News from the Farm – August 2, 2014


It is 47 degrees out here Wednesday morning! I spent the night dreaming about frost covered pepper plants and hauling row cover around to protect them after it was too late. Is it really Christmas in July? Pretty strange weather.

Despite the inch of rain we got on Sunday night and all our late night fears about muddy impassible fields, we were able to get most of the fall greens planted on Monday with the help of some worker members and a former intern. It was a great relief to get all those plants in the ground: green, red russian, & black kales, cabbages, broccoli, chard, collard greens, as well as the last of the annual flowers. We’ve sown almost the last beets and carrots. We will be sowing turnips, radishes (many varieties), and arugula again on Thursday. It looks like it’s going to rain on again on Friday, though we would really like it to pass us by.

Alex was out on his new old tractor this morning and got a lot of cultivating done in record time. Still some tweaks to work out (like not driving on the plants!) but he got all the paths and most of the beds of our fall planting done in about 1 hour. He was very excited. You all should ask him about it.

Alex is also back manning the Wednesday market booth and CSA pick up. He got the all clear from the doctor last week and has returned to regular duty. We are all so glad. That said, I (Vanessa) will miss seeing all the Wednesday folk and bustling River Arts District market. Once school starts again, I’ll be by with Ada and Belle, so I won’t be totally gone.

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.

A random picture from the farm. A few year back we planted hops around the base of our silo. It has grown to cover the whole thing! Perhaps we need to contact New Belgian.

hops