Saturday, May 28, 2011

2011 Season, Week Four

May 28, 2011

This week's harvest:

A few varieties of lettuce
Cilantro
Garlic Scapes
Swiss Chard
Beets & Greens

This week's farm news:

It was another gray, wet, & sometimes stormy week here in Bugtussle. The crew & I held down the fort while Eric was away at an animal grazing seminar in Pennsylvania. The timing of Eric's absence worked out well because, once again, the garden was too wet to do much work. The potato patch got a nice blanket of hay mulch but otherwise the week's work focused mostly on animal chores & maintenance. Whew, this spring has been a challenging one! We just can't get into the garden when it's so wet. It's very easy to get caught up in the springtime rush to get crops in the ground but working the soil when it's too wet can do long-term damage to the soil's structure - which can take years to recover. And that just isn't part of our holistic goal. So lovely, supportive vegetable eaters, despite the fact that your baskets aren't overflowing yet, you can rest assured that we are being good stewards of this land. May your bodies not only be nourished by the vegetables that you do eat, but also by the love & care that we put into growing them.

Thank you for supporting environmentally reponsible farming!

Saturday, May 21, 2011

2011 Season, Week Three

May 21, 2011

This week's harvest:

Swiss Chard
Red Russian Kale
Green Garlic (use like a green onion)
Tatsoi
Beets
Strawberries
A sprig of mint

This week's farm news:

Well, we burned firewood this week like it was the middle of March. The week was remarkably gray & cool! If I didn't know better, and if the trees & pastures weren't so green, I could have easily convinced myself that it actually was March!

Early in the week not much happened in the garden because of the cool wet weather. That was OK, though, because we had plenty to do welcoming all sorts of new arrivals on the farm. On Monday we set up a beehive to house a new (package) swarm of Russian honeybees. We installed them on Monday evening & so far they seem to have accepted their new home in Bugtussle. On Tuesday our new bull, a Red Devon, arrived on the farm - from Virginia! Eric purchased him about a month ago but has had to wait for a cattle hauler to be available to bring him here. Once he arrived, Eric was very anxious to get the poor traveller back on the grass and integrated with our herd. You never know quite what to expect, especially with a bull, but all seems good so far. On Wednesday we went to a farm just outside Carthage, TN to purchase about 30 young pullets (to make up for all the ones a wily fox has been snagging - Eric even witnessed an attack in broad daylight while working in the garden!) They were raised by a 12 year old boy much in the same manner we raise our own chickens. We were pleased to help support & encourage a young entrepreneur.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

2011 Season, Week Two

May 14, 2011

This week's harvest:

Strawberries
Lettuce
Swiss Chard
Beet with Beet Greens
Radishes
Tatsoi
Arugula - small shares this week
Sage Flowers

This week's farm news:

This week was a week full of strawberries! We harvested berries left and right. We had them in some form for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Strawberry pie, cobbler, and shortcake. Strawberry viniagrette on salads. Strawberries & cream, and just plain ole strawberries by the handful! We froze a bunch, too, and we still couldn't keep up with all of the berries. Rough life, huh? It's been several years since we've had such an abundance of strawberries so we feel pretty blessed. We hope you enjoy them, too.

The crew accomplished an insane amount in the garden this week. They spread over 10 tons of compost, worked up 1.5 acres of ground, cultivated all of the crops that were already in the garden, transplanted lettuce, summer squash, basil, parsley, cucumbers, and our main season tomato crop, and direct seeded yellow bush beans and zucchini. Eric was on the tractor just finishing the ground work for our sweet potato patch as the rain started pouring down on his head. We knew rain was coming and it was finally dry enough after a very wet spring to get some major work done. That's just the way it goes, little windows of opportunity. Always be prepared! Now we can envision very bountiful summer harvests because of this one short window of very serious work. Yeah! The harvests over the next few weeks, though, are probably going to be skimpier than we would like...that's just the way it can go. Especially when the spring was wet and wet and wet! There's a lot of crops in the ground that are so close... Thanks for your patience. There's so much goodness just around the corner!

Saturday, May 7, 2011

2011 Season, Week One

May 7, 2011

This week's harvest:

Lettuce (Cracoviensis & Deer Tongue)
Swiss Chard
Strawberries!
Tatsoi
Arugula - medium shares only this week
Radishes
Lemon Balm
Sage with Edible Flowers

This week's farm news:

Well, hello again! Welcome to another season with Bugtussle CSA! This is our tenth season of bringing home-grown goodies to you all in Nashville - some of you folks have been with us for all those years. Wow! What a commitment! Some of you are just beginning your journey with Bugtussle! Thanks for your involvement & we hope you all enjoy the season!

We have two excellent interns with us on the farm currently. One more is due to arrive toward the end of the month. Jesse, who was a shining star for us last year is back for another season! (How did we get so lucky?) A big project for him this year is leading the development of a mid-week CSA pick-up in Gallatin at the new farmer's market there. Then there's Hannah, the sweet & quiet artist. She's originally from a small town in Kentucky but then moved to the big city of Chicago after college. Now she's decided the agrarian lifestyle of Bugtussle suits her more than life in the city. She is a welcome addition to our farm crew...if we can just keep our gregarious children from driving her insane.

The spring weather thus far has been wet, wet, wet. It's pretty challenging to stay on top of things with such short windows of opportunity for working in the garden. When it does dry up, your farmers will be busy!