Abbe Hills Farm CSA

Greetings shareholders,

Good news!!!  Abbe Hills Farm CSA will open the 2011 season next week, with your vegetable pickup nights starting on Monday, June 6, 4:30 until 7:00.  The farm is at 825 Abbe Hills Road, Mt. Vernon.  Directions and information about how pickup nights work is at the farm website, www.abbehills.com

We're going to open the season on schedule, but there will be only a very small amount of vegetables in the share next week.  For the first week, I was planning to give you lettuce, stir fry kits, onions, maybe some snap peas, radishes.  But the cold and rain that hung around basically the whole month of May, and the erratic swings from too cold to too hot, really slowed down the rate of growth of the plants in the gardens.  (While we were thankful for a couple of gorgeous days this week, just 10 days ago, it was 38 degrees at night, baby chicks were spending the first week of their lives in my living room, and I was wearing gloves and my insulated coat to do my chores.  And today, we are expecting record high temperatures.  Weird.)  I estimate that most things in the gardens are about two weeks behind where they should be.  So, it's going to be puny the first time.  Don't panic - it will get much much much better and it's part of the CSA fun.  A few warm days will help things grow and it will change fast.  Pretty soon, you'll have to eat veggies for breakfast just to keep up.

For the next 20 weeks, I'll send a newsletter late Sunday nights to give you an idea about what to expect in the share that week.  You'll get it as an email on Sunday nights, and you can also access the newsletter from a link on the first page of the website. 

I'm looking forward to starting the season, meeting the new shareholders, and getting reacquainted with the returning ones.  There is still grass to mow, a shed to organize, corn to cultivate, hoophouse to clean, and tomatoes to plant before you come here the first time, so don't expect anything too fancy next week.  It might not all get accomplished.  But we're off to a good start.  I've got a great crew, most things that should be in the ground actually are there, we're staying ahead of the weeds pretty well, and all the moisture keeps the plants happy.  It could be a great season.

More on Sunday,

Laura