Abbe Hills Farm CSA

Greetings shareholders. 

We'll have some combination of lettuce, kohlrabi, broccoli, radishes, bok choi, snap peas, Asian greens, spinach, kale, and cilantro this week.  We might not have everything both Monday and Thursday, but we'll have most of these things both days. 

Well, last week when I wrote this note, the garden looked pretty good.  Things have changed.  The first 1.2" of rain on the 12th was badly needed and came at exactly the right time.  The nearly 5" that we got last week was too much, and has caused considerable damage that might have season-long consequences.  We have significant soil erosion even though the rows are planted on the contour, and quite a bit of the garden is in cover crops.  Large gardens have large areas of uncovered soil, and when rain comes as hard as it did last week, soil and water start to move and really don't stop until they reach the wetland at the west end of the farm, or worse, the Gulf of Mexico.  And the damage from soil erosion doesn't go away, at least not for a few thousand years, so I work very hard to minimize it.  But it's tough when the rain comes down so hard on already saturated soils.

Plant diseases run rampant in warm and humid conditions and we are already starting to see disease in the peas, lettuce, and potatoes.  The continually saturated soil has made it impossible to get the fields ready for the things we need to plant now, things like beans, carrots, watermelons, more sweet corn, and cantaloupes.  Thankfully, the one day we could do field work last week, Wednesday, my workers worked like troopers until 6:30 that night and got the last 500 tomato plants in the ground, plus all the winter squash.  It was a huge day and we'll be happy we did it about 3 months from now when we are harvesting all that squash.

But, the most problematic part of too much rain is the WEEDS!!!  Weeds love hot, wet weather.  Everyplace we thought we had them under control, they are back.  And the things that we planted within the last two weeks like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, cabbages, beets, sweet corn, have not yet been cultivated or hoed.  It's getting a little critical.  This is the week that they have to be brought under control if we expect to harvest abundant and good quality crops.  Hopefully, we will get a couple of good days when we can make progress on weeding, but that means we won't be planting or harvesting.  And I only have so much budget for workers, so there are only so many hours per week that I can let them work.  It's all a delicate balancing act.  It works pretty well when the weather cooperates, but this year is turning out to be the challenging one.

Organic farmers suffer particularly serious setbacks when the weather doesn't cooperate.  Organic farming is pretty hard to do even under good conditions, and to be successful at it, you need very high management skills. In organic farming, there is no fall-back plan when things go badly.  No chemical can be applied to solve a problem, so you really have to get it right the first time.  To be a successful organic farmer and to get high yields of quality products, you need to do operations like killing weeds at exactly the right time, with exactly the right tool, when soil conditions are exactly right and the weeds are at their most vulnerable.  If you don't manage them then, it only gets harder, and sometimes becomes impossible.  Many of my organic friends who raise field crops had frustrating and unprofitable seasons in 2008 even though they didn't get flooded because of conditions that made it impossible to manage weeds at the right time, and the window of opportunity to get them out of the field closed.  We could be looking at a situation like this in parts of our garden in 2009.

There's another big problem this year, and it's predators.  And it's not who you think.  Deer get in the garden, but they mostly seem to stroll around and overall don't do that much damage, at least so far.  The real bad guys are the ground squirrels and the Canada geese.  Ground squirrels eat both seeds and small plants.  This spring, they clipped broccoli, cabbage, and kale plants, and in the last two weeks, they've eaten about two-thirds of the seeds out of 800' of cucumber row and 1200' of summer squash row.  We overplant to make sure that we have enough, but it's tough to get ahead of them.  Worst of all, GEESE.  I HATE THEM.  They've eaten about 500 half-grown early broccolis, 150 early cabbages, half of the Asian greens, one-third of the kohlrabi.  You will be getting significantly less of those foods for the next 3 weeks than I had planned.  There is a second and even third crop coming which they haven't found yet, but I hate it that they've caused so much loss of food for you, and wasted effort and expense for me.  I don't have any idea about how to get them to leave us alone.  They are much too comfortable around here.

So, enough griping.  I must be a farmer.  Seriously, I tell you these things because this is your garden, and even though I'm a pretty good gardener, there are some bad things happening that are going to affect you.  I want you to be satisfied, so I'll do my best to minimize the loss.  And who knows, it could turn around tomorrow.  And I'm quite sure I'll be griping about the lack of rain before the season is over.  The good news is that  it's finally warm.  The onions love the rain and look marvelous.   The potatoes are beautiful and are starting to make tiny little potatoes about the size of peas.   The tomatoes seem happy.  Cucurbits like zukes, cucumbers, and winter squash love heat and should really take off this week.  The aphids on the peppers and eggplants all got eaten by lady bugs, so now those plants will grow rapidly.  The workers are cheerful.  We planted thousands of late season brassicas like brussels sprouts, kale, and broccoli last week, and they are already growing.

I hope you have noticed the fabulous painting on the west side of the shed.  It's by Mark Benesh, a Mt. Vernon artist.  Call him up if you need some art.  895-6170. 

Thank you for your cooperation with parking last week.  It was so pleasant to not have to worry about all the bad things that can happen when cars, kids, and mud get together in a small space.  If you didn't notice it last week, you'll see that we have a one-way road on pickup nights.  Please come in the farm gate, drive all the way around and park on the right side of the house driveway on the sort-of-mowed grass, and drive out the house driveway.  It's safe and easy, and you get a little exercise walking back to the shed.

Remember that movie night is this Wednesday, June 24.  Bring a friend and a lawn chair.  Garden tours start at 7:30. The movie starts about 8:30, or as soon as it is dark enough to see.  The movie is "The Final Season".  The movie is free, and we'll sell popcorn and sodas to raise money to donate to the Southeast Linn Community Center food pantry. 

An exciting thing happened to me last week.  The US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, was in Cedar Rapids and I was able to meet him briefly and speak to him about my two favorite topics - natural resource conservation and local food.  I asked him to commit more resources to programs and policies that promote rebuilding soil quality as a water quality and flood prevention tool, and to focus economic development money from his department on building infrastructure for local food production, processing, and marketing.   You know, just another day on the farm!

Remember, this is the last email I'm going to send this season.  To find out what's happening on the farm, please check out the website each week, www.abbehills.com.  I'll be posting the vegetable list and latest farm news on my blog that is at www.localharvest.org.  You will be able to get to the blog from a link on the website homepage.  One day I hope the blog entries will be archived at the website.  From now on, you'll only get a weekly email if you sign up for it at the blog, or if I figure out how to mail to this big list without clogging up my computer, or if there is some weather emergency that impacts a pick-up day.

See you this week,

Laura

Good Morning Shareholders,

This week is the first vegetable pickup day of the 2009 season!  Yippee.  We have kale, bok choi, red globe radishes, and head lettuce.  It won’t be a large pile of food, but it will get us started on what I think is going to be an abundant season.  We have so much nice food in the gardens.  I urge you to take a look around when you are here this week, or come for a garden tour next week.  Our first movie night will be Wednesday, June 24, with a garden tour at 7:30 and the movie at dusk.  I think we are going to show “The Final Season”.  It’s free, with popcorn sales going to benefit the Southeast Linn Community Center food pantry.  Bring a friend.

I think we’ll have more of the same vegetables, plus kohlrabi, snap peas, and maybe some spinach next week, as long as everything can keep growing this week.  Broccoli isn’t too far in the future, either.

Bok choi is an Asian vegetable.  It’s like mild cabbage.  It’s great stir fried, or chopped up and tossed into any kind of soup or stew.  You’ll notice small holes on some of the leaves.  These were caused by flea beetles.  Flea beetle is a very small beetle that eats the leaves of certain young plants.  There are only two ways I know to get rid of them in an open field, either spraying with an insecticide or waiting for a big rain to wash them off.  We chose to wait, so you’ll see some evidence of feeding.  It’s just cosmetic damage and doesn’t hurt the taste or nutrition in any way.

The big news around here is that the big (in my world, it is big) tractor is in the shop.  It’s either bad, or really bad.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get much planting done last Friday without it, and we missed having more seeds in the ground for the best rain we’ve had all growing season.  We had about 1.2” here, which was perfect.  It came slowly and all soaked in without running off.  Although it has seemed like a wet spring, the rains up until now have been actually a little short of what we have needed.  I’m glad we got this good soaker now.  There’s a little mud around the yard which you will have to negotiate, but it’s a small price to pay for a million dollar rain.

The implement dealer loaned me a tractor so I could get some mowing of the parking and play areas done in preparation for this week.  It’s about 4 times more tractor than I am used to, so my mowing job isn’t the greatest.  But I think you can see the layout.  I tried to make a big enough parking area so that we will have plenty of space, stay out of the mud, stay off the road, and keep the kids safe all at the same time.  When you arrive this week, please enter the farm at the farm gate.  I’ll have it marked with a sign.  The road is one-way with the exit through my house driveway.  Please drive only the one direction.  We have a handful of parking spots for the elderly and disabled near the open-front shed, but everybody who is young and healthy, please keep driving and park along the house driveway.  I’ll have it marked where I’d like to put your cars.  It is a bit of a walk back to the building, but there is gravel and grass to keep you out of the mud.  Please, never park on the road or right at the entrance on pickup nights.  I’m hoping this new plan with help reduce congestion and improve safety (and make my insurance man happy).

Please remember to wash all your vegetables before you eat them.  We wash with pond water, and you probably don’t want it in your kids’ bellies.  Please keep children 5 and under by your side or within sight at all times.  I generally discourage kids from passing through the big shed where the vegetables are because there is lots of clutter, some of it dangerous, near the back of the building.  There is a line on the floor that is the border between safe and unsafe.  I’ll show them where it is.  We’ve got five perfectly adorable kittens for the kids to enjoy.

We still need to plant the second tomato crop and I’ve run out of milk jugs to cover them.  We need about 200 more gallon plastic jugs, so if you’ve got some in your recycling and you can bring them this week, we will put them to use.  The jug helps to prevent dirt from splashing onto the lower leaves of the small plant, which helps to delay the onset of the fungal diseases that usually kill tomatoes later in the season.

Want to do a price comparison for me this season?  I’m looking for a handful of people who will keep track of the prices of the vegetables that we have each week at the grocery stores and farmers markets.  I can send you the items and quantities each week, and you find out if they can be purchased and how they are priced.  At the end, we’ll compare the total value of a share with the same items from the stores and the markets.

Remember to check the website (www.abbehills.com) and the blog (www.localharvest.org) to get the latest news from the farm.  I’m only going to send you this newsletter by email one more week.  It’s too much for my computer to send to everybody like I used to.  On the blog site, there is an icon you can click that will cause my blogs to be automatically emailed to you, I think.  We’re still trying to figure out how to get the blog directly on the farm website.  When we do, I’ll let you know. 

I’m looking forward to seeing you this week.

Laura

Greetings shareholders and others,

Well, I’ve washed and put away my spring chore coat two times now, but I had to get it out again this morning.  It is COLD out in the country.  Because of all the cold and wet, the vegetables are growing slowly, so I’m planning for our first veggie pickup to be the week of Monday, June 15^th and -Thursday, June 18^th.  Pickup is 4:30 -7:00 pm.   I’m not sure what we’ll have yet, but at least radishes and bok choi, probably head lettuce.  If you are getting this note by email, it means you are registered as a shareholder.  If you are reading the blog, maybe you haven’t registered yet, or maybe I got your paperwork misplaced somehow.  Please email or call me if you think this is you.  895-6924

The crops we planted early from transplants or tubers are doing well, things like broccoli, cabbage, bok choi, onions, potatoes, and kohlrabi.  Things planted from seed have had a tougher time.  For example, leaf lettuce planted May 4 (actually, a little later than I like), after 4 weeks, has leaves about the size of dimes.  I’m talking about a tough time if even lettuce is having trouble !  I know all you town people can’t believe that it is so much colder in the country, but there is a big difference.  I always am amazed at how much early produce there is at the farmers’ markets.  I’m not sure how they do it, but I think it has something to do with scale.  I do all the soil preparation with tractors and heavy(ish) equipment, so I can’t get on the soil as early as you can in a home garden, and then the soil seems to warm more slowly since the air is cooler, especially at night.  We also plant quite a bit with machines since we have to do such large plantings, so that sometimes delays us while we wait for the soil moisture to be (mostly) correct.  So all in all, I believe it takes heroic efforts to have vegetables ready this time of year.  I’m not that heroic.  Not to worry, we’ll still have 20 weeks of produce, but will run until October 31, long after all the sissy gardeners have given up!  I’m a way better farmer in the fall.

Except for the slow growing crops, the fast growing weeds, and the herd of ground squirrels who live and eat here, everything else seems to be falling into place for a productive and fun season.  The workers are efficient, the walk-in cooler is nearly restored, the hoophouse is marvelous, and the rains have been timely.   It’s going to be great.

I plan to write a weekly update about what’s happening at the farm to post to the web.  I should have it posted by Sunday night or Monday morning each week and should be able to tell you what vegetables to expect that week, and any other timely news.  I’m not yet able to publish it on my site (www.abbehills.com), so I’ll be using the blog provided by www.localharvest.org for a while.  You can get automatic emails when I post the weekly report if you go to the blog and click on the little orange square, then follow the short instructions.  I think this will cause my posts to be automatically emailed to you.  It should be handy and make it easy for you to think about other things Monday mornings, and won’t clog up my computer sending out to a massive email list.  (If you know how to install WordPress and would volunteer to put it on my computer for me, please let me know.  We think this will make it possible to have the blog on the Abbe Hills website, but the installation is a little complicated.)

Sorry I’ve kept you in the dark about the upcoming season this long.  Hope this note is helpful.  Attend a farmers’ market this week and next and get started on that great early produce.  See you in a couple of weeks.

Laura

(If I could figure out how to do it, this is where I would post a photo of the 87 kindergardeners who came to visit the farm this week.  Maybe I'll learn how to do it by next week's post.)