Abbe Hills Farm CSA

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