(Mt. Vernon, Iowa)
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Greetings shareholders and friends,
Farmers market this Saturday is in Mt. Vernon, 11:00 until 1:00, at the Community Center at the east end of downtown. I'll be bringing leaf lettuce, kale and collards, mustard greens, bok chois, yukina, arugula, radishes and daikon, turnips, fresh garlic, and eggs. I also have a few bundles of my new favorite vegetable, called gai lan. It tastes a bit like broccoli only sweeter and more bitter. It seems to like cool weather so I doubt that I'll ever be able to grow it for the regular CSA season. This might be your only chance to try it out.
I still have potatoes and onions at home that I won't be bringing to market. If you'd like to stop by on Monday next week to get some for your Thanksgiving dinner, I'll have the shed open for shoppers. I'll try to have a few extra fresh vegetables in the cooler, too, so you might be able to get some last minute salad. Kind of depends on how well things made it through the big freeze on Wednesday night. It's still too early to know for sure the extent of the damage to the leafy things.
Also, Monday afternoon, 2:00 until 6:00, is the time to pick up the fresh turkeys that you ordered a couple of weeks ago. If you want a turkey and didn't order one before, if you tell me TODAY, I can still get you on the list. The turkeys are organic, free-range, fresh, and delicious. $3 per pound. They are grown by Henry and Ila Miller of Kalona.
We're looking for a few new board members for the Southeast Linn Community Center. Terms start in January and last three years, I think. If you are from Lisbon or Mt. Vernon and think you might like to give it a try, please let me know and I'll pass your name on to the nominating committee. It's not terribly time consuming, and a good way to serve our two communities and to meet some new people.
The garden has been SUPER productive this fall, once we got a little more rain. We've been able to give away hundreds of pounds of fall crops, plus lots of extra potatoes and onions. It wouldn't happen without lots of helpers, especially a group of Cornell volunteers who have come nearly every Friday for the last two months to help me harvest, cover, bury, dig, plant, haul, and dismantle. Because of their contributions, we're almost ready for winter around here, and have been able to help lots of other people have access to some very good food for their families. THANKS!!!
Hope to see you at the market tomorrow,
Laura
Tags:
Posted by Laura
@ 07:26 AM CST
Greetings shareholders,
The first winter market of the season in Mt. Vernon is tomorrow, Saturday, November 5. The market is in the old middle school, now the community center, east end of downtown, 11:00 until 1:00. I'll be bringing lots of nice leaf lettuce, mustard greens (which you have to admit if you've been eating them, are fabulous!), various chois, radishes, daikon, kale and collards, arugula, turnips big and small, cilantro and parsley. If I find some more nice things in the garden that survived last night, I'll bring them, too. If there is something not on this list that you want me to be sure to have on hand, zap me a note back and I'll try to do it.
The other vendors will have squash, potatoes, carrots, garlic, sweet potatoes, honey, meat, bakery, ceramics, and much more. The market is big and dynamic, lots of fun, and worth the time it takes to visit it.
I am only bringing a very few dozens of eggs this week. The hens have finally been culled, the roosters from the other shed now live in the freezer, and the 60 young pullets have moved into their permanent home in the mobile chicken house with the hens. The pullets are just starting to lay reliably, so every day I get about one more egg than the day before. Soon, like in month or 6 weeks, there will be lots of eggs. But for now, the flock is just about keeping up with the demand from people who buy eggs during the week. So, I'll have a half dozen cartons of pullet eggs ($1.50 per dozen) this week, almost no hen eggs. But it's going to get better!!!!
I'm using this email to try something new with my server. I may have to try twice. Sorry for the inconvenience if that happens.
See you at the market,
Laura
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Posted by Laura
@ 08:14 AM CDT
Greetings shareholders,
This Saturday, Oct 22, is the 20th and final pickup of the regular CSA season. We will have potatoes and onions, hot peppers, sweet peppers, daikon and regular radishes, winter squash, lots of bok chois and mustards, yukina, arugula, swiss chard, lettuce, parsley and cilantro, kale and collards, small turnips like we had in the spring, and small beets with tops. Remember, you can eat both the roots and the tops of both turnips and beets, so don't throw anything away until you try all the parts. I especially like beets greens sauteed in a little butter. They are a real treat.
Pickup is at regular time, 10:00 until 2:00. If you absolutely can't make it, let me know and we'll see what we can do about it. Bring the kids, but please remember to leave your pets at home. I can't stand any more excitement on pick up days.
Even though this is the last week of the CSA, there is still a lot of very nice food in the garden, so I'm going to offer another Saturday of vegetables. The dry September slowed everybody down, then rain and sunshine in October brought them back to life. It will be the "One Week Only CSA". Shares will include onions and potatoes, radishes, lots of greens, mostly all the things we have this week except maybe not squash. It depends how much squash we have left after this Saturday's pickup. A one-week share will be $20, which you can pay me when you come to pick up. I'll put out a signup sheet on Saturday. I think I can handle 50 or 60 shares, but I will need to know in advance how many people to expect.
Starting on November 5, I plan to be at the Mt. Vernon and Springville winter farmers markets as long as there is something in the garden that's still edible. I'll also have eggs. I plan to use this email list to send you brief messages each week to remind you of the markets. If you DO NOT want to be on this winter list, just let me know and I'll take you off. I promise not to be a pest, but I think many of you like the reminder about the winter markets. They are a bright little excursion when the weather is icky. And I know the vendors really appreciate your business.
Somebody left a cloth bag here last Saturday, with "Del Sol" on it. It's in the cooler if you want to claim it and all the vegetables inside.
It seems like nearly every piece of old farm equipment on my place has had a flat tire this fall, or has one right now. I'm needing 14" and 15" used tires to get everything repaired, and the tire guys never seem to have the size I need. If you have tires that you can't use, I'd be happy if you would give or sell them to me cheap. I'll get a few years of work out of them and we'll get them out of your garage and keep them out of the landfill.
Local Harvest CSA is again taking orders for fresh, organic, free-range turkeys from Henry and Ila Miller of Kalona. Weights will be 14-16 lbs, price is $3 per pound which you pay when you pick up. Pick up will be at Metro High School on Nov 22, or here at the farm on Nov 21, about 5:00. If you want one, contact Susan Jutz at 929-5032, or send her an email. She needs to know the number of turkeys you want, preferred weight (they try to match what you want with what they have as much as possible), and a phone number where you can be reached at the last minute. She needs your order by November 1.
There are two yellow kittens still looking for their forever families. Free and irresistible. Let me know if you want one or two.
Frances Moore Lappe will be speaking about sustainable food and climate change at the University of Iowa on November 1. The lecture is free. She is pretty famous for a book she wrote a long time ago called "Diet for a Small Planet". Since then, she has lectured and written about food, hunger, democracy, and the environment.
Thank you for being a part of Abbe Hills Farm CSA this season. I hope your family has enjoyed both the food and the experience of eating locally for a season. We had some weather challenges, but also some really wonderful crops like sweet corn, cabbage, and sweet peppers. I guess it all works itself out in the end, no matter how many hours I spend in the middle of the night trying to get it to start or stop raining! My workers and I have enjoyed working for you this summer and I look forward to seeing you again next summer.
See you Saturday,
Laura
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Posted by Laura
@ 07:59 PM CDT
Greetings shareholders,
This Saturday, October 15, we will have potatoes, onions, kale and collards, green tomatoes, mostly red sweet peppers, daikon radishes, regular radishes, several kinds of bok choi, several kinds of mustards, arugula, lettuce (yippee!!!), small Red Russian kale, hot peppers, a few red turnips, parsley and cilantro, swiss chard, and winter squash.
We harvested almost all of the squash, but we're only going to give you about half of it. We'll save the remainder for the final Saturday, October 22. We've got spaghetti, butternut, acorn, Honeybear (a brand new, smaller acorn), buttercup, baby hubbard, kabocha, Delicata, and Sweet Dumpling. Most of them, except the spaghetti, Delicata and Dumpling, can/should be stored for several months. Butternut and kabocha seem to get better the longer they sit around at my house. However, if you notice a soft spot on a squash, eat it. They don't store well if their skin is compromised. Luckily, there aren't too many with that kind of problem this year. Here is a pretty useful guide to winter squash varieties.
Sunday, October 16, is World Food Day. Hope you will celebrate it. Here is an idea about how to do it.
My friend Dan Specht just called to ask me to remind you that he has grassfed beef for sale. He said he's had lots of calls and really appreciates your business. He needs to make an appointment for the locker quite soon (competing with the deer hunters for locker space), so he needs to know how many steers to schedule. If you are planning to order a half or quarter beef this fall, please talk with Dan by MONDAY, OCTOBER 17. His contact info is Dan Specht, 12082 Iris Ave., McGregor IA 52157, 563-873-3873, 563 516-1007 cell, danspech@neitel.net .
Also, remember that vegetable pickup time is 10:00 until 2:00 on Saturday. If you just can't make it then, and you can't send a friend to pick up for you, let me know today or tomorrow and we'll see if we can work out something for you to get your things another time. I hate to see you miss all the great fall food.
We had 1" of rain yesterday. Perfect.
See you Saturday,
Laura
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Posted by Laura
@ 12:04 PM CDT
Greetings shareholders,
This Saturday, we'll have tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, potatoes, onions, radishes, another spaghetti squash, butternut squash, parsley and cilantro, kale and collards, arugula, edamames, beet tops and/or swiss chard, and several kinds of braising / stir fry greens, including a couple of kinds of bok choi, yukina tatsoi (dark green, mild flavor, you loved it last fall), purple and green mustards, Asian mustards like Ho Mi Z, and baby Red Russian kale. The lettuce is still a little too small to cut, but I'll bet we'll have it next week, along with daikon radishes.
Remember that Saturday pickup times are 10:00 until 2:00. If it's absolutely impossible for you to make it during those times, let me know in advance and maybe we can figure something out to make sure you get your vegetables this week. Better yet, bribe one of you neighbors to come for you in exchange for something leafy and green.
I can't believe we have edamames in October!!!! Incredible good luck. Not so much luck on the tomatoes. They just refuse to ripen, and the little frost last weekend made about 10 million of them fall on the ground. Unfortunately, nobody offered me a dollar for every green tomato out here, so I guess I'll be farming again next year.
Not sure about the quality of the butternuts this week. I haven't tried one yet. I think they could ripen considerably more, so eat other things this week and let those squash sit around and get sweeter a while longer. The squash must have taken ripening advice from the tomatoes.
The sweet peppers are SOOOO beautiful. I sure didn't expect them to turn out so nicely this fall. Remember back in July when they had so much mold on them that they looked like snowballs? Somehow, they hung on through it. I think the best thing for this farm was the inch and a half of rain that we got over Labor Day weekend. It sure pulled victory from the jaws of death!!
Of course, we could use some rain any time now to keep the leafy things in good condition. I'm beginning to tire of irrigating. The sunny dry weather really made things grow this week and also made my farmer neighbors who are combining soybeans and corn very, very happy. Made me so happy that my hair curled!
My friend from McGregor, Dan Specht, now has grass-fed beef available for sale in halves and quarters. He brought some hamburger to the field day in August and it was marvelous. Here's what one shareholder from Abbe Hills has to say about it. "We purchased 1/4 share of a grass-fed cow from Dan Specht earlier this summer. The beef was outstanding. It makes fabulous hamburgers and we have had many delicious stews using the beef bones. Best of all, I know when I am feeding my children they are getting NO artificial growth hormones, NO pesticides, NO herbicides, and NO antibiotics from cow feed. It does NOT come in a grocery store package that says "injected with a 12% solution" and you have to WONDER just what is in the solution. We loved the beef so much we just ordered our next 1/4 cow. Looking forward to more of the best beef around. Yours in healthy eating, Kelly Schoen". If you want to learn more about his prices and how to buy meat directly from a farmer, contact Dan. His contact info is Dan Specht, 12082 Iris Ave., McGregor IA 52157, 563-873-3873, 563 516-1007 cell, danspech@neitel.net.
This Saturday is the Tour de Coop in Cedar Rapids. It's a chicken house tour! Sounds like fun, and if you're interested in having your own laying flock, in town or outside, it might give you some inspiration.
Finally, here's a wonderful 4-minute video by Sesame Street about child hunger in the US. This is the time of year when we think most about hunger. This Sunday is the Mt. Vernon / Lisbon CropWalk. Next week will be the celebration of the World Food Prize, and next Sunday, October 16, is World Food Day.
See you Saturday,
Laura
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Posted by Laura
@ 08:41 AM CDT
Greetings shareholders,
This Saturday, we'll have tomatoes,
sweet peppers, hot peppers, radishes, arugula and other spicy greens for salad,
little head lettuces, kale and collards, parsley, cilantro, eggplant, and
spaghetti squash. Pickup time is 10:00 until 2:00.
Well, I'm losing confidence in my
buddy Schnackenberg. He promised - finally - a nice warm week this week,
but instead I think we've had some combination of cloudy and/or drizzle and/or
cold pretty much continuously since the last time I saw you. Altogether,
it's amounted to about 1/2 inch of rain, which we needed, but we need normal
temperatures more. Sun and warm would ripen the tomatoes, grow the
lettuce, and dry down the corn and soybeans. Nothing we can do to
make it get here any faster. But it's still aggravating.
We've got lots of ripe sweet peppers
and hot peppers, fabulously happy parsley, but not so many tomatoes or
good sized eggplants. The lettuces this week will come from the
hoophouse of my friend Susan at Local Harvest CSA in Solon. The hoophouse
has kept things a little warmer so her lettuce has jumped ahead of what I am
growing for you in the field. We've got small greens that you can mix
with the lettuce to make spicy salads. I'll make a sign to let you know
exactly which greens are in the mix. Not sure right now which ones we
will cut. It depends on who grows the most between now and Saturday
morning. I also might be able to cut some beet greens for you this
weekend if they grow just a little bit more in the next day or two.
We're going to cut the spaghetti
squash on Friday. I'm not convinced that it is fully ripe, but it's at
risk of being damaged if it sits in the field too much longer. I'd
recommend keeping it for a couple of weeks to let it sweeten up some
more. Unless you see a ding on the skin, then eat it. Spaghettis
don't store well if they are damaged. There aren't going to be the
mountains of squash like we've had in the past. I had trouble with
everything in that plant family this year, something you've already figured out
weeks ago. Who ever heard of a summer without zucchini? Or a fall
without watermelons? I'm fairly embarrassed by this big hole in our
production this year, but haven't been able to solve it. Wait until next
year. I'm going to knock you over with zukes and squash.
There was a little miscommunication
in the household involved in the cornmeal grinding operation (like that ever
happens). One person thought there was time for another batch; the other
person was wiping down the machine and putting it away. So, sorry, no
cornmeal this year. They'll notify us sooner next year. They're
going to love us - there were a lot of you who wanted to get some.
Don't forget about the Mt Vernon/
Lisbon CropWalk on Oct 9. I'll leave my donation envelope on the sign-in
table, in case you want to contribute. Much of your donation will support
our local food pantry, and the rest supports the work of Church World Service,
a very well regarded development agency.
If you want to take a field trip to
see the fall gardens, please feel welcome to walk up to the fields behind my
house. The fall crops are always so beautiful. A little shrimpy
right now, but still pretty. The hens are up there, too. Just
follow the driveway and the trail around the house; you'll figure it out when
you get there. Remember that you are always welcome to see what's going
on around here.
See you Saturday,
Laura
Tags:
Posted by Laura
@ 10:01 PM CDT
Greetings shareholders,
This week, we will have potatoes, onions, garlic for the last time, tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, kale and collards, green beans, and parsley. The last planting of summer squash made it through the frost last week, so it's possible that the Thursday people will get some squash. Monday people will get some small cucumbers left from last week.
We need some rain and some sunshine and some heat. It's too cold, and we've only managed to get about two tenths of an inch of rain from a week of dreary weather. We're still irrigating the fall crops nonstop. They, and everyone else in the garden, will benefit a lot from a week of normal temperatures. If we get enough heat, I think we'll have more edamames next time, possibly okra. Cilantro will be big enough to cut next week. Hopefully, the wonderful greens I'm growing for you for fall will have a giant growth spurt, too. They really really really need it!
I wish I had a dollar for every fat green tomato that is sitting in the garden. I'd quit farming and live off the interest. The frost didn't hurt the tomatoes or peppers much. Heat will help them ripen and change color. Tomatoes this week will likely be skimpy since I picked every single one that had any red on it on Wednesday last week, getting ready for the frost. But I'm quite sure there will be lots more next week.
The green beans continue to live and make beans. Unbelievable. They are getting a little fatter and a little tougher, but they taste marvelous (because of the cool nights), so we're going to keep picking them. Cook them a little longer to soften them up. Should have beans for another week from this crop. And I've got 14 (AGHHH) rows of late planted beans that might make a crop (once again, if they can get some warm weather!) before frost finishes them off.
IMPORTANT REMINDER: Hope you are still reading. This is week 16 and the LAST WEEK FOR PICKUP ON MONDAY AND THURSDAY AFTERNOONS. Pick up on your normal night this week, but for the next four weeks after that, EVERYBODY PICKS UP ON SATURDAYS, 10:00 UNTIL 2:00. So, the final five pickups of the season are September 19/22 (4:30 until 7:00), October 1 (10:00 until 2:00), Oct 8 (10:00 until 2:00), Oct 15 (10:00 until 2:00), and Oct 22 (10:00 until 2:00). Please put these dates on your calendar.
Three more things:
This Saturday, September 24, is the Moving Planet Bike Ride Cedar Rapids. It's part of a global event to demand action from world leaders to get moving on climate change. I've farmed for 23 years, and every year, the weather is more unpredictable and problematic. You know - you read about it every week in this newsletter and you experience the consequences when you carry your vegetables home. I'm not the only farmer who is alarmed - farmers all over the world are reporting similar experiences. This event is a very small way to take action locally and call attention to the growing climate crisis. The event starts at Prairiewoods.
Saturday, October 9, is the Mt. Vernon and Lisbon CROP Hunger Walk. I'll be walking and will be happy to take your contributions. I'll leave my contribution envelope at the sign-in table. I hate it when 4th graders have more donations than I do! Please don't let me be embarrassed! CROP is a project of Church World Service to help hungry people at home and around the world. A significant portion of your donations will be given to our Southeast Linn Community Center to support the food pantry.
Also, this Saturday, September 24, is the Lincoln Highway Arts Festival. It's a great time. Stop by and see the art before you go to Moving Planet.
See you this week,
Laura
Tags:
Posted by Laura
@ 11:58 PM CDT
Greetings shareholders,
This week, we have tomatoes, green beans, a few puny peppers, hot peppers, parsley and basil, eggplant, Russet potatoes, onions, garlic, and a little kale. Maybe cucumbers if we can find enough. Seems like the okra might be on vacation right now, waiting for another good rain.
Russet potatoes are the brown ones we usually think of as bakers. They are smaller than the ones from the store, but WAAAAAY better tasting. There are no pesticides on them, so you can eat the skins. I just washed them off and baked for a short time. They are like eating marshmallows! We'll only have them for one week, so enjoy.
The tomato plants are unbelievably healthy right now, very leafy with little disease and lots of green fruit. There are a least 100 late-planted plants that we've not picked anything from yet that I'm eager to harvest. We're getting lots of tomatoes, and they've been tasting very good, but a little rain and a few more warm days would help a lot more very handsome ones mature. I think these might be the nicest tomatoes I've grown in several years.
Peppers, on the other hand, are still a mess. The fruits are small, sunburned, and thin walled and don't seem to be getting any better. We'll give you as many as we can get, but it's sure not what I had planned. I thought I'd be burying you in ripe peppers by now. Some of the chili peppers are bearing more, so we'll give you a few more this week. The eggplant plants seem to be starting to bear fruit, also, so I think we can find enough to give one to everybody. Once again, we should be up to our eyeballs in eggplant right now. Usually people are mad at me by this time of year because there are so many eggplant.
The kale is happy with the cooler temperatures. The leaves are smaller than they are in the spring, but nice. We'll pick some this week. Not sure we can give you armloads of it, but there will be some. Collards are looking better, too. We'll start picking them again in the next couple of weeks.
We could use another inch of rain, but my buddy Schnackenberg isn't too optimistic. I've started irrigating again to help us have some leafy greens in October. But nothing I can do is as good as a real rain. That, and some nice warm days, would really help both the fall greens and the last plantings of squash, beans, cilantro, and cucumbers. There's still hope of warmth after we get through this week. It's not fall yet!
We had about 20 wonderful Cornell volunteers on Saturday morning who helped with potato digging. In less than two hours, they picked up more than a ton of spuds. THANKS. Only about one more ton to get before the end of the season.
See you this week,
Laura
Tags:
Posted by Laura
@ 10:24 PM CDT
Greetings shareholders,
This week, we'll have green beans, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, sweet peppers, hot peppers, edamames, cucumbers, and herbs. There might be a little okra starting on Monday, just enough for those few of you who are extremely okra-needy. When it warms up, there will be more, enough to give a little bit to everybody who wants some.
The tomatoes continue to look marvelous. I think there is less leaf disease in the tomatoes this year than I have seen in years, and they seem to be making lots of fruit. We've got about 100 plants in our second planting that we expect to start picking next week. They should hold up until frost.
Peppers, chilies, and eggplants are not so nice. I'm not sure why, but they just are not setting any fruit. We have about 1000 eggplant plants, which means we should have about 10,000 eggplants over the course of the season. We've been having trouble just getting 200 fruits per week. Same thing with the chilies - 200 plants, taller than my waist, yet almost no chilies. The stressful summer weather must have turned off some switch in them. The 2000 sweet pepper plants have plenty of fruit, but it's all pretty puny. I'm holding back giving you green peppers in hopes that they will fatten up and ripen pretty soon. I want you to have big piles of sweet and tasty red, yellow, and orange peppers instead of shrimpy green ones.
The onions this week will be a variety called "Candy". You can eat them now or they should be fine if you want to store them for a couple of months into the fall.
The green beans are from the 5th planting of the season. Although we had a few beans earlier in the summer, they weren't very nice and the plants were sick or weird and we abandoned every planting before we expected to. This crop is fantastic. Huge plants, healthy leaves, lots of beans. Planting number 6 looks good, too. I'm hoping that we will have beans until frost with the two final crops.
The rain last week was very helpful. We had .6", then 1.5" on Saturday. I've turned off the irrigation for a while. The rain on Saturday messed up a pretty good plan to have 35 new Cornell students dig potatoes for their service project, but we needed it so badly, I couldn't be too disappointed. However, there are still many thousands of pounds of potatoes in the ground. If you and your kids want to help get them out, there will be plenty of chances to join us this fall. The students were able to get the hoophouse cleaned out for me, a daunting task that I was avoiding, and I am VERY thankful for their help. It was a great day, even with the lightening and rain.
The sunshine this week is going to be wonderful. All we need now is to get the temperature up around eighty degrees where it is supposed to be this time of year. Warmer days and nights will help blooming things to make fruits, small things to get bigger, and green things to ripen.
This Saturday, September 10, the Southeast Linn Community Center is hosting a spaghetti dinner to benefit the youth programs of the Mt. Vernon and Lisbon Parks and Recreation Departments. Every year, the cities help the Center by giving us swimming pool passes to hand out to families who need them. This event is to add to that fund. Spaghetti is $5, serving is from 4:00 until 8:00 pm at the Lisbon High School Cafeteria. I hope you can attend.
Some families still owe me some money on their share. I've been going through my records trying to sort it all out and will be sending you a note pretty soon. But if you know who you are, maybe we could talk about it this week and come up with a plan. Thanks.
See you this week,
Laura
Tags:
Posted by Laura
@ 07:11 AM CDT
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Comments [1]
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Greetings shareholders,
This week, we'll have potatoes, tomatoes, garlic,
the last of the carrots, a few cucumbers, edamame soybeans, eggplant, chilies,
peppers, and herbs. The Monday people will get the last of the sweet corn. The
Thursday people might also get a few green beans and some okra if they are
ready, or we'll have those things starting next Monday. I'm giving you a week
off from onions so you can work your way through the summer sweets.
I expect there will be extra sweet corn Tuesday
morning. If you'd like some for the freezer, let me know before 9:00 Monday
night so I can save some for you. It's $4 per dozen. If you don't claim it by
then, volunteers from Cedar Rapids are coming Tuesday to get everything else out
of the field for distribution at Metro High School, a soup kitchen, and a couple
of food pantries. I'm so happy that none of the corn has been wasted this
season. Almost every ear that was decent has found a home in somebody's belly.
Not so good for the hens, but nice for people who don't often get fresh sweet
corn.
The thing that was eating tomatoes went away. I
still don't know what it was, but it apparently got full, so it left. We picked
scads of tomatoes this afternoon and they are amazingly nice. Not perfect, but
not bad. I think you'll like them much better than the stinkers we've been
having.
We are picking cucumber crop #5 for the first time
this week. I've been so disappointed with the cucumbers, as well as nearly
everything else in that plant family this summer. Cucumber crops numbers 1
through 4 had issues because of ground squirrels (#1), cucumber beetles (# 2 and
#4), and weeds (#2 and #3). Number 5 is healthy so far and #6 is about 2 weeks
away from harvest and looking good. Remember back in the good old days when I
used to bring in 10 or 15 buckets of cucumbers and squash two times a week?
Maybe they'll return next year.
Edamames are soybeans that you eat while they are
still green. There are about 3 beans per pod, and about 10 pods per stem. I'm
going to cut the stems and give you a handful with the pods still attached.
Picking the pods off is a good job for the kids. Blanch the whole pods, cool
quickly, dress with salt or soy sauce, then squish the little beans out of the
pods and into your mouth. Don't eat the pods. They are hairy and tough. The
beans are a great snack. A lot of trouble, but great. Luckily, you can buy
them by the bag in the frozen section of the grocery store when the ones we have
here run out.
We had a very good rain on Tuesday morning, about
2.2 inches. It really was a gift. We started irrigating the gardens about 10
days ago and really haven't stopped except for the day it rained. It's still
quite dry and I'd be happy to have another 2 inches this week, although my buddy
Schnackenberg doesn't think it is likely. One good thing about the dry is that
we'll be able to dig the rest of the potatoes this upcoming weekend. Cornell is
sending me about 30 volunteers and hopefully, if everything goes as planned,
they'll be able to get the last 4 tons or so of potatoes out of the ground and
into bags in the shed. Most will be for us and for Local Harvest CSA, but some
will go to the food pantries at the end of the season.
Bring plenty of bags this week. See you
later,
Laura
Tags:
Posted by Laura
@ 11:30 PM CDT
Greetings shareholders,
This week, we'll have potatoes, onions, garlic,
carrots, squash, maybe some cucumbers, chiles, tomatoes, sweet peppers, basil,
dill, and cilantro. This is the last week that I'll give you ugly onions. We
had two varieties that were too sweet to be stored too long, and two varieties
that just had a hard time. As soon as they are gone, maybe we'll take a week
off onions to give you a chance to reduce your stash some, then switch to the
nice onions that should be storable for quite a while. There are a lot of them
and they look pretty good so far.
We're still trying to rescue garlic from the
field. It should have been dug in early July, but the ground was so hard and
dry that we couldn't get to it. It's that way again, and now the garlic is
doing what it does naturally - falling apart, so it's going to look awful and
probably not store too well. Use it up. Luckily, we kept the first garlic that
we dug for seed for next year. Every year, I get smarter about garlic. About
the time I retire, I should be able to grow and harvest it
successfully.
No corn for the Monday people, but perhaps for the
Thursdays. We've got one more patch of Bodacious and it's just not quite ripe
enough to harvest tomorrow. Depending on the weather, it might be ready on
Thursday, but for sure next week barring some disaster.
There's nothing wrong with this farm that about an
inch of rain wouldn't cure. In June it wouldn't stop and we had trouble getting
into the fields. In July, we got more than 7 inches on the 22nd, but that's
all. We haven't had enough to be useful since then, and it's starting to
matter. If I hope to have anything to give you in October, it's important to
get things moving in the right direction right away, so we pulled out the
irrigation Friday of last week. I haven't used it since 2007, and I remember
why. I HATE IRRIGATING! It's too much trouble. Since we don't have enough
pump or equipment or peoplepower to do the whole garden, I'm just concentrating
on the things we love in the fall. In the mean time, the tomatoes, peppers,
chiles, beans, edamames, squash, cukes, winter squash, and kale are all just
waiting for a drink. We've got 1000's of plants, and 1000's of little fruits on
those plants, so when it finally does rain, vegetables are going to be crazy
abundant. Until then, we eat potato salad, onions, and sweet corn.
Something is eating the tomatoes. About half of
the red ones have a big bite, or bites, removed. Of course, only the nice big
pretty ones. I can't figure out if the tomatoes are red because they have been
munched, or if they we chosen for eating because they are red. Either way, I've
got it narrowed down to deer, rabbits, mice, voles, birds, big worms,
grasshoppers, or crickets. Whatever it is, it's got a big mouth with big teeth
and it eats a LOT. If you have an idea about what I should do about this
problem, please let me know. I'd be happy to kill something to make it
stop. The tomatoes this week are less ugly, bigger, and more numerous than last
week. Still not a lot, but we're heading in the right direction. Someday soon
there are going to be an awful lot of them.
As far as I know, there's still a detour at Mt.
Vernon Road and Highway 13. Sorry for the inconvenience.
See you this week,
Laura
Tags:
Posted by Laura
@ 12:04 AM CDT
Greetings shareholders,
This week, we have red and yellow potatoes,
Incredible sweet corn, yellow and white onions, little bit of ugly (but yummy)
garlic, the first tomatoes, eggplant, chili peppers, carrots, cilantro, basil,
and summer squash.
We're opening a new patch of "Incredible" sweet
corn this week, but the Monday people will also have some Bodacious from last
week's patch if they want it. I had some tonight for dinner, and it is a bit
more mature but still quite good. Please zap me a note if you want to buy corn
(in addition to what you'll get in your share) for the freezer. I believe I'll
have extra out of this patch. I'll let you know what I have as soon as we get
all the shareholders accommodated - perhaps mid-week, but more likely the
weekend. It will be $4 per dozen.
This week is the 11th week of the season, and the
first week for several new shareholder families. I'm so so so glad that the
temperatures have become more normal and moderate. It's not that much fun
growing or harvesting or cooking vegetables when everything is melting. We had
a nice rain last Monday, .6", but we are ready for more this week. Vegetables,
unlike corn and soybeans, have rather shallow root systems. Plus, we do a lot
of surface tillage that quickly dries out the soil at the top. I'd be very
happy to have about 1" of rain per week, but we can live with less than that if
I am careful. We've planted quite a lot of fall garden and plan to have most of
the rest of it in the ground for the rain that's supposed to come on Tuesday
night. We need it soon in order to get the fall crops mature before the frost,
which is now only 46 days away.
Here
is a link to an article comparing and contrasting the droughts in the US and
in East Africa, and explaining how ag and food policy can make farmers and
eaters more secure during tough times. It's from Oxfam, a
well-respected international organization that works to alleviate hunger,
poverty, and injustice.
We're going to stop picking kale and collards for a
couple of weeks. The heat really beat them up, and they are now suffering from
some fungal disease and Japanese beetles. A little cool weather and some bug
treatment should cure all that's wrong with it so we'll have both kale and
collards until the end of the season. All you kale crazies, sorry to cut you
off cold turkey, but it's not for long.
You probably noticed carrots on the list. How can
this be???? Laura can't grow carrots!!!! Well, I don't know what happened or
how I did it, but there are carrots. Enjoy them because this may never happen
again. With renewed confidence in my gardening abilities, I've planted some
"Sweet Baby Jane" carrots in the fall garden. But really, I have no expectation
that they will survive. So if they do, we'll all be pleased and
surprised.
We started picking tomatoes late last week. You're
going to get the first ones this week. They're not big, and they're not pretty,
but they are a taste of what's to come. I made a big bad mistake this year and
planted twice as many tomatoes as I wanted. This mistake may work out in your
favor if they yield well. They look a little wimpy now, but they made it
through the bad heat, and with a little rain and more normal temperatures, we
should have gobs of tomatoes within a couple of weeks.
Last Sunday afternoon was the farm open
house and field day. It was a nice event with about 30 people from as far
away as Des Moines and Decorah. A friend of mine brought grass fed hamburger,
then built a grill like they use in New Zealand using cement blocks and a cattle
crossing guard, and provided everybody with samples. It was fantastic. He'll
have beef to sell this fall and as butchering time gets closer, I'll send you
more information. It's expensive, but excellent quality. Here
is a link to some more information about the benefits of grass fed beef.
The big news last Thursday was the detour. I never
leave home, so I haven't seen it, but I guess the intersection of Mt. Vernon
Road and Highway 13 is closed for a while. If you are coming from Cedar Rapids,
there are two other good ways to get here. You can take Highway 30 east towards
Mt. Vernon, then turn left (north) on Irish Lane, which is the last gravel road
before Mt. Vernon. Go north, cross Mt Vernon Road and Abbe Creek, then take a
quick right on Museum Road, then right (east) on Abbe Hills. You'll be able to
see the farm from the corner. Or, you can take the Marion Bypass east across
Highway 13. It's yhen called Seacrist Road. Go east to the end of the road,
then right (south) on X20, also called Springville Road. Go south about 4 (?)
miles and you'll see Abbe Hills Road before you get to Mt. Vernon. Turn right
(west) and go about a mile to the farm. Or, Googlemap me at 825 Abbe Hills
Road. We're not that hard to find.
See you this week,
Laura
Tags:
Posted by Laura
@ 11:29 PM CDT
Greetings shareholders,
This week, we'll have potatoes, onions, fresh
garlic, sweet corn, summer squash, cucumbers, cabbage, kale and collards, basil,
cilantro, and dill. We're digging potatoes as fast as we can right now, trying
to get as much done as possible before my workers go back to college. This
week, we have Red Norland, Dark Red Norland, Yukon Gold, and Keuka
Gold types. They are all really good as far as I can tell. Maybe you'll
have one you really like.
I still have a few Ailsa Craig onions left. They
are the light yellow, teardrop shaped ones that are so mild and sweet. Because
they are so sweet, they can't be stored. Use them as fast as you can and keep
them in the frig. We'll have some combination of white, purple, and Ailsa
Craigs for you this week. We've still got about four more racks of onions to
pull and cure, plus many many rows of garlic still in the ground. These two
crops should have been harvested in mid-July, but it was so dry and the ground
was so hard, we couldn't dig them. Then it rained and got hot. The onions are
holding up well, but the garlic is a mess. When we dig it, it falls out of its
skin and we end up with a handful of peeled cloves. I think they are fine, just
not in the package we usually expect of garlic. Since we have to save the very
best garlic for seed for next year's crop, I'm going to encourage you to take
the peeled cloves this week. You can keep them in the frig in a sealed
container for quite a while, or roast them in oil and keep longer in the frig in
a jar with the oil. Roasted garlic is very mild and sweet, kind of buttery in
texture. I like it much better than raw garlic.
The sweet corn on Monday (and I hope still fit to
eat on Thursday) will be Bodacious. Small ears, but very sweet. The cooler
weather is going to slow down the maturing of the corn, and help the cucumbers,
squash, eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes hang on to their fruits better. All
those things should become more abundant, especially if we can get some rain.
We're quite dry again. Although we had more than 7 inches two weeks ago, it's
not enough to keep the top part of the soil, where the vegetable roots are,
adequately moist. We need about 1 inch per week to keep me happy and keep my
griping about the weather to a minimum. A little rain would also get the fall
crops to germinate so they can be fully mature before the frost gets here in 54
days.
This is the last week for cabbage until October, if
the new seeding has enough time to make heads by then.
I have plenty of raffle tickets for the Southeast
Linn Community Center raffle on August 13 at Sauerkraut Days. I'd sure like to
sell them to you.
I have a challenge and I know one of you is going
to be able to step up to it. I need 5-gallon buckets. The buckets I have are
old and they are falling apart faster than I can scavenge replacements. I know
that somewhere around here, some food manufacturer is throwing them away. So I
want to help them turn a liability into an asset. The buckets need to have the
metal handles if possible (we break the plastic handles pretty fast), be tall
enough to hold 5 gallons, be food-safe, and be free. They don't need lids. If
you can get them for me, I need 50. If they have that many, then I'll take 100
and give half of them to Local Harvest CSA. We harvest potatoes and sweet corn
together, both crops that require a lot of buckets, and we could really do
better if we had some better ones than those we use now. Go for it - all you
recycling maniacs.
See you this week,
Laura
Tags:
Posted by Laura
@ 11:02 PM CDT
Greetings shareholders,
This week, we'll have potatoes, onions, garlic, the never-ending-but-oh-so-delicious cabbage, kale, collards, basil, and cilantro. I think we have enough eggplant for Monday people to each have one, and probably summer squash for everybody this week. We found some cucumbers, too. Monday people will get sweet corn.
That's the simple version of the week's story. It's quite a bit more complicated. We had a tough week last week and I think this upcoming one is going to be a stinker, too. The consequences of the heat are apparent everywhere, and it's having a huge impact on our crops. Most of the summer crops, even though many of them are basically tropical in origin, don't do well with very hot days, and really don't do well with hot nights. One outcome of excessive heat is that the flowers abort before they have a chance to make fruits. That's why we still don't have any eggplants, squash, cucumbers, peppers, chilies, tomatoes, and so few beans. If they had fruits set before it got hot, they sat there on the plants, waiting, waiting, and when the rain came last week, they quickly grew big enough to harvest. Thus, something to harvest this week. But no new fruits have set since the heat came. Thus, not enough of anything. We have 1000's of plants, but they just don't have anything to pick. When it finally straightens out and cools off a little, especially at night, we won't be able to keep up, but right now, there's just not much there.
The other thing about hot nights is that they are humid. And that is perfect for disease causing organisms like bacteria and fungus. We're going to have to pick 100% of the bell peppers that had set on about 2500 plants and throw them on the ground this week because they are all infected with a white fungus. Last week when it hit, it looked like the fruits had snow on them! I tilled all the green bean plants on the farm this weekend because they were full of disease and yielding poorly and poor quality beans. Might as well get rid of them and use the space for something else for fall. But that means no beans for a while.
Then there's the sweet corn. Remember the 3000 broccoli's that all got ready on the same day. Well, the same thing happened in the sweet corn. The crop we harvested for the Thursday people last week was Bodacious, and was a little under-ripe. It should have been fine for tomorrow (Monday), and then we would start on a new patch of Incredible on Thursday of this week, finishing it next Monday. Instead, we're picking the Incredible tomorrow and hoping it's not too far gone. It's the heat. It sped up the ripening by ten days. Theoretically, I have three more sweet corn crops that should last three more weeks. Hope it works out that way.
It is possible that we might be able to harvest the last of the Incredible on Tuesday for a special pick-up by the Thursday people and people who want it for the freezer (rather than letting it get completely away from us). If it's still fit to eat, and if we are physically able to get it picked, I will let you know BEFORE NOON ON TUESDAY if you will need to come pick it up Tuesday night. If you don't hear from me, then we lost it and we'll have to wait for the next patch.
The heat this upcoming week is going to be challenging for my workers. I try not to let them work past noon on the very hot days. But it's going to rain Tuesday afternoon and one of the most important things we have to do before then is to plant fall garden. It should have been started last week, but it was too muddy. Now the soil is in good condition, so we're going to plant like maniacs. It might reduce the time we have available for potato digging, so there could be a short-term potato shortage this week, too. I'm sorry for the inconvenience this causes you. We're working really hard to give you the best CSA experience we can, but this summer is turning out to be a tough one. I'm sure it will straighten out for fall - it always does - but that doesn't make getting there any more fun!
I hope you can come to the farm open house and field day next Sunday, August 7, 4:00 until 7:00. It's kind of a big deal. Unfortunately, we've got lots of weeds and disease to show off to our visitors. But it's a good chance for consumers and young people interested in vegetable farming to see what it's really like, warts and all.
I'll have raffle tickets for the Southeast Linn Community Center drawing on Aug 13 with me this week. Please support the Center and buy a few.
Well, it's mostly bad news this week. Sorry. Focus on the cabbage. It will make you feel better. The stuff is a miracle as far as I'm concerned!
See you this week,
Laura
Tags:
Posted by Laura
@ 11:25 PM CDT
Greetings shareholders,
This week, we'll have potatoes, onions, garlic,
beans, cabbage, kale, collards, dill, basil, and cilantro. The Monday people
will get the last of the broccoli. The Thursday people will get the first of
the sweet corn. YIPPEE!!! We also might have the beginning of the zucchinis,
cucumbers, and eggplants this week. Perhaps green peppers by next
week.
The rain came just in time. We were very very very
dry - so dry that we couldn't get the digging tools in the ground to dig any
more garlic, so dry that I couldn't get the tillage equipment in the ground to
get the beds ready to plant for the fall crops, so dry that the summer crops
weren't making any fruit, and so dry that the late summer crops weren't
growing. Well, all of that changed pretty quickly. We had about 5 inches of
rain Friday night, and our running total is a little more than 7 inches by this
afternoon. THAT'S ENOUGH!!! Luckily, there are enough weeds in the fields that
we didn't suffer too much erosion, and the moisture was needed so badly that a
huge proportion soaked into the ground. The plants that have been sitting
around waiting for the last three weeks grew like crazy over the weekend. Now
we just have to keep up. This week and next are going to be crazy.
The sweet corn for Thursday of this week and Monday
of next week will be Bodacious. The ears are small, but have excellent flavor.
We should have more than we need for our CSA and for Local Harvest CSA, so I
likely will have extra to sell on Saturday. I'll let you know by email as soon
as I know, and I'll also post it on the first page of the website.
The annual farm field day is in two weeks, on
Sunday, August 7, 4:00 until 7:00. We'll take a garden tour, look at some
conservation and water quality practices, and talk about the sustainability of
local food . It is sponsored by a great group to which I belong, Practical Farmers of Iowa, so I
expect there will be guests from all over eastern Iowa. My friend Dan Specht
will be here with samples of his grass-fed beef for you to try. He's hoping to
sell it to you when his cattle are butchered this fall. We'll end the tour with
a sweet corn picnic. Everyone is welcome to attend the field day, especially
people who are interested in learning more about the practice of sustainable
agriculture. I'd like to show you the farm. I hope you can come.
I'm again selling raffle tickets for the Southeast
Linn Community Center raffle to be held at Sauerkraut Days on August 13. Your
donation supports to work of our community center, a place that provides lots of
services for families, children, and seniors in our area, especially those in
need. And right now, there is A LOT of need. Please buy as many tickets as you
can afford. Your donation will be put to very good use. And you might win the
grill!
See you this week,
Laura
Tags:
Posted by Laura
@ 11:39 PM CDT
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