Monday, June 20, 2011

FARM NEWS 6.21.11



Hi folks,
It's been really great finally starting up distributions for 2011. Thanks again for signing on with us for another vegetable adventure with your farm family Hayhurst! It was great to see many of you back at the farm this week, also good to reconnect with Joel the driver in the first of 22 weeks of deliveries to White Plains and NYC. It was a relief for me to see how able and efficient this year's farm crew is at harvest and packing/washing veg on what would otherwise be complicated and stressful harvest mornings. Our crew has been a veritable dream team; I really feel blessed this year with some great apprentices, hourlies and volunteers. It's a cheerful, smart crew of folks hell bent on becoming farmers. With these folks putting in this kind of effort, I'm motivated to do well by them as a teacher, and as a farmer. Of course, it's our goal to do well by our CSA members as well, as y'all have trusted us to do our best to provide a decent share. Thanks for your commitment!
From the field:
It's been a wet spring. I'm reminded of the wet 2009 summer, only now it's spring. So far no reports of blighted tomatoes. The wetness has hampered efforts to get some crops in on time as plowing has been delayed in some of our wetter fields. Wetness also offers weeds an opportunity to get ahead of the crops. This is because when the field is wet, it's a bad idea to drive the tractor in to cultivate in a timely way. When weeds get bigger than an inch tall, they're ten times harder to kill with a hoe or tractor cultivator. So the weed problem compounds as you miss timely cultivations. Hoeing a crop of leeks on time can take an hour. That same crop hoed a week late can take four hours. A stitch in time saves nine stitches... The good news is that we expect a dryish week. and the crops will get a nice boost from the warm weather.
Here's the approximate share:
Spinach, Lettuce Mix, Romaine Heads, Swiss Chard, Garlic Scapes, Mint, Chinese Cabbage
This weeks pics: Swiss Chard and Romaine Head Lettuce in the field.
Enjoy!
Farmer Dan

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Yum, looking forward!

Vanessa said...

Hi there! What were the greens in between the scallions and Chinese cabbage this week? I forget what the sign said and can't seem to identify them by sight alone! :)