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A tomato plant in early April

Tomato seedlings now

Hi members and friends,

Less than a month to go until your first pickup!  We hope you all are craving those luscious, fresh greens that signal the start of the CSA season.  Everything has been full-steam at the farm–seeding, planting, watering, weeding, hauling compost.  Until today, it’s felt like southern California here, with a seemingly endless stream of beautiful, sunny days.  The rain is great news, though, since it’s been drier than normal, which means lots of scheduled irrigation on our part.  After the long winter, it’s been a pleasure to spend every day outside, taking note of each new type of bloom and hearing the familiar bird songs around the farm–today, we heard our first wood thrush, one of our favorites.    The plants are growing steadily, and the fields are filling up.  We look forward to next week, which is the official last frost date of the year (hopefully!)–that means we can plant our tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and other warm season crops.

We’re also happy to announce that we are full for the season!  Thanks everyone for signing up!

Your lettuce, spinach and peas making good progress

In our last post, we mentioned the killdeer that nested in our fields.  We planted our potatoes around them and gave them some space so that they could continue nesting, and so we had a workable detante where they kept their shrill “killdeer! killdeer!” peeping to a reasonable level.  Since then, their eggs have hatched, and now the family of  five is off, running about the farm announcing themselves all day long.  Check out the video at the end of the post (sorry it doesn’t play on mobile devices) to see how the killdeer parents went all out performing their fake-broken-wing distraction dance after Bryn took this photo:

A killdeer chick!

All the best,

Bryn and Wes

Whew! It’s up and working!

Hello members and friends!

Activity on the farm has really picked up over these past two weeks, along with the general rise in daytime temperatures.  We’re more than halfway through our seeding, with the greenhouse full of seedlings and with beets, spinach and peas sown out in the field.  I transplanted two hundred feet of delicious kale on Wednesday, in time for the rain, and onions and kohlrabi are next.  We also finished construction on our fancy shmancy double-wall inflated hoophouse, which is coming in very handy as we need to move seedlings out of the greenhouse into an intermediary space before they are planted in the fields.  There was a healthy dose of trials and tribulations along the way — plastic that was slightly too small (no problem, we just had to build a raised wall along the north side of the house), an incomplete blower assembly (we devised a creative mounting system instead) and the generally uncommon shape of our structure, which led to some adjustments in order to prevent stress points on the plastic.   But, luckily, over the years we’ve acquired a respectable pile of tools  along with coffee cans full of screws and bolts, so the sky’s the limit when it comes to creative, frugal repairs.

Utah presides over the 24×60 foot piece of plastic for the hoop house

In other news, we’ve made some connections with local livestock farmers who are offering meat share options to the community.  We want to let all of you know about these options, in case you would like to get your local meat this way.  Ryan Fitzgerald in Accord is raising organic, free-range chickens this year and offering a 5-chicken share for delivery in July for $125.00.  This means you would need to have a big freezer to hold them all, or you could split your chicken share with another member.  Another farm, Karl Family Farm in Modena (near Gardiner) offers differently sized 6-month meat shares with a variety of options for monthly pickup, including: Full Meat Share (approximately 3.25 lbs of Beef, 5.5 lbs. of Pork, and 2 Whole Chickens that are approx. 3.5 lbs. each at $780.00), Half Meat Share (approx. 1.5 lbs. Beef, 2.25 lbs. Pork and 1 Whole Chicken approx 3.5lbs at $390.00), and also Full and Half Poultry Shares.  Let us know if you are interested in these options, and we can get in touch with these farmers.

VIDEO TIME!  Lastly, we leave you with a moment of nature.  Yesterday, as I transplanted our kale in the morning, I had the company of our annual avian companions, the killdeer.  They are rather uptight birds, since they nest right in our fields (which can be inconvenient, but we leave them alone) and have to engage in all sorts of antics to distract anyone/thing that might encroach upon their nest.  They run around frantically, stretch out on the ground pretending they have a broken wing and make a racket.  Check out the video I took to see for yourself!

And remember, it’s always a great time to sign up if you haven’t yet!  Tell your friends and family!

All the best,

Bryn

Muddy greetings, members and friends!

We’re convinced that you are all special people.  Not just because you are members of Second Wind CSA or have an affinity for us, but because you have chosen to be a part of the farming community and commit to keeping many of your dollars local while eating healthfully, with the seasons.  I went to an agriculture conference recently at SUNY New Paltz where two CRREO researchers showcased their study that found that CSA members are the most civically engaged citizens.  They care about the economy AND the environment, and they get out there and do the most to further more just systems.  We appreciate that you are doing more than buying local, organic food — you are part of a positive change in the food system, whose current industrial, globalized foundation cracks a little more every year.

A special note–we are almost FULL for the season!  Thank you everyone who joined early this year.  If you have friends or family who have wanted to join, you should encourage them to act fast, because we have just a few spots left.

Onions popping up

So, what’s going on at the farm?  The red wing blackbirds are trilling out by the pond, garlic is starting to sprout in the fields, and we’ve seeded the first of your crops for this season.  We always start with onions, leeks and celeriac, since they prefer colder temperatures during their younger days.  When you get your leeks and celeriac in the fall, we will remind you all to take a moment to appreciate all the time and nutrients that went into these veggies as they sat in the field for the entire season.  They’re basically the grandmas and grandpas of the field.

Everyone in the germinater

As requested by a few members last season, we’ve added shallots to your menu this year, for a little extra sweet onion-y punch in your summer and fall recipes.  Today I seed head lettuce, broccoli, chard, and some flowers.  Next week is a little crazy, with all the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.  All the sown seeds get cozy and warm in the farm’s homemade refrigerator-turned-germinater, where they are kept at about 75 degrees for a week or so until the first sign of sprouting.  Then we will move them out to the greenhouse, where they can stretch out until we move them out to the hoophouse, and then into the fields they go!

Wes watering the little sprouts

All the best,
Bryn