what the heck, weather coordinator?!?

cutting potatoes to plant

plamting potatoes

i would like to lodge a complaint with whomever is in charge of weather. We have had lots and lots of lovely days lately including today, and yesterday, and at least half of Sunday. But Saturday, a nice day it was not! And we hosted our first CSA get together that day, too!




farm tour


When the phone rang at 11 o'clock, i was certain that it would be someone calling to cancel, but what?- it was someone calling to say that they were coming and had not RSVPed, wow! It was chilly with a wind that was a times stiff. But our CSA members were by and large unperturbed! How grand!



we all enjoyed a lovely potluck lunch (inside by the heat of a cozy fire) and then took a tour of the farm. Then we left it up to how we felt if we were going to go out and do a farm project of some kind. when the question was, will you stay or will you go, a four year old member, felt strongly that we should go do something, and i guess everyone else felt that way, too, since we ended up getting three different kinds of potatoes planted. Fun, and thanks for coming out, gang.



we will be crossing our fingers for the may 22nd date that the weather will be warmer and maybe a little sunnier, too. especially since there may be a film maker in attendance. We are taking part in a beginning farmer film series, which cooperative extension, Tompkins county got a grant to do. it will be brief videos of different farm tasks and we are so glad that it is being made, where was this kind of thing when we were getting started?

planting is in full swing and right now onions, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, carrots, beets, chard, kale, potatoes, spinach, and leeks are in the ground. if you are gardening along at home, its okay to have all of those things in the ground in our area of the country.

happy week, time for sleep!
liz and matthew

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It has begun!

Hello lovely CSA members, and other various blog readers! The peaceful waiting that we wrote about last time is gone and it is replaced with lots of "to do" lists. Plant this, water that, till this, mulch those over there. Each week has a list, every day has another list. Don't forget to call this place, pick up the last few supplies from the place in penn yan, mail the insurance form to that place before tommorrow, write a letter of support for the grant and find a few other farmers to do it, too. Get final permission in place for the new farmer's market in elmira. Spend hours outside listening to the lovely spring sounds. It is so much fun to be back into the season! (this is not sarcasm, don't worry, we really do like what we do.) the rodents and the snakes have both arrived since we last wrote! here is evidence of the rodent's arrival. No pictoral evidence of the snakes yet, sorry!

lettuces and frisee

I would say, "you should see the farm right now"! It is so beautful, cherries and plums in bloom the garlic plants stretching up through the mulch. Teeny little lettuces in straight rows down the beds, lots of birds nests in funny hidden places (inside a barrel in the hoophouse, two birds in hollow holes in the same dead tree, maybe ducks at the pond), baby broccoli plants under covers in the field. There are brand new plantings of hazelnuts and elderberries (we meant to plant them last year, but had a mixup on the order, so we didn't get them) and soon will be more new yellow raspberry plants. I said, "would say, you should see the farm right now" because you can see the farm right now --saturday is our first CSA get together day! We will start the day with a potluck at noon, bring a dish to pass, then we will have a brief farm tour, then we will be planting some onions and leeks as well as potatoes for an hour or so. Hope you can make it! we will email directions out soon. Don't forget our second CSA get together day which is may 22nd, put it on your calendar now, please!

gemini and liz with the new hazelnuts before they were caged to keep out rabbits, and mulched to keep them moist.

we are planting more ginger this year, here is our unhappy cat modeling how cool the "mother plants" look before we cut them into smaller pieces and plant them.

don't worry, once the CSA season starts, we write every week with recipes and updates, for now, we seem to make it happen monthly, thanks for checking in!

hope to see you saturday, and that your spring is busy and good, too!
liz and matthew