What’s been going on! 

Another damn rainy week!  There is a great stress reducing factor when you can look back over four decades of farming and know that it can always be worse.  In our first season farming we had just planted four acres of blackberries and raspberries, 20,000 feet of row.  We were living in the tent next to the 20’X20’ tractor shed when after a March and April dry period it started to rain in May and didn’t stop the whole month, 15 inches of rain fell in those thirty one days.  Nearly every afternoon there would be a thunderstorm with great downpours.

The result was a biblical scourge of weeds that germinated in the berry rows.  We had turned over soil that hadn’t been farmed in years and unleashed millions of weed seeds that had lain dormant.  We had no equipment to deal with it and had not yet been able to mulch the rows.  After mowing the six foot tall growth in the aisles between the plants, standing on the tractor so I could see down into the mass so as to not mow the young berry bushes, I spent the month of June hand weeding circles around each of the 10,000 plants so as not to lose them followed by weed eating the remaining growth.

We were humbled by the power of nature and only by the shear dent of our stubbornness did we save those plantings and continue on to be successful.  We vowed never again to be caught that way.  So this seven or eight days of rain this month is just another blip in the long history of weather events here at the farm.  Needless to say it has slowed crop growth and nearly decimated the blueberry season but it is what it is.

Picture of the week

In this old grainy picture you can see the river that formed every afternoon that May, you can also see the weeds growing in the background

What’s going to be at Market?

We will not be at the Wednesday market for the foreseeable future until the outbreak subsides but we do plan to be at Saturdays as long as we can be.

To facilitate less contact and faster exchanges we are encouraging people to pre-order so that it is ready to go when you get to market this page has all of the details on how to do that.  We need your orders by noon on Friday for us to be able to put them together on Friday afternoon.  The online store opens Wednesday about 9:00 a.m.

Not as much produce this week.

Blueberries!  A limited supply, you will have to email us to reserve some, limit 2 per person

A smaller amount of Red and Green Little Gem lettuce.  A very small supply of Red Summer Crisp Lettuce (a combination of Romaine and Red leaf) and of the Magenta Summer Crisp.

In the bitter greens department we still have a good amount of Escarole for soups, salads or sautéing.  Lacinato Kale (aka Dinosaur Kale or Cavalo Nero), you all know what to do with it.  In Radicchio we have the regular round red and the beautiful speckled and slightly less bitter Bel Fiore.

The last week of the best Sugar Snap Peas around. Tons of crunchy Red Radishes.  More tender, medium sized Fennel bulbs.

More beautiful Sunflowers.  Tall and stately Larkspur.  Campanula (Canterbury Bells) in purple.

Stay safe and well and we hope to see you all at the market!

Alex and Betsy

If you know folks who you think would be interested in news of the farm then please feel free to forward this to them and encourage them to sign up at the website.