Saturday, June 25, 2011

2011 Season, Week Eight

June 25, 2011

This week's harvest:

Lettuce
Carrots
Swiss Chard
Garlic
Broccoli (the last taste until fall...)
Yellow Squash
Cucumbers (medium shares this week)

This week's farm news:

The week started out stormy and wet. The garden is plenty saturated at this point. The remainder of the week was intermittantly stormy but no storms yielded that much rain and by Friday the gardens were ready to be cultivated - which is an enormous task right now because there are so many young plantings and most of our cultivation is done by hand.

On Monday (conveniently when the farm was saturated!) the crew took a field trip to Emerald Glen Farm in Munfordville, KY for a farm tour. It's a beautiful, well-managed farm which produces a variety of pasture-raised meats. (These are available at the Metro Farmers Market every other Saturday.) Good folks to support if you're in the market for some high-quality meat from a small producer.

We harvested our garlic crop this week. We clipped all of the stalks from the bulbs and placed the bulbs into baskets to then be hauled up into the barn loft. Next we'll spread them all out so they have ample ventilation while curing. So, this week's garlic in your basket is super fresh and juicy. Enjoy it and our amusing story of the week...

About a month ago the crew inadvertantly scared a turkey hen off of her nest while moving the animals. We happened to have a relentlessly broody hen so Jesse thought he would give her a project. He set those eggs under her about a month ago and lo and behold, this week four of them actually hatched!

Saturday, June 18, 2011

2011 Season, Week Seven

June 18, 2011

This week's harvest:

Carrots
Lettuce
Broccoli
Swiss Chard
Garlic
Shelling Peas
Summer Squash

This week's farm news:

We enjoyed a few days of cooler weather this week interspersed with brief rain showers. Altogether we received a little less than one inch, but it was all so gentle and slow that the crops were able to take full advantage of every drop. Good thing, too, because the gardens were getting dry. All the young crops received a cultivation and now look fantastic! In the garden, we set out our 4th planting of tomatoes for fall harvest. We seeded pumpkins, blue Indian corn, cucumbers, gourds, and a buckwheat cover crop anywhere that we intend to plant fall crops. We also started a late crop of basil, dill, and more lettuce. Our garlic crop is nearly ready to be harvested, which almost always coincides with the summer solstice, so my guess is next week the smell of garlic will be wafting through the air here in Bugtussle! Yum yum!

Saturday, June 11, 2011

2011 Season, Week Six

June 11, 2011

This week's harvest:

Broccoli
Lettuce
Shelling Peas (medium shares)
Summer Squash (small shares)
Carrots
Swiss Chard
Garlic Scapes

This week's farm news:

Other than a brief rain shower last Sunday, the week was hot and dry. The crew endured the heat and had another productive week of planting and garden work. The sweet potato crop is in the ground, the tomato patch is mulched, and many, many more seeds and transplants were planted. Now, we would be so grateful to get a nice rain to settle everything into the soil... At least we can dream, right?

We want to thank all of you that have already voiced your opinion to the powers-that-be about today's farmer's market location and we strongly encourage everyone to let your opinion be heard to the farmer's market organizers (who are working so hard to make this market enjoyable!) to help them to make their case to the Parks Commission. We hope that next week we will be back in our nicely shaded market location!

Saturday, June 4, 2011

2011 Season, Week 5

June 4, 2011

This week's harvest:

Lettuce
Cilantro
Swiss Chard
Beet Greens
Garlic Scapes ("pigtails")
Red Russian Kale

This week's farm news:

We had sunshine every day this week. And, boy, was it hot! Quite a stark contrast from last week. So the pendulum swings again and your farmers worked their tails off because of it! Thousands of transplants were set out in the garden - lettuces, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, watermelons, muskmelons, tomatillos, & fennel. Thousands of seeds were sown also - peanuts, sweet corn, butternut squash, etc.

Eric spent hours on the tractor taking advantage of the (finally) dry soil conditions. We have lots more ground ready and awaiting more planting in the coming days... That's why farmer Eric stayed home from Nashville today. There's just so much on his plate and the time to get it done is now!

Also this week we welcomed our third intern, Lena. She jumped right in with the crew, worked hard, got sun-burned, and basically embraced life in Bugtussle!