The time has finally come to start the Spring CSA, and we couldn't be more excited! The warmer weather, and increased day length has perked the crops right up, and they are exploding with growth. It shouldn't be much longer until the bounty is too much to keep up with, and that is something that I will happily deal with :-)

In years past we have used a plastic mulch to control weeds, and boost plant growth. The plastic also keeps the crops cleaner, which reduces foliar diseases. These benefits are pertinent on the organic farm, as we can't rely on fungicides to control disease. However, we HATE working with the plastic. The worst is that the plastic can be an absolute back-breaker to remove at the end of the season. Couple that with the crushing guilt we feel when we have to take it to the landfill, and you wind up with a catalyst for change. After all, why would we spend so much time and effort to source biodegradable bags for our produce just to lay plastic in our fields (we are working on phasing out the plastic pint containers as well)? We are happy to say that this year there will be absolutely NO plastic laid in our fields. I know what you are thinking, "But Robert, what is that in the photo?". It's a biodegradable plastic alternative made from plant resins, and it can be tilled in at the end of the year to become fertilizer for next years crops...a win-win.

Earlier, in my email to our members, I said that I would explain what we have been doing to better control future episodes of poor weather. This winter I spent about a month applying for fellowship from the Farmer Veterans Coalition,  an organization whose mission is to ensure the success of veteran farmers. One of the biggest benefits of fellowship is grant money. We received news last week that I was granted fellowship, and that we won a $3,000 grant to purchase two caterpillar tunnels. A caterpillar tunnel is somewhat of an unheated greenhouse. Though unlike a greenhouse, it will give us the ability to quickly disassemble it for safekeeping in the event of violent weather, such as hail, or extreme winds. Another added benefit is that we can move it around the farm so that we can continue to practice crop rotation, a very important aspect of organic agriculture disease control. Since, we wont receive them for a few more weeks, I've included the photo below from instagram

Not only are they great for season extension, but they also help to prevent disease by keeping the plants dry. We'll start them out with tomatoes during the summer, and then fill them to the brim with a plethora of delicious veggies for our winter csa members. After all of those crops have been harvested, they will be replanted for next years Spring CSA members, so that even if we have a cold, miserable spring, we can still start on time.

Now, on to the good stuff: This weeks CSA basket!

I want to take a brief moment to share a story with you about some of the items in your basket this week. One of the side effects of being a farmer is that you develop a love for really good food. A few years ago we decided to satiate our desire for good food by heading to New York to eat at the famed Blue Hill at Stone Barns. It was our first visit to a Michelin Star restaurant, and about 5 courses in, the chef sat the following salad down on our table:

Customarily, the chef began to describe the dish: "A mix of wild foraged greens". I could clearly identify dandelion and lambs quarter, weeds that I regularly curse for growing amidst my crops. But our curiosity was piqued, and we dived in. It was delicious, and it forever changed the way I view these plants. Side Note: If you have been with us in past years, you have enjoyed the member favorite, Habanada. We initially enjoyed the habanada at this dinner as well, and began growing it the very next year. For the past couple of years I have been identifying edible plants that grow wild on our farm and sampling them for culinary use. Some, like dandelion greens, I despise...way too bitter, I'd rather just have a head of refined French chicory. However, I've found some that I consistently enjoy, and have decided to integrate them into the CSA. This week I'll offer the first of these foraged foods to our members: Wild Garlic & Starwort.

Starwort is an early spring green that has succulent stems, and a very mild green. It tastes great added to salads, and provides a TON of essential vitamins and nutrients: it is high is chlorophyll, calcium, magnesium, manganese, zinc, iron, phosphorus, and potassium, Vit A, C, and several B vitamins. It is just what our bodies need after a long winter. The succulent crunch of the stems are almost addictive, and overall it has a mild spinach flavor. You all are sure to love this foraged green. Roughly chop the entire plant (stems and leaves) before adding to salads, sandwiches, wraps, and soups. You may want to use these up within a couple of days, as they they start to lose their crunch after about 4 days. Though they would still be fantastic in soups, they probably wont have that romaine like crunch for your salads.

Wild Garlic is probably one of my absolute favorites. It reminds me a lot of garlic scapes, though much milder. I've been using them exactly how I would green onion, to garnish stir fry, breakfast hash, and throwing several chopped stems into all of my salads. They add just the right amount of oniony/garlic flavor...they would even be perfect for introducing those picky eaters to the flavor of onion, as it is so mild. I've found the best way to store them is to place them in a jar with about an inch of water, and then cover the tops with the bag they will come in. A rubber band around the jar to keep the bag tight will ensure they last well over a week.

I have a few other foraged items that I hope to introduce you all to as the season progresses, and I am sure you will love them too. For CSA shares this week:

I'll see you next week,
Robert

Whoa...these past 2 weeks have been a whirlwind. Trying to stay caught up with all of the spring planting while also working around 35mph wind gusts, a snow storm, and a hard freeze has proven to be a test of not only our stamina, but also our patience! Though here we are, as caught up as we can be, and feeling pretty content to have gotten it all finished before the rain. Let's go for a walk, and take a look around the farm...

Prepping for the hard freeze last weekend took a little brainstorming, as the forecast lows were set to be record breaking. Luckily, over the winter, I read a book by Eliot Coleman about winter farming. In the book, Coleman talks about a technique he uses in Maine to produce vegetables in the winter without supplemental heat. He begins by planting the crops in a hightunnel (an unheated greenhouse), and then he  places floating row cover directly on top of the crops. This technique essentially uses the air of the high tunnel to act as an insulating layer against the cold, while the row cover holds in the heat that the ground has soaked up from the sun. However, we had one problem...these crops were not planted in a high tunnel, but rather in the open field.

What is it about a good challenge that brings out our creativity? Not one to just give up, I imagined using the same technique that Eliot Coleman has perfected, but on a miniature scale. We went to work covering every row with a double layer of floating row cover, and using leftover vented greenhouse film, built a mini-greenhouse over each row as well. This is where the 35mph wind gusts really made the job harder than it needed to be.

With a little bit of grit, and a lot of tenacity, we managed to get the job done...and every crop (except the recently transplanted broccoli) survived. Here is a look at the cabbages, which have now been through multiple rounds of freezing temperatures and several snowstorms.

Adding to the complexity of managing an ever dwindling amount of time to get things done, is a farm first: a premature calf. At about 3 weeks premature, this little guy couldn't even stand up to nurse. Since he didn't get any antibodies from his mothers milk, he also got scours (scours is an antiquated term used by farmers to describe any illness that causes diarrhea...it can be caused by any number of naturally occurring pathogens: salmonella, e.coli, coccidia, etc). Needing a bit more than just a helping hand, this guy spent his first 10 days of life in the house.

His mouth was so small that he required a lamb nipple on his bottle to be able to eat. His little body was so underdeveloped that he couldn't walk on his front feet, couldn't hold his ears up, and had a very poor coat. I dubbed him Littlefoot, a reference to the lovable dinosaur from The Land Before Time.

Luckily for Littlefoot, another calf was born on the same day that also required intervention, so a friend he shall have. A large calf was born as a twin, and in true cow fashion, his mother chose only 1 of her babies...and he did not fair well in the decision. If he were to survive, we would have to be the ones to raise him. We call him Jack, because he is sprightly, and likes to jump around like a jackrabbit.

As a farmer you have to always think a year ahead. If we want to add a crop to the csa offerings for next year, in most cases that work has to occur this year. As our long time members know, we are constantly working to improve the experience of our csa membership, and believe it or not, work has already began for the 2019 CSA members. This week we planted 1,000 crowns of asparagus, which will be ready for a first harvest in the spring of 2019.

Asparagus is a finicky plant when it comes to planting, and thus most of the work occurs by hand. The one year old crowns have to be planted at exactly 8", and then covered with exactly 2" of soil. As they sprout and grow out of the soil we will cover them with another 2" of soil, and we will repeat this process for a total of four times. These beds will produce for the next 20 years, so we require perfection at planting...as small mistakes now will lead to big headaches later.

If you have been a csa member for a while, you may remember that we used to have asparagus. Last year an old fence had to be removed, and pulling the wire and posts out required the help of large tractors. The only way to reach that fence was over the asparagus bed, and unfortunately the weight of the equipment destroyed the crowns. That asparagus was one of the absolute best things I have ever eaten in my life, so this time, I increased the amount planted by 400%.

We also pulled the 600 lbs of seed potatoes out of the walk-in this week. We then cut them into appropriately sized pieces for planting (~2oz), and let them scab over, which helps prevent rotting in the cool spring soil. We then expose them to light and heat in a technique known as chitting, which speeds the growth and helps boost the overall yield by sprouting the "eyes" prior to planting.

We also weeded and cleaned out some of the strawberry patch. We are loaded down with flowers, and it looks like it should be a fantastic year for all things strawberries. In addition to offering the ripe berries as usual, we will also use them for a few other offerings. Green strawberries are gaining in popularity with foodies, and so we will offer them this year for our more culinary adventurous members (click here for more info). We will also be turning some of them into delicious strawberry jam to offer during our winter csa. I don't want to digress, but you all are seriously going to absolutely love the winter csa...I have tons of awesome stuff planned for it.

We also had 3 semi loads of certified organic compost delivered this week. We'll use this as a fertilizer for the growing crops, and also as a mulch for the berry plants (to suppress weeds). As the trucks dumped their load, I laughed at how giddy we were over finding a local source of organic compost;  at what point in my life did a truck load of horse shit become so exciting?!?

With the threat of rain on the horizon, we made one final push. We seeded 600 more feet of crops for the spring csa members: lettuce mix, baby kale, power greens salad mix, radishes, bunching onions, arugula, bok choys, kohlrabi, and baby spinach. Now we wait for the rain.

Storms are almost a finish line for farmers, ending a race to get just one more thing done; just one more row prepped for planting, just one more row weeded, or just one more row seeded. There is a special peacefulness that a thunderstorm brings to the soul (if you have your work caught up). We've learned to take advantage of the forced respite, because once the sun returns, the race is reset...and ready or not, it's time to go.

I'll see you next week.
-Robert

Well, after winter jerking us around several times over the past 2 weeks, mud season has officially arrived. I think this meme sums it up the chaos that we call "spring" better than I can:

The csa is scheduled to start on April 20th, so despite the unfavorable weather,  the seeding and transplanting had to continue on schedule. Working in quick bursts around multiple snow storms, and near constant rain I've managed to get over a mile of crops planted for our members. The direct seeded crops were especially difficult to get planted, as our seeders do not like damp soil. Luckily, we made quite a few raised beds last year, and they dry out rather quickly between the storms. So far, we have planted cabbage, broccoli, salad turnips, radishes, baby kale medley, spring mix, power greens salad mix, carrots, beets, arugula, baby spinach, Chinese broccoli, bok choy, broccoli raab, bunching kale, and collard greens. Join me for a look around the spring gardens:

I hope you've enjoyed seeing these promises of spring, despite this foul weather. I know a trip back to the spring garden always brightens my day.

See you next week!

This weather is wild. I did manage to get a few things planted this week before the surprise snowstorm hit. Beets, salad turnips, and cabbage were all planted and covered with row cover. The early spring brassicas have been hardening off (a process of slowly exposing to the environment) over the past week in anticipation of planting.

After planting they were tucked in with about 4" of mulch on each side, as an additional insulator, and for peace of mind, as they would have most likely been fine with just the row cover.

The row cover that we use raises the nighttime low temperature by 5 degrees (or more), and raises the daytime high by as much as 20 degrees. Cabbages have a thin stem that would be damaged if the fabric rested directly in the plant, meaning that every time the wind blows, the fabric would catch it, uprooting and breaking the plants, or in the case of our recent snowstorm, the weight of the snow would have crushed them. Lettuce, beets, radish, and salad green beds can have the fabric rest directly on top of the plant as the planting density creates a natural support, which makes for much quicker work. For the cabbage transplants that you see above, we placed wire hoops every 4 feet for support. We then buried the sides of the fabric,  creating a greenhouse-like effect within.

The garlic has sprung to life, growing a ridiculous amount in only a months time. The plants look really good, and are very healthy...should be a great year for all things garlic.

The walk-in cooler is also filled with hundreds of pounds of certified organic seed potatoes. We are keeping them at a chilly 40 degrees until planting, which is about 1 month out. We should be harvesting the first of the new potatoes around June 1st, which means spring csa members will have them for about the last 3 weeks or so of the season.

Speaking of the spring csa, have you reserved your membership yet? We only have 7 spring memberships left, and with only a month before the season starts, they will go fast. If you have been meaning to sign up, now is the time.

See you next week!

It may not feel like it just yet, but spring is in full swing...so please don't mind the brevity of this update :-)

We are now at the busiest point of calving season, having upwards of 5-6 calves per day. Calving can be a very stressful time of year on the farm. The rapid temperature swings promote the development of respiratory disease, and what we like to colloquially refer to as mud season, can cause issues like hypothermia and scours.  On top of all of the environmental risks to contend with, there is also the need to closely watch the cows during birthing, so that quick assistance can be given when needed. Like earlier this week, when a cow needed help positioning and delivering her calf that was breached.

I know you guys really like cute farm animal videos, so enjoy this video of the calf taking her first steps, after only 5 minutes of being born. Within 15 minutes she is as nimble as she will ever be. 

After just a couple of hours (and a few thousand licks from their mother), they begin to dry off and fluff out their coat.

It's not just calving season that is keeping us busy...the nursery is filled to the BRIM with plants. I'll start hardening these cold-hardy cabbages, as well as some kale, collards, and broccoli early this week in anticipation of field planting them as soon as the weather allows.

There are also cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, cauliflower, onions, and lots of herbs that have sprouted.

Not only is the nursery springing to life, but so are the fields. Cabbage & collards will be transplanted, and beets will be seeded this week. The air temperature may feel a little low, but the soil temperature is actually quite warm (58 degrees), so the berries are bursting into life. I've  already started spring renovations on the beds (for disease and weed control).

There is always so much to do this time of year, which is such a nice change of pace!

See you next week!

We only have a few spring memberships left, so be sure to get them while you still can!

Last year, we planted our single biggest expansion yet: a 1 acre berry patch. It is filled with over 5 strawberry varieties, 3 different raspberries, and of course, the Kentucky favorite, blackberries. While we did harvest a few strawberries last year, the first harvest season will begin this spring, and we couldn't be more excited. In order to provide strawberries to our members over the longest possible season, we were very judicious in our variety selections.

It may come as a surprise to learn that there are currently 103 registered strawberry varieties in the United States. Each of them have been bred for specific traits, such as berry size, flavor, shelf life, ripening time, and disease resistance. By selecting several varieties that ripen at different times throughout the year, we have been able to control the harvest period so that it lasts much longer than usual.

The true workhorse, this variety is an Everbearing, which is different from all of the previous types you've just read about. Everbearing types produce an extra early crop, and then a long harvest of late season berries, usually throughout most of October. After having a long gap of fresh strawberries, these are a welcome sight come autumn. As the weather starts to cool, it is also your final chance to freeze some for all of those winter desserts!

I hope you've enjoyed reading about the strawberries that will provide for our csa program over the next 3 years. We've put a lot of research into strawberry production to ensure that our members will have one of the best (and longest) strawberry seasons in Kentucky, and we are certain that you all will be quite pleased with our efforts. Up next on our list of expansions: an orchard...more info on that soon! 

See you next week!

This week I thought you all might want to hear what we are doing differently this year. Last year was a terrible melon, cucumber, and pumpkin year, do in part to an incredibly wet season on the farm, and unusually high pest pressure. 2016 ushered in one of the strongest El Nino/La Nina cycles since the NOAA began keeping records in 1950, and it decided to stick around for not 1 year, but 2. It seems the weather patterns are starting to stabilize, and the unpredictable jet stream may be returning to its normal spot(hopefully). This is a pattern that should occur every 10 years or so, but due to climate change, is becoming more unpredictable. During el nino/la nino events, drought vs. heavy rainfall oscillations are stronger and more frequent, as well as temperature extremes and summer storms (high winds and thunderstorms).

On a farm that uses organic growing practices, this can wreak havoc. Organic fungicides and pesticides (at least the ones we feel comfortable using), are easily washed off during rainfall. They are no match for conventional pesticides that soak into the plant tissue, and stick around for the entire growing season (and also stick around in the vegetables and fruit...no thank you). We use an agricultural peroxide to control fungal issues, and to be effective, it must be applied every time there are wet conditions on the farm (rain, fog, high humidity). The pesticides that we use are actually just a soil based bacteria, and are easily washed away with the rain, and break down quickly in high heat/humidity. You may wonder, why not just use a stronger organic approved substance? Well, as time goes on, we are discovering that even some organic pesticides are dangerous...rotenone, pyrethrums, etc.. In fact, you may be surprised to learn that some conventional chemicals are safer than organic (I know...it's mind boggling).  Just because a chemical is approved for organic agriculture use, does not mean that we will use it on our farm; the mechanism and mode of actions must match our growing philosophy. The health of our farm and our members is paramount to all other decisions.

Our main nemesis are cucumber beetles (both spotted and striped), and squash bugs. Since we remain steadfast in not using conventional or dangerous organic chemicals, we have spent the majority of winter researching advanced growing techniques to ensure our success with the crops that these pests target: watermelon, muskmelons, cucumbers, summer squash, winter squash, and pumpkins. We have read books, researched what farmers in other countries are doing, poured through the state extension website, and scoured the internet for any piece of knowledge to add to our arsenal of defenses. What we have learned is that it is going to take a multi-step approach to ensure our success, and here is how we are going to do it:

Older plants can sustain feeding damage better than young plants, which pests seem to have a penchant for. Usually cucurbit crops are direct seeded, as it is easier, faster, and more economical than starting them in the nursery and then transplanting into the field.  Cucurbit crops are notoriously finicky, and require a high level of management when started indoors. These fastidious requirements, coupled with our dwindling nursery space, has precluded us from considering this approach in the past. However, our csa members are very important to us, so we have decided to stop selling to local restaurants for the 2018 growing season, which will allow us to have more room (both in the nursery and the field) to dedicate to crops for our members. Side note: Dropping restaurants from our sales outlets will also allow us to resume growing crops that took large amounts of room, and provided little return (such as sweet corn, ornamental pumpkins, and decorative gourds). We have made lots of changes in many different areas of our operation to make sure that the csa program is the best you will find in the state...we love you guys!

Maybe one day soon we will be able to install a screened high tunnel for pest exclusion, but until then, we are going to rely on something that we already have plenty of: fabric row cover. We've used this for years to extend our growing season both earlier in the spring, and later into the winter. Even though this will create several new issues that we will need to manage, it will give the newly transplanted seedlings a safer environment to grow. New issues will be overheating the plants, damaging tender stemmed crops, and pollination. To address overheating, we have sourced the thinnest fabric we can find, which is thin enough to see through. We will use thin metal hoops to suspend the fabric up off of tender stemmed crops like melons and cucumbers. Pollination issues leads us to the next step...

Pollination is the single most important aspect of growing the crops that we are trying to protect, as not only are we going to be excluding pests, but also the pollinators that are essential to fruit formation. Unlike peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, etc., the cucurbit (cucumber and muskmelon) and citrullus (watermelon) species require an insect to climb inside the male flower, and transfer the pollen to each female blossom. If this fails to happen within about 3 days of the female blossom opening, it will wither away and die, and no fruit will be produced. So, we are going to use a little science, and a little nature to work around this problem. Our first approach will be to use parthenocarpic varieties. These varieties are complex hybrids that have been bred for greenhouse production, where insect pollinators are usually absent; they do not require pollination to set fruit. However, these varieties are only available in a handful of crops, namely cucumbers. For watermelons, pumpkins, and squashes, we are going to have to take a different approach: the use of novel pollinators. We have found a source of solitary bees (those that don't build hives) as well as mason bees (which only need a piece of food for nesting). These beeds are notoriously docile, as they are not social, and thus do not have a colony to protect. We will place these pollinators inside the enclosed tunnels where they will hatch. We will provide them with water and a supplemental food source, and in exchange they will carry out pollination duties. Once the pollination has been completed, we will remove the covers, allowing them to flee the enclosed space, and carry out pollination duties on other crops that do not require protection. They are native to our area, so they will reproduce, overwinter, and provide their services for years to come. A win-win for everyone.

Our last line of defense is going to be providing the pests their favorite varieties to snack on. Since they will be  easily accessible (and far away from our protected crops), they should congregate en masse to breed and lay eggs. Once they hatch they are slow and can't fly very well. With careful attention to timing, we will then use our flame weeder for a chemical free extermination. We normally use the flame weeder for pre-emergent weed control, but at 400,000 btus (a normal bbq is around 50,000 btu), it is capable of many different tasks...plus, it is just plain fun (and safe) to use. 

Hopefully, these new growing techniques will improve our success with this small handful of crops that are a challenge to produce successfully on our farm. We aren't ones to shy away from a challenge, and we think this year we have the best plan of attack, yet. See you guys net week!

The growing season is upon us, and in less than a week, we will be planting the first of the years seedlings. We have spent the last month finalizing our planting plan for the year, which is a prerequisite for placing our seed order. You may wonder, why does it take so long to write a planting plan? At over 60 pages long, it is a behemoth of a document, that contains every crop type, variety, amounts to be planted, when to start transplants in the nursery, when to plant in the field, what spacing to use, when harvest will begin, and in what csa season it will be offered. The next step is translating all of that data into a spreadsheet which will allow us to make a weekly plan for the rest of the year. That's right, by the end of the week we will know exactly what we are doing on any given week of the year...all the way to February of next year. It may seem tedious, but as we move towards our year round, never ending csa program (and continue to add even more variety), it is essential for success. Our planting plan also allows us to purchase the exact amount of seed we need, so that we don't waste money buying excess, and friends, seed has gotten expensive in the past few years, so we try not to buy any more than we need! Specialty varieties that have been bred to have a natural disease resistance are important on a farm like ours, where you can't rely on synthetic chemical inputs, and they charge good money for those. So, we start with the very best seed we can find: Johnny's Selected Seeds. They were leaders of the organic agricultural movement, and perhaps most importantly, they are an employee owned company! We finally got the seeds in the mail on Saturday, and at 31lbs, it was a behemoth of a package. It really is like Christmas for us; just take a look at all of these goodies: 

Of course, in addition to new seed, we also have lots from last year that we purchased in bulk, which isn't pictured. We also have to order seed potatoes and onion transplants, but those wont arrive until the proper planting time, later in spring. 

Dry beans were a member favorite last year (which surprised us), so we have decided to add a few more for you all: We are keeping the baking/multi-purpose bean from last year (Kenearly Yellow Eye), and adding a black bean (Midnight Black Turtle), as well as a multi-purpose soup bean (Vermont Cranberry).

We're pretty appreciative of the warm spell we had last week, and took the time to go back to check on the garlic, which is looking excellent. Garlic is planted in the fall, and harvested the following year. The purpose of this planting is so that the bulbs have excellent roots, so that they can produce the biggest bulbs possible. Normally the tops will grow a short amount during our mild Decembers, and then die back in the cold of January, continuing to work on creating a strong root system. However, these organically raised bulbs, which we purchased directly from a farmer in Pennsylvania, are exceptionally cold hardy, and still look great! 

In addition to producing the traditional bulbs in summer, which you all are familiar with, this variety will also produce scapes, sometimes called "green garlic", in late spring. Scapes are used somewhat like a green onion, but have a wonderful, mild garlic flavor. Here is a random photo that Ive pulled from the internet to show you what scapes look like, as well as a picture of the bulbs before we planted them (which are representative of what we will harvest in summer).

We hope that everyone is getting excited for the 2018 season...it may still be cold outside, but each day is getting longer, and we will be seeing you all at pickup before you know it. Remember, the spring season starts on April 20th, so if you haven't signed up for your share yet, now is a great time! See you next week!

We started the first of the harvesting this week. It's always a big week because it marks the start of a period I like to call "Sorryicantdoanythingwithanyoneforthenext6months becauseimafarmer" period. I apologize now for any skipped birthdays or holidays.

​Our first wholesale crop to be harvested are salad mixes: Spring Mix, Baby Kale Mix, Baby Spinach, and a secret blend of our favorite baby greens. The biggest buyer of them is Vinaigrette, a local salad-based restaurant with 4 locations. They can really go through the greens....in fact, each of the locations goes through about 100 lbs of spring mix, and 50 lbs of baby kale every week!

Baby salad mixes are actually prematurely harvested head lettuces and bunching kales. If we planted the seed at the proper 6" spacing and left them to grow for about 60 days, we would have full sized butterhead, oak leaf and romaine lettuce. They would look more like these heads of artisan lettuce that we grew for the CSA members last year:

However, we don't plant at this spacing. Instead of 1 seed every 6", we plant 60 seeds every foot! This reduces the room the plants have to grow, forcing them to stay small and to grow upright, which makes the harvest much easier.

When we first started producing salad mixes, we only did around 40lbs total a week. At that level we would hand harvest with knives; a labor intensive process that can really eat into an already slim profit margin. In fact, you can't hand harvest lettuce and still turn a profit once you are producing more than 25lbs or so a week. Enter the greens harvester, a small machine whose design is reminiscent of old sickle mowers. It works by using a serrated blade to cut the stem, and nylon cord to grab and throw the greens into a collection basket.

This machine allows us to harvest around 50 lbs in 20 minutes. It would have taken 2 people about 4 hours to cut the same amount by hand. At $10/hr, that is a savings of roughly $75 per harvest!

After that it is to the pack house, where we really set our product apart from the crowd. A quick dunk in some ice cold water removes the residual field heat and any soil that has splashed onto the leaves. We then hand sort every leaf. Any broken, wilted, or faded leaves are removed and fed to the chickens and turkeys (Yes, we have turkeys this year...no, we aren't selling them...yes, the kids can check them out when you come to pick up your CSA shares :-)). This is the most time consuming part of the entire process, but one that sets our mixes apart from the crowd.

Until next week,
​Robert

This past week was all about potatoes. All in all, we planted 600 lbs of seed pieces. We started this process back in December when we placed our order for seed potatoes. Believe it or not, seed potatoes sell out fast!

We began by figuring out which varieties from previous seasons were the most popular. Then we research any new varieties that have come out, and decide if we want to give any of them a try. Once we have decided on what we want, we purchase certified disease free stock from Maine farmers.

​You may remember me talking about potatoes a few weeks ago, when we cut them into seed pieces and started to chit them. They started out looking like this:

After a few weeks they started drying out, and the eyes began to sprout:

This process also allows us to remove any bad potatoes that would have otherwise rotted in the ground and could have potentially introduced disease into our fields. When you farm like we do, you don't have an arsenal of fungicides at your disposal, so prevention of disease becomes paramount. As we crate the potatoes up, we remove any gnarly looking spuds:

Then they are out to the field! We plant our potatoes in raised beds, and use a waterwheel to mark the spacing. Our goal is to get the cut side down, and the sprout side up. It doesn't always happen that way, but we give it the ol' college try:

You can see that me and the mother in law have to work in perfect sync to keep from making a mess of things. When she misses, I have to speed up and catch her skip by doing her planting and mine...and she has to do the same for me. We've had several years of planting with each other to practice, so we're pretty much robots at this point:

This year we will have our red, white, and blue new potatoes. All of the potatoes are gold fleshed, only the skins have color. For our main season potato we will have a German variety that is a gourmet delight. We will also have two varieties of fingerlings, for those that like to get fancy with their cooking. One is a Russian variety that tastes like it is already buttered, and the other a brand new development, called Pinto Gold. It produces a marbled, bi-color potato:

I hope you all enjoyed learning a bit about what goes into getting local potatoes on your plate! CSA members should see them in about 5 to 6 weeks.

Until next week,
​Robert