hole and fills it with water, and then Paul and Debbie insert a plant. As the water is absorbed by the soil, it pulls the plant into the hole.

Yep, that's muddy.

Debbie says that the process is murder on a manicure, but all the leaning and twisting is giving her obliques a great workout. Maybe we could do a "get rid of your love handles" exercise class and have people help plant seedlings on the water wheel planter!

Hoeing the rows

Once the seedlings are in the ground, Paul and Debbie go down the rows with a hoe to make sure the roots are fully covered with soil.

We have planted broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Swiss chard and other plants in this manner -- more than 2,000 seedlings in all. They are coming along, but the cool weather has resulted in them growing more slowly than we had hoped. Our best estimate is that our first pick-up day will be in mid-June, but that will depend on the weather. The plants need warm weather to grow!

Planting Potatoes

Red seed potatoes.

You may be surprised to see what a potato seed looks like. It looks like a potato, because it is one! That's a couple of red seed potatoes above.

Lorie, one of our cutting machines.

To prepare the potatoes for planting, we needed to cut the red potatoes into two to three smaller pieces. Each piece needed an eye, which is like a raised spot. In larger farms, there's a machine that does the cutting, but we're small so our cutting machines were Lorie and Tracy! (That's Lorie, left.)

Last week, we got all of our potatoes in the ground. We planted three varieties. The red potatoes are shown above. We also planted Lehighs, which are a yellow color and are especially good for boiling, like salt potatoes,. We also planted Adirondack Blues, which are bright blue all the way through the potato. If you have a mandoline, you'll be able to cut them thin to make blue potato chips! Or put all of the varieties together to make a beautiful red, white and blue potato salad!

Red potatoes, ready for planting.

This is just the red potatoes, drying overnight before planting. All in all, the potatoes took up four rows, each row about 750 feet long. That's a lot of potatoes! We planted plenty because everyone seems to love potatoes and they are especially delicious fresh from the ground

Plowing Time

We have owned our vineyard property for just over a month, and we've started plowing! In the Rochester area, mid-April is very early to start plowing -- we are so happy and thankful for the weather we've had.

The first step in tilling the soil is using a mold board plow, shown here. The curved blades actually roll the soil over.

This plowing takes everything growing on top of the soil -- grass and weeds -- and turns it underneath the soil. In time, those grass and weeds will die and provide organic matter to the soil. This is a good farming practice that we do annually.

The next step is using a disc, which cuts up clods and roots, again facilitating organic matter returning to the soil. It also helps level the soil. We can sometimes skip this step, but it is needed this year because remnants of the grapevines remain in the soil. We still have one more step before we plant -- using a drag tooth harrow for final tillage and leveling the soil to prepare a nice seed bed.

Today we plowed a total of 1 1/2 acres, giving us a good start on the season. We hope this good weather continues!

Vineyard, Week Three

In almost three weeks, we've made a lot of progress on our new property. It's looking less and less like an overgrown vineyard, and more like a farm where CSA vegetables, fruits and flowers will grow.

Don, Paige and Bill Wickham, together with other workers and family members, have reeled in rows and rows of wire that supported grapevines.

  Many posts have been pulled out of the ground. (If you need posts, we've got lots for sale!)

 We estimate we'll eventually have to remove 20,000 posts in all.

 We now have row after row of unsupported grapevines that have to be pulled out of the ground.

We have retained and pruned 10 rows of Concord grapevines, which will provide our CSA members with a chance to pick Concord grapes, which are usually used in jellies and jams.

 We've gathered samples of our soil, which are headed to the Cornell Nutrient Analysis Lab. The information we get from the lab will help us understand the quality of the soil and what nutrients we need to add to grow healthy crops.