Abbe Hills Farm CSA

Greetings shareholders,

This week, we’ll have some very nice lettuce.That’s all.It’s not very much, but it’s a little something to get the CSA started.Next week, we’ll have more lettuce, small white onions, radishes, some kinds of greens.The snap peas are blooming like crazy, so late next week or more likely, the week after, we should also have those.Broccoli, kale, and cabbage are right behind.Everything’s a bit delayed, but it’s coming.

In addition to lettuce, I’ve also got extra basil, tomato, chili pepper, and eggplant plants that you can have to take home for your own garden or planter.We can race – who can get a ripe tomato first, you or me?

We’ve got very good looking gardens right now.Of course, you are welcome to visit the gardens any time you want.They are mostly on the big hill, in front of and around the back of my house.If you ever come looking for me during the week, not during regular pickup time, that’s where I’ll probably be.

Pickup times are 4:30 to 7:00, either Monday or Thursday.I sent you a note last week that reminded you which night you chose.We have a one-way driveway here during pickup times, so please enter the farm through the farm driveway (west one), and leave through the house driveway (east one).We’ve got hay down and drying, so it’s possible that some hay-making equipment might need to come on the farm on Monday.To keep the driveway open for big equipment (and also to make it easier for cars to get around), please always park on the RIGHT side of the driveway.I’ll have signs marking the parking areas.Elderly people and those who have trouble walking can park in the two or three spaces near the shed.

Please bring a bag for your lettuce and a dish or flat to carry home a couple of plants if you want them.They might be sloppy.Bring the kids to see the kitties and chicks, but leave your dog at home.My dog, Lucky, is about all we can handle around here with all the confusion on pickup nights.

Thank you for joining Abbe Hills Farm this season.The confidence you place in me to grow food for your families is humbling.Growing for the CSA my primary responsibility, and my workers and I do everything we possibly can to give you a good, bountiful, and fun season.The CSA always gets first harvest of everything we grow, and nearly everything that the gardens produce.To supplement my income, I do plant a little extra of a few things for sale for home preservation, or for farmers markets late in the fall, or for a couple of restaurant accounts.But mostly, if we have it, you’ll see the best of it on pickup nights.Not every CSA has this philosophy, but I feel like it’s at the heart of what Community Supported Agriculture is about.You help me by committing to a share and absorbing the financial risk of farming, and I help you by providing the very best food that I can – food that keeps you healthy, produced in a manner that is environmentally sustainable, by workers who are fairly paid, and at an affordable price to you.That’s about the best any of us can do.Thanks.

See you this week,

Laura

Greetings shareholders,

This week, we have potatoes and beans for sure (they are in the shed already, so I know we'll have them).  Depending on how muddy and difficult it is to get around on harvest day, we'll also likely have tomatoes, peppers, chilies, edamame soybeans, parsley, basil, cilantro, kale, collards, and a little okra.  Edamames are soybeans that you eat green.  They are delicious.  Look here for the way to prepare them for use as an appetizer or as part of a salad or side dish. 

It's hard to imagine that it's supposed to be nearly 80 degrees and perfect tomorrow.  This afternoon was pretty unpleasant outside.  But, I'm so glad we got the rain.  We were really needing it.  The fall garden is off to a great start and will benefit from the good soaking and a few days of warm and sun.  Next time you pick up vegetables, which will be Saturday, October 2, we should have lots of fall goodies.  I'm expecting to give you winter squash, lots of lettuce and greens, radishes, storage onions, and potatoes.  And if it stays above freezing, we could still have a few tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants then, too.  This is the good eats time of the year!

A deer breached the fortifications around the lettuce garden last week, so Saturday, we put up a second fence outside of the first one.  The fence guy says they can't figure it out when there is a three-dimensional barrier.  We'll find out.  So far, no damage.  And, I got my dog today.  He's perfect.  He's already been out there sniffing the perimeter, and I've been telling him how great it's going to be chasing deer all night and Canada geese all day.  He's eager to get to work.

I'm still figuring out what to do about the late fall CSA.  I'm hesitating because I'm not sure that I'll have enough of the fall vegetables to make it work.  Also, I'm late in getting the hoophouse planted, so there might be a problem getting the greens mature soon enough.  And the logistics of having pickup nights in the dark and cold are a little daunting.   I don't want to promise something I can't deliver.  As an alternative, I'm considering doing several indoor farmers markets during November and December and keeping you up-to-date on the when and where.  They'd all be on Saturdays, in Mt Vernon or Springville, and maybe Iowa City or Coralville.  Of course, the problem with farmers markets is that sometimes you carry quite a lot of valuable produce back home if the people don't come out to shop for some reason.  So, either way, there are some down sides.  I know for sure that I will have produce after the regular CSA season ends on October 23, and don't worry, I'll keep you posted because I'll be depending on you to be there to buy it one way or the other.  And I'm open to some hybrid of a CSA and a market if you can figure one out, or any other suggestions you might have about how to make it work for all of us.

Remember that this the last time that you pick up your vegetables on a week night this season.  The next pickup for everybody is SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 10:00 UNTIL 3:00.  Please put it on your calendar.  There will be four pickups in October.  Please plan to come by 2:00 if you don't have Saturday soccer conflicts.  I'll have the doors open and things out for you until 3:00, but the vegetables really lose their quality by that time of the day if it is warm and clear.  It's about impossible to keep the afternoon sun out of the building and off the produce when it drops down in the south like it does in October.

See you this week,

Laura

Greetings shareholders,

This week, we have beans, peppers, chilies, leeks, tomatoes, watermelon, kale, collards, basil, and cilantro.  There is a little okra, although the okra is fizzling out fast from some icky looking leaf disease.  I have a few beets and carrots left from earlier that I think I'll share with the new shareholders who just joined the CSA a couple of weeks ago.  There isn't enough for all of you, and it would be nice if the new people could at least have a taste of those crops this season.  We didn't get any potatoes dug this past week.  When I had help, there was mud, and when it was nice, all my workers were busy with school.  Maybe we'll get some more potatoes done this upcoming week if it doesn't rain too much.  I'm also taking a week off from giving you onions.  Seems like you might have a lot of onions at home and they need to be used.  We have some nice storage onions and I think I can keep them for you for a couple of weeks while you work your way though what you have already.  The varieties I have stored (Copra, Candy, Big Daddy, and Mars) were the healthiest, most disease resistant ones we grew this season, so I think they will be nice all the way through October.

We have a nice surprise this week - watermelons!  They are small, sweet, cute, and very, very juicy.  A really ripe watermelon sounds hollow when you thump it, and when you poke it with the knife, frequently it will pop itself open.  These guys are so ripe and so full of water, they sometimes break just from being picked up.  I really thought they were all dead because weeds covered the melon patch for so many weeks, I couldn't see anything too hopeful coming out of it.  We stumbled onto them yesterday, literally.  My dad broke seven of them by bumping them with his boots before I got him out of the field!   I think you will enjoy them.  (There is another crop of watermelons that could be ready mid-October, but I'm not making any promises in a year like this.)

No eggplants this week.  Remember how I said it looked like we were winning in the competition with Colorado potato beetles for eggplants?  Well, I was wrong.  They came back with a 4th !!!! generation of larvae chowing on the leaves and blossoms the next day after I said that.  I had thought that I would spray one more time, so to prepare, I cut off all the fruits that were present two weeks ago.  Those are the ones I have been giving you.  I didn't spray, but it didn't matter, because the cooler weather has caused both the beetles and the eggplants to slow down their development so much that almost no fruits have grown since the last harvest.  Hopefully, we'll get one more big harvest out of the patch before frost.  It's hard to imagine that 2000 plants have only given us 2 or 3 eggplants per share this season. 

Some of you have asked me about bell peppers, like when are we going to get a ton of them?  Probably never.  There are 3000 pepper plants in the garden, which should be enough peppers for all of you plus everybody in about two more CSAs.  But, once again, both quality and quantity are abysmal.  Blame it on the weather and eat them fast, because as you have probably figured out, they don't store very well!

On a more happy note, the winter squash look great.  I'll start to cut them in about two weeks.  I hate to hurry the squash harvest.  I always think they taste better when they get a little cool weather and sit around for a while.  We'll enjoy squash in October.

Another thing that looks great is the fall garden.  We've had good rain and good growing conditions and no deer have walked in the garden in 15 nights now that the whole thing is set up like Fort Knox with electric fence.  Lettuce, radishes, Chinese cabbage, beets, Asian greens - they all appear to be happy and healthy.  And, another garden miracle, I am successfully growing spinach!!!!  This is huge.  (And so not like me!!!)  Once again, I'm not making any promises, but I'm optimistic that we will have some very nice things to eat in the fall.

What did you find out in your garlic taste test?  Send me your results and I'll compile them and send them to my garlic seed suppliers.

We have two more weeks of veggie pickup on week nights, the weeks of September 13/16 (this upcoming week) and September 20/23.  Starting the following week (the last week of September), everybody picks up vegetables on Saturdays, 10:00 until 3:00.  The final pickup will be Saturday, October 23.  Please start wrapping your brain around the schedule change.  It sometimes sneaks up on people.

Saturday, September 25, at least two big things are happening in Mt. Vernon that I know about.  One is the Lincoln Highway Arts Festival, 10:00 until 4:00, uptown MV.  The other is a meet-and-greet for my friend, Francis Thicke, who is a candidate for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture in the elections in November.  You'll get an invitation to the event later this week.  I hope you can attend, or will take some time to learn more about Francis and his ideas about energy self-sufficiency, sustainable food production, and the future of agriculture in Iowa.   He's got great credentials and I think he's got a lot of ideas that would be a huge breath of fresh air for all of us, both farmers or eaters. 

See you this week,

Laura

Greetings shareholders,

This week, we have potatoes, onions, leeks, beets, squash, basil, cilantro, beans, tomatoes, peppers, chilies, kale, and collards.  The onions will be Yellow Spanish.  Normally, these would be storage onions, but they aren't in the greatest condition, so you should plan to use them quickly.  Once again, disease in the field in June is affecting what's available now.  Late leeks look very nice; we'll know for sure when we start harvesting them this week. Tomatoes continue to die faster than they live, but they still taste great so we'll just keep picking them.  Like last week, they have lots of blemishes and cracks and dings that will affect their storability.  Keep them at room temperature, on the counter where you can keep an eye on them, cracks facing down, and eat them fast.

We might be able to get enough eggplants for everybody to have one this week.  The eggplant saga is complicated and long.  It starts well.  I love eggplants like I love shoes - you can never have too many different kinds of either one.  So, I got a little carried away and somehow ended up with about 2000 eggplant plants this spring.  We planted them at the end of June and they did well for a while.  But, in mid-July a very horrible pest, the Colorado potato beetle, strolled out of the potato patch and found them.  We had had a small amount of damage from potato beetle in the potatoes, but since I am more likely to depend on the natural enemies of our pests than I am on insecticides, I let them go with minimal treatment.  Big mistake.  In my life, I've seen about two dozen potato beetles until this year.  This year, I've seen two dozen beetles on the top two leaves of every single eggplant plant in the field.  We treated them with two different insecticides six different times, and still have barely been able to reduce their population to a level that we can tolerate.  I've used more insecticides (OK, only about a quart in total) on this one crop than I have used in five years on all crops combined.  And still, they live and eat and lay eggs.  We are now seeing the larvae of the third generation.  They eat the eggplant plants and the fruits, and they've also moved into the tomatoes and have destroyed the fruit from at least forty plants.  They are a NIGHTMARE.  And they'll likely be here next year, too.  However, next year I am going to blast them with whatever it takes to get them gone as soon as possible.   The good news is that, even though they have destroyed half of the eggplant plants, there are still about 1000 plants left, so there should be enough eggplant fruit to make everybody happy.  Hopefully, we can start harvesting it this week.  But no mountains of beautiful eggplant in six colors and eight shapes this year.  (I know how sad that makes you.)

We have started cutting okra.  Strangely, we have a large group of okra loving people among the Abbe Hills shareholders.  There won't be enough for everybody, so I've devised a rationing system.  This week, I think we have enough for about four families.  So, if you or your parents were born somewhere between 23 degrees north and 23 degrees south of the equator, you can have okra.  Next week, we'll have a little more, so you will be able to have some if you or your parents were born south of Interstate 40.  The week after, if you have ever lived south of I40.  The week after that, we'll turn everybody loose on the okra and hope no fights break out.   I'd grow more for you, but it's so absolutely awful to harvest that I have to trick my workers into cutting it for you, and they can usually only be tricked once.  I run out of workers before I run out of okra.

We'll have three kinds of garlic this week.  They are German Red (the kind you have been getting), Chesnot Red, and a kind we don't know that I call "Gary" in honor of Gary Guthrie, who gave me the seed.   You'll only get the small heads because I have to save at least 50 pounds of big ones to plant next year's crop.  Take one of each and do a taste test at home.  Tell me which one you like and maybe we can plant more of it.  I'm not sure that we will have garlic again; depends on how much is left after this week and your recommendations.

If you've given me a check in the last two months, you may be wondering why I haven't cashed it.  The truth is that I've only had enough time to open the bills, and the rest of my mail since early July is on a pile.  Hopefully, I'll get it opened sometime this week and will work my way through the CSA paperwork finally and have time to go to the bank.  If I've lost it, I'll figure it out and get back with you.  More likely, it's safely buried somewhere in the pile of mail.

We've got the deer fence up and fully electrified.  The fall lettuce is protected!!!!  I'm optimistic.

Hoping for some rain this week to get the fall crops up and growing while there is still some warmth.  We'll take half or three-quarters of an inch.  Might interfere with the potato digging later in the week, but we'll figure it out when we get there.  There are lots of hills of potatoes left to dig (maybe not so many potatoes, however.  The summer potatoes have been yielding quite poorly in both quantity and quality), and I will need help to get it all done.  If you or a group to which you belong want to help, please let me know.

See you this week,

Laura

Greetings shareholders,

This week, we have potatoes, Super Star onions, kale, collards, beans, small eggplants, cucumber, squash, cilantro, basil, tomatoes, and peppers.  We have four kinds of potatoes dug, including Red Norland (red outside, white inside), Superior (white all over), Adirondack Red (red inside and out), and Yukon Gold (yellow inside).  You could make a very interesting potato salad with the mix.  We're trying out the Adirondacks, so let me know what you think of them.

Super Star are the white onions that are so sweet.  They look terrible, but taste great.  We're now picking the first time from the next crop of beans.  I think we'll be able to offer you beans of some sort from now on for a few weeks, not tons of them, but a nice taste every week.  Cucumbers are nearly dead, tomatoes and peppers are starting to look alive. 

We're planting the fall crops as fast as I can get the ground ready, and digging potatoes every chance we have, but it's tough when the rains are so frequent.  We could go a week now without rain without hurting my feelings.  The heat last week was good for many things in the garden, especially the squash.  I kind of like it, too.  I lived in the Everglades for several years and the kind of weather we had last week always makes me think of my time there.  And it's way better than the alternative, something I am sure I will reflect upon next January when there are five-foot snow drifts between me and where I want to be.

There was an interesting development at the Sauerkraut Festival Biggest Cabbage contest on Saturday.  No one entered!  Apparently, there are no big cabbages anywhere around here.  I'm always hoping to win that contest.  I love the big flathead cabbages that are more than a foot in diameter and weigh 10 or 15 pounds, although I resist the urge to plant them and grow the little softball sized ones for you.  But this year, even that was a problem since almost every cabbage on this place started dying about the end of June as a result of leaf disease brought on by so much dampness.  I was relieved to find out that we aren't the only ones with the problem with the cabbages.

Here's a link to the latest edition of the Utne Reader that's all about food.  I haven't had a chance to read it, but it looks like there could be some interesting articles in it.

Monday people:  I'm going to set out the nomination petitions for my friend, Robert Broulik, at the check in table.  Robert is running for re-election to the Linn Soil and Water Conservation District. where he and I have been commissioners together for years.  He's a great guy and an excellent farmer, and makes a huge contribution to the work of the District.   If you are from Linn County, you can sign the papers.  He needs only 25 signatures to get his name on the ballot in November.

This is the 11th week of the CSA season, the start of the "good half".  Hope that turns out to be true.

See you this week,

Laura

Greetings shareholders,

This week, we'll have squash and zucchini, cucumbers, bell peppers, a chili pepper, kale, collards, basil and cilantro, a few carrots, beets, onions, garlic, and potatoes.  I also think we'll have a few tomatoes, the first of what looks like a nice tomato year.  We have two main kinds of tomatoes, slicers and sauce, or paste tomatoes.  The sauce tomatoes are always first.  Slicers are more juicy and usually bigger; sauce tomatoes are more meaty and therefore easier to cook down.  They both taste great this year, and both kinds work well on a sandwich or a taco. 

I'm going to give you extra onions this week.  We have the wonderful white summer onions that you like so much, Super Star, and they are going downhill fast.  They are so full of sugar that they don't store well under the best of circumstances, but these got sick in the field and are deteriorating even faster, so I need to get them out of here.  Please take some for your freezer.  We've got almost all the onions harvested and we are getting about 1/3 of the yield we expected, plus even the storage onions aren't holding up very well.   It's possible that there will be very few onions left by the end of the season in October, so take plenty now so you will have them for later.

Very bad news about the sweet corn.  I thought I'd be able to get some for you this week, but between the mud and the Canada geese and all the problems that hit at planting time, I'm afraid the Bodacious is not going to happen for us.  One consequence of farming organically is that all weeds have to be controlled with machinery, rather than with the weed killing chemicals that everybody else uses.  When the geese ate the little corn plants, they caused the corn to be shorter than the little weeds that were also present in the field.  Normally, I'm able to kill little weeds without killing corn because the corn is bigger and tougher than the weeds.  This spring, it was just the opposite.  The weeds continued to get bigger, the little corns took a long time to recover from the damage from the geese, and the situation in the field went from bad to worse, so bad that there really isn't anything worth harvesting today.  There is another area of Incredible that might be ready starting on Thursday, but the ears will be small and there won't be too many if we are able to get them at all.  So, the bottom line is, you might want to get some sweet corn from somebody else.  Krouls seem to have quite a lot, and Mr. Rebal south of Solon has had it every time I go by.  I'm sure there is corn at the farmers markets, too.  I am so sorry about the way this has worked out, and completely humiliated.  Corn is kind of my thing.  I kept thinking that if I didn't talk about it too much, maybe the corn fairies would come and cause a corn miracle, but it looks like that might have been a bad plan.  I'm sorry for the inconvenience this causes you and your family.  Who ever heard of a CSA in Iowa that doesn't have corn???? Sheesh.  And kale just isn't a good replacement crop!

I'm looking for a dog.  I've never had a dog, and don't think of myself as a dog person, but I think I need to become one.  I've been very lucky to have had 22 years on this farm without much damage by geese or deer, but it looks like the party is over.  Electric fence is an option, and hunting will make a dent in their population, but it seems like a dog is the only affordable, effective, long term way to keep the vermin out of the garden.  So, think of me if you hear of a smart adult dog looking for a home.  I need a dog that can learn to chase deer and geese, but not children or chickens.  I'm thinking a lab, border collie, terrier, Australian shepherd mutt would be perfect.  My new dog has to be able to get along outside and be willing to work in exchange for life in Dog Disneyland.  So don't send me to look at little Muffie who has to sleep at the foot of the bed and only eats food from a can.  I'm looking for a farm dog.

We're digging potatoes like crazy to get ready for the time when all my workers leave to go back to college.  I hate it when they do that to me.  We're also replanting all the spring crops to have again in the fall.  I'm optimistic that we'll have good crops.  The soil is in good shape and it's warm enough for things to grow rapidly.  Two gardens are going to be fortified and electrified to keep the deer out and I'm filling every available space with lettuce, spinach, chard, beets, broccoli, and greens.  I'm really looking forward to growing all the great fall crops for you and for the people who will be joining the CSA next week for the second half of the season.  I'm hopeful that the annoying weather is past us and it will be easy from now on.

I have raffle tickets for the Southeast Linn Community Center fundraiser for one more week. 

See you this week,

Laura