Merry Heart Farm

The chill in the air feels soooo good. It is energizing and refreshing. I am loving being able to work out side this time of year. An effort to protect the last corn for the season has been accomplished. Oil with Bt was applied to each ear tassle, so we are hoping for less damage in this planting. I have been vigilant with spraying the squash for bugs, and even though the plants look a bit worse for wear, they are still producing.  I am looking forward to Tuesday's  5th share pick up and I believe our decision to wait one week was a wise one. This break will provide those with a full share a more mature selection and longer harvest. We started almost a month early this year and the financial support allowed the farm to be better prepared for the entire fall/winter planting and I believe the food that we were able to produce for the first four share weeks has been tasty and of good quality.  One thing that I would do differently would be to have more lettuces planted earlier.   I had all of the seed trays full of things that we'll be eating throughout the months and I was unprepared for how quickly we had to replace the lettuces due to the heat causing them to bolt. Most of my tomatoe plants that were started from seed did not make it through the early days.  I purchased some lettuces, and bannana pepper plants and roma tomatos to make up for some things that did not do well from seed.

Your farmer was getting a bit frazzled by the bugs, drought and the adjustment to the earlier weeks, but I feel that it was a step we were ready to take and next fall we will have a better understanding of the challenges of production in September. I will be sharing more information in my next message about the timing of our Winter shares and when to sign up. I will also be asking for feed back about the amount of food and how the size of the shares has met your families needs and about the actual amount versus what you anticipated. I have recieved positive feedback that folks are eating through everything, so I am happy that we have not overwhelmed you and I have not heard of any concerns. Please know that you are welcome to share needs and concerns  so that I can help you figure out a better way to use or store your produce, and if it is something we can do our our end I will happily look into making it better.

See you Soon,

Farmer Jen