Week 10 | Spring 4 CSA Newsletter Tues | May 7
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Call or text Robin at 708-370-8017 if you have any questions about your delivery tonight. |
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Notes from Chris
Sunny, settled weather with temperatures in the 70's and light winds usually happens in the fall. Spring is the windiest time of the year and when we get warm weather this time of year we usually also get wind and changing conditions. So we're grateful for this extended stretch of mild, calm, and warm but not hot weather we're seeing. Outdoor planted crops are doing very well having received a little rain late last week and now are experiencing beautiful, moderate temperatures with no frost in sight--probably for the rest of the spring season. Our hoop house crops are also moving along with six houses now cleared of spring crops and planted to summer tomatoes.
We're finally seeing some lettuce harvested this week, coming from the hoop houses. Early in the spring/late in the winter, we got behind in both the numbers of plants we had sown, and also with respect to the timing of our sowings. Many things were too few and too late. When our farm manager Kurt left the farm in mid-February, I got pretty scared pretty fast. Talk about good motivation--the good news is that all this commotion of losing a key employee and concern about our planting schedule lit a fire that motivated me to adjust our planting schedule for maximum intensity and efficiency. I went crazy with it, doing anything and everything possible to get as many crops planted and harvested ASAP. That means we're planting everything closer together, and harvesting earlier from younger plants. We're getting more food out of less space, and able to start harvesting a couple weeks sooner. The bottom line is that lettuce wound up being a few weeks later than we'd have liked. As we like lettuce a lot, expect it in many boxes from now well into fall.
In the weeks to come, we'll be out in the field working on mastering our new direct seeding machine. Kurt did a good job last fall learning using this seeder for our root crops and mesclun (spicy greens) mix. We figured out which seed plates need to be used for which crops, and what tractor speed needs to be maintained for the best seed distribution. This and timely weeding efforts are among the most important things we can do to be efficient and save money in the field. Believe it or not, as a farm, we spend half our gross income on labor, and anything we can do to improve field efficiency makes a big difference. Our first efforts this spring will be with mesclun mix. We were considering doing carrots, turnips, and radishes in the field, but we already have lots of great carrots from last fall, and several weeks of hakurei turnips from one of our spring hoops, so we decided to focus instead on spring peas and early onions. Our new field manager, Scott, is doing well and I don't want to overwhelm him or anyone with too much new stuff at once. So we'll focus on a few crops we need to sow with the new seeder, and work on the others later. And we'll keep transplanting everything else like crazy, as always.
So, the aforementioned lettuce is the highlight this week. This week and next you'll see more of the beautifully sweet hakurei salad turnips. The Tokyo bekana is holding up great and will be in the box the next few weeks. Use it as you would Chinese cabbage, but it also works in salads as we harvested it young enough for that purpose. There are some very nice chives as a bonus left over from last year's planting as well. The variety in the box will remain steady or slightly increase over the next few weeks.
-- Chris
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Questions?
Call Robin (in Chicago), 708-370-8017 | Chris (farmer/owner), 608-712-1585
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