We are back after a very fun and relaxing family vacation. The interns did a great job while we were away. Running the farm is challenging for us and we’ve been at it for about 20 years, so the interns got a little dose of what it’s like to run a farm without anyone else telling them what to do.
We got back late Saturday night and immediately got to work on Sunday, mowing weeds and huge cover crops, and discing up the next field to be used for the early fall crops. You may recall the picture from tow weeks ago of the interns standing in the cover crop with only their heads above the greenery. Mowing it down on Sunday, it was above my head as I was sitting at the controls of the tractor! So i used our flail mower to chop it up into little pieces and then disced it into the soil, allowing all the soil microbes, earth worms, and all the other kinds of bugs to start to decompose the green manure into the soil. The first of the fall crops were planted on Monday, with a bed of green kale going in. It’s a bit more work this time of year protecting the fall greens from certain insects. The harlequin bug is a real nasty creature. It’s a piercing and sucking true bug, that can completely destroy our fall greens, broccoli, and cabbages without serious intervention from us. So we make sure to squish all the bugs that are on the starts before we plant them, then once the plants are in the ground we put hoops over the bed and cover them with a floating row cover, which acts as a physical barrier. There is no organic insecticide spray that is effective on these beasts, so we pick them off by hand and squish ‘em.
This year’s garlic crop is not doing well. For the first year ever there seems to be some sort of tiny maggot that has burrowed itself into some of the cloves. We’ve never seen this before and are unsure of what kind of insect is responsible. Anyway, so trying to make sure we don’t pass on any of the infected garlic on to you is extremely time consuming. We may wind up offering “garlic at your own risk”. The maggot is usually only in one clove out of the 10-12 in the head, so if you simply cut out the bad one, you have the rest of the head that’s good to eat. It’s a bummer though, any way you look at it.
******Worker members, we are ready to put you to work! Please take a moment to look at your calendars to see when you might be able to fulfill your work commitment.******
The boxes we use for the CSA shares are waxed and are not recyclable, but we do reuse them. So PLEASE remember to BRING THEM BACK next week.
Ideas for Cooking
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
“ A significant part of the pleasure of eating,” writes Wendell Berry, “is one’s accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes.” Food we gather for ourselves, food we process ourselves, food that calls us to engage in the work and wonder of sustenance matters so much more than mere food consumption. We cannot and do not have to be the catcher of all we consume, but the deeper involvement in the origin of our meals the more fully we feel connected to place, to water, to the confluence of tributaries that bring what feeds and matters, to our own small presence in the world, to what we eat for pleasure and what we eat to endure. – Tom Rankin, Southern Cultures, Spring, 2015
We invite you to come out and volunteer at Full Sun Farm, get your hands in the dirt, and be a part of the food you enjoy each week./
This Week’s Recipe: