Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
The eggs are coming! The eggs are coming!
I received notice from my friend, Chris, that the 31 hens he bought in the early spring in hopes to have them begin to lay eggs for us in July have indeed laid some eggs. Today he gathered 17 eggs. Yeterday he gathered 6. Some of those may be smaller eggs (also known as pullet eggs), and some may be medium or large eggs. I am not sure if we will have eggs to purchase on Thursday, but I suppose it is time for me to gather the final information on the egg shares from him and pass it on to you. (Chris was nervous about offereing egg shares in case the hens never laid any eggs). I will verify his plans for offering all of us eggs and then let you know the details like price per dozen and how to get them during your pick up time.
In case you are wondering about how these hens have been raised, they roam the great outdoors during the day and are put inside a coop at night (to protect them from predators). They are fed a natural feed, but it is not certified organic. They are not given antibiotics to prevent them from getting sick. (They don't need it since they can graze on pasture as they like and get plenty of fresh outside air.) They are a sturdy breed of hen that has been around for a while, and has not been terribly overbred in order to get maximum laying production out of each bird. Chris describes his hen keeping as "the way they were raised 100 years ago". If you have any questions post a comment, and once I know the answer I will post one back. Or send me an email.
In case you are wondering about how these hens have been raised, they roam the great outdoors during the day and are put inside a coop at night (to protect them from predators). They are fed a natural feed, but it is not certified organic. They are not given antibiotics to prevent them from getting sick. (They don't need it since they can graze on pasture as they like and get plenty of fresh outside air.) They are a sturdy breed of hen that has been around for a while, and has not been terribly overbred in order to get maximum laying production out of each bird. Chris describes his hen keeping as "the way they were raised 100 years ago". If you have any questions post a comment, and once I know the answer I will post one back. Or send me an email.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
So many things...
I feel like I owe you all an apology for not posting snippets more frequently. I will do some research this week to learn how to easily post from my Blackberry whenever I get a chance. Having to sit down in front of my computer to post with only peace and quiet to keep me going, has resulted in my falling asleep everytime. When the sun is up, I can't possibly devote time to do only computer work. I might be able to work on a post while I whip up dinner or wait for Ethan to find the right way to put his shirt on (he can do it himself!).
Some of you might have heard about the late blight that is afflicting tomatoes and could wipe out potato crops across the east coast. It has been the topic of a few articles in the Patriot and Lancaster Farming. For a few days we were panicked, I must admit. We are banking on lots of tomatoes, and we planted our potatoes late to avoid intense pressure from the potato bugs we had last year. Late blight this early could devstate our potato crop. Luckily we haven't seen any signs of late blight on our farm. We do, however, have septoria leaf spot which is not as fatal to tomato plants as late blight. We might be helped out by the recent string of dry days and warmer nights. This change in the weather pattern, while not great for lawns or gardens, does lessen the conditions at which spores will thrive. We might be out of the woods. Time will tell. I will keep you updated.
A quick beet update: We started them in our greenhouse early this spring, transplanted them out between rain storms, and they are growing pretty well in our field. We also sowed some beet seeds for fall directly in the beet bed, and they are popping up. Each beet seed is actually 6 or so seeds in a cluster, and we must pull out the weaker plants in each cluster so the strongest plant has room to make a beet root. We will be thinning them over the next month and will include them in our shares as they are ready.
Oh the beans! Two weeks ago Andy finally got an opportunity to cultivate the string beans with our little Farmall Cub. The ground had dried enough to accept a tractor without packing too hard. The grass was high, but needed to be controlled ASAP and nothing is faster than tractor cultivation. The first two rows went beautifully. The weeds came free from the plants and exposed bare earth between the rows to make picking easier. The next six rows didn't go as well as the first two, and there were a few sections of sweet potato vine that got wrapped around the cultivator tines and wiped out rather large swwaths of bean plants. Andy was furious at himself for trying to help us control weeds quickly. The next day when she saw it, Mom cried. She was really bummed. We quickly readied another plot of land, and planted some extra seeds. Since then we noticed that our first planting of beans has recovered pretty nicely. It is not all that we intended, so the second planting will be nice. We should be able to have enough beans to preserve some along the way. We have a total of 3,200 feet of bean plants. That is alot of bean picking.
Oh to have a zuchinni... Last season we struggled to get summer squash to grow. We thought there was something wrong with our nutrient management program, and we even called the county extension agent to check out our plants. He recommended a few things, and we made some significant investments in soil amendments with the assumption that we would see a return on our investment this year. When we were a smaller CSA we grew our squash in the soil that we had always used and maintained. Now that we are trying to be large enough for the CSA to cover all of the costs of running a farm with one full-time employee, we have moved our squash patch to a larger area. That field is new to us, and it seems to deter summer squash. We have decided to continue to grow what plants we have up there, but we are putting some plants in the plot that we used to use for our personal garden. Next year we will move our vegetable production to the low lying section of our soil that is the most fertile. We had hoped that we would get better production out of the 3 acres that we are currently using. We think that land may be better utilized by planting fruit trees, blueberries, or raspberries, and possibly introducing some grazing animals and laying hens. Any preferences?
Also if you haven't seen Food Inc., I recommend it. Links to more info about it can be found here.
Some of you might have heard about the late blight that is afflicting tomatoes and could wipe out potato crops across the east coast. It has been the topic of a few articles in the Patriot and Lancaster Farming. For a few days we were panicked, I must admit. We are banking on lots of tomatoes, and we planted our potatoes late to avoid intense pressure from the potato bugs we had last year. Late blight this early could devstate our potato crop. Luckily we haven't seen any signs of late blight on our farm. We do, however, have septoria leaf spot which is not as fatal to tomato plants as late blight. We might be helped out by the recent string of dry days and warmer nights. This change in the weather pattern, while not great for lawns or gardens, does lessen the conditions at which spores will thrive. We might be out of the woods. Time will tell. I will keep you updated.
A quick beet update: We started them in our greenhouse early this spring, transplanted them out between rain storms, and they are growing pretty well in our field. We also sowed some beet seeds for fall directly in the beet bed, and they are popping up. Each beet seed is actually 6 or so seeds in a cluster, and we must pull out the weaker plants in each cluster so the strongest plant has room to make a beet root. We will be thinning them over the next month and will include them in our shares as they are ready.
Oh the beans! Two weeks ago Andy finally got an opportunity to cultivate the string beans with our little Farmall Cub. The ground had dried enough to accept a tractor without packing too hard. The grass was high, but needed to be controlled ASAP and nothing is faster than tractor cultivation. The first two rows went beautifully. The weeds came free from the plants and exposed bare earth between the rows to make picking easier. The next six rows didn't go as well as the first two, and there were a few sections of sweet potato vine that got wrapped around the cultivator tines and wiped out rather large swwaths of bean plants. Andy was furious at himself for trying to help us control weeds quickly. The next day when she saw it, Mom cried. She was really bummed. We quickly readied another plot of land, and planted some extra seeds. Since then we noticed that our first planting of beans has recovered pretty nicely. It is not all that we intended, so the second planting will be nice. We should be able to have enough beans to preserve some along the way. We have a total of 3,200 feet of bean plants. That is alot of bean picking.
Oh to have a zuchinni... Last season we struggled to get summer squash to grow. We thought there was something wrong with our nutrient management program, and we even called the county extension agent to check out our plants. He recommended a few things, and we made some significant investments in soil amendments with the assumption that we would see a return on our investment this year. When we were a smaller CSA we grew our squash in the soil that we had always used and maintained. Now that we are trying to be large enough for the CSA to cover all of the costs of running a farm with one full-time employee, we have moved our squash patch to a larger area. That field is new to us, and it seems to deter summer squash. We have decided to continue to grow what plants we have up there, but we are putting some plants in the plot that we used to use for our personal garden. Next year we will move our vegetable production to the low lying section of our soil that is the most fertile. We had hoped that we would get better production out of the 3 acres that we are currently using. We think that land may be better utilized by planting fruit trees, blueberries, or raspberries, and possibly introducing some grazing animals and laying hens. Any preferences?
Also if you haven't seen Food Inc., I recommend it. Links to more info about it can be found here.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Food Inc. is coming to the Midtown Theatre on Friday
The politicos in D.C. are even talking about this movie during their legislative sessions! I am not sure if that is good or bad, but that is not the point of this post. The point is that you have an opportunity to see Food Inc. on the big screen! The movie is described as "an unflattering look inside America's corporate controlled food industry." You can watch a trailer at the movie's website that I linked above. It will be playing at the Midtown Theatre, in Harrisburg from July 17 - July 23 at 3 pm, 5pm, and on Friday at 7 pm. Tickets are $7. Directions to the theatre can be found here. I know I'll see you there!
Tina, a CSA member, plants fall beans to ensure adequate quantities before winter.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Week Six already!
I can't believe we are six weeks into this distribution season and we are only just scratching the surface of our supply of lettuce. We always have a hard time selecting only a few varieties to grow during the seemingly short springs and this nice cool (sometimes too wet) season has allowed us to enjoy the diversity that exists in lettuce. We still have some oak leaf types to give out and a few standard red leaf types. Eventually we will get into the dense summer lettuce that they grow in Hawaii. (We though that we could grow that when it got hot here - that might happen sometime.) The kale and chard are also still going great guns - I know it is hard to keep eating it week after week sometimes. You can freeze both of them - steam or blanch them first f0r about 2 minutes. Then chop and freeze. They are wonderful in soup in the winter.
Over the weekend, I heard a recap of the weather statistics for June. The average temperatures were more than 2 degrees below normal and the rainfall amounts were more than 2 inches above normal. Putting cool with wet has made for some nice cabbages. We will tap into them next week. Unfortunately though, it made our snap peas rot before they developed full pods. The plants were so heavy with peas that they were weighted down and then once the rains came, the peas were laying on the ground. Our summer crops are not blazing their usual path. Our squash plants have few female flowers, and if this keeps up, we may harvest the males for squash blossoms to give out. Our peppers are doing pretty well. We may have a few hot peppers next week. The tomato plants are looking very good, and there are pretty many fruits that are still very hard and green. I would like the night time temperatres to stay out of the 50's, so they will ripen and not get terribly malformed. They will still taste good, but these few nights of cooler temperatures that we are experiencing, might bring on some goofy looking tomatoes. We shall see. I don't care what they look like if they taste good and produce enough quantities to satisfy all of our tomato needs.
Japanese Beetles are upon us. I am happy to report that we have covered our basil in time and should have little damage from the beetles (unless the cover blows off). They just love basil. More pictures to follow this week.
Over the weekend, I heard a recap of the weather statistics for June. The average temperatures were more than 2 degrees below normal and the rainfall amounts were more than 2 inches above normal. Putting cool with wet has made for some nice cabbages. We will tap into them next week. Unfortunately though, it made our snap peas rot before they developed full pods. The plants were so heavy with peas that they were weighted down and then once the rains came, the peas were laying on the ground. Our summer crops are not blazing their usual path. Our squash plants have few female flowers, and if this keeps up, we may harvest the males for squash blossoms to give out. Our peppers are doing pretty well. We may have a few hot peppers next week. The tomato plants are looking very good, and there are pretty many fruits that are still very hard and green. I would like the night time temperatres to stay out of the 50's, so they will ripen and not get terribly malformed. They will still taste good, but these few nights of cooler temperatures that we are experiencing, might bring on some goofy looking tomatoes. We shall see. I don't care what they look like if they taste good and produce enough quantities to satisfy all of our tomato needs.
Japanese Beetles are upon us. I am happy to report that we have covered our basil in time and should have little damage from the beetles (unless the cover blows off). They just love basil. More pictures to follow this week.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
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