Our CSA distributions begin this week!

Our first shares will be filled with greens, greens, greens. That's because leafy greens, along with radishes and salad turnips, are the first veggies ready for harvest in the spring. As the season progresses, there will be more roots (carrots, beets, potatoes, onions) and "hard" veggies (cukes, zukes, corn, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes).

Here's what we expect to harvest this week: Lettuce, arugula, mizuna, spinach, parsley, cilantro, kale, napa cabbage, salad turnips and radishes.

The farm crew will take home a couple of shares, too and use them in a few of our meals this week. Here's how we're planning to use our veggies:

-Salad of lettuce, mizuna, arugula, spinach, a few sliced radishes and salad turnips and a handful of cilantro.

-Stir fry with napa cabbage, salad turnips, radishes, mizuna.

-More salad, this time with napa cabbage.

-Kale chips

I'd love to hear how you use your veggies this week.

Farm News

Last week and this coming week, may be the most intense work weeks at Moraine Farm this year. Our CSA harvests are starting, our biggest field planting is looming and our weeds are growing rapidly. In June, we begin working 10 to 12 hours days. We're not alone - this is typical on small, organically managed farms.  Yes, it can be a bit exhausting, but it's also invigorating and joyful work that we love.

Because this is a first year CSA, and because we got a late start, we find ourselves with infrastructure still not in place and/or working. We are told that some crucial parts of our irrigation system (the pump!) and our deer fence (the gates!) are "in the mail". One of our cultivating tractors is out of commission. Our CSA distribution area isn't as lovely as I'd hoped it would be and our wash station is still a work in progress. We are still selling CSA shares and searching for markets for our veggies.  So we are scrambling.

We are learning new things and being reminded of some things we'd rather not know. Did you know that many older tractors, like our two Farmall Cubs, have batteries that are positive ground? Or that peas, planted during an unusually cold and wet spring, will rot in the ground? Here's a new one to me: to reset a plow share that's been tripped, find a BIG half-buried rock and back the plow share into it.  We are learning about the land here at Moraine Farm, what it needs, where the soil holds onto moisture and where it doesn't, where it's rocky or sandy and where there are huge boulders buried in the fields. We've learned where the wild turkeys like to graze, the killdeer chick play and the coyote hunts.

We are so grateful to those of you have have joined us in this first year CSA adventure and we are very excited to share our harvests and this lovely farmland with you!

Gretta (for Amy, Rebekah and Kim)