Week 5

Red butterheads ready for market

This week's expected vegetables.
Choose 6:
broccoli
new potatoes
cucumbers (picklers and slicers)
kale
beets
garlic scapes
lettuce mix
spicy mix
baby kale
lettuce heads
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
summer squash/zucchini
parsley
flour, whole wheat bread or all purpose
kidney beans
black beans

Thanks for your patience as this season gets off to a slow start caused by a cold, rainy spring. But now it is summer!! Sorry for no new pics this week.
But I did learn this week that beet flowers smell like chocolate.

Week  4
This week's expected vegetables.
Choose 6:
green beans
cilantro
kale
beets
garlic scapes
lettuce mix
spicy mix
baby kale
lettuce heads
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
summer squash/zucchini
parsley
flour, whole wheat bread or all purpose
kidney beans
black beans

Week 3

Hey that look's like a weed! Yes it does look a lot like lamb's quarters, one of our most infamous garden weeds. And we had a hard time convincing ourselves to transplant these into our field as we spend a good amount of time ripping out lamb's quarters. But this is quinoa, a close relative of lamb's quarters. These we are just trialing for our own personal use. We'll see if we get any grain out of them.

Well the theme for this spring has been "please, no more rain" But we got more rain Friday. And this is the scene from many of our beds after the last thunderstorm...running water. Not good. This means no tilling and no planting. And probably lots of fun diseases like late blight and downy mildew, etc.

This week's expected vegetables.
Choose 6:
green beans
cilantro
kale
beets
garlic scapes
lettuce mix
spicy mix
baby kale
lettuce heads
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
summer squash/zucchini
parsley
flour, whole wheat bread or all purpose
kidney beans
black beans

Your ginger being planted

Your broccoli growing. It grew so much in the past week that the plants are about three times as big now. This picture was taken to note the stark difference between the plants under the insect netting and those outside the netting (some of which completely died, but mostly they are just smaller)

Expected vegetables for week 2
Choose 5 items:
lettuce mix
spicy mix
baby kale
lettuce heads
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
radishes
baby carrots
baby turnips
summer squash
parsley
flour, whole wheat bread or all purpose
kidney beans
black beans
vegetable transplants

Oh no! Is the chicken coop on fire? No its just the heat lamp keeping them warm (picture taken back when it was still chilly).

Too much rain!!

Yes indeed too much rain. We had s couple of beautiful beds of spinach that were to supply the CSA for the first couple of weeks. But after the last rainstorm (including large hail) apparently it contracted some unknown disease. I'm sure this was brought on by the extreme wetness of the soil. But the spinach went from green and healthy to yellow and dying within a couple days! So...no spinach this week. Arggh.

And with the cool, wet weather we have most of this Spring other crops are a week or 2 behind where we would like them to be  - Swiss chard, kale, potatoes, etc.
But because of our perennial difficulties in growing spinach well, I decided to obtain several different varieties of open-pollinated spinach and trial them in one bed together (see picture above). I plan to monitor them to see which grows the best in our conditions. I will harvest the others and let the best one go to seed and save the seed. And hopefully start developing a spinach variety that is better suited to our conditions. I am also planning to save beet seed of our own this year and I have been saving pepper, tomatillo and husk cherry seed for several years now.

Expected vegetables for week 1:
Choose 5 items
lettuce mix
spicy mix
baby kale
lettuce heads
pea shoots
sunflower shoots
radishes
baby carrots
flour, whole wheat bread or all purpose
kidney beans
black beans
vegetable transplants

pre spring lifeline!

Watching the snow blow outside the window, hard to believe that just yesterday we had the greenhouse door thrown wide open, the tiny plants reaching for the sun, the two day old chicks peeping, pecking, and scampering like they do, and we had not a care in the world besides the mud on the way in the door! 

It looks like winter isn't quite done yet.  Every spring, we marvel at how lovely it is to be transported ahead in the season just by walking under a piece of plastic stretched tight over metal bows.  You are cordially invited, friend of muddy fingers farm, to come see the arrival of spring ahead of out door time.  The tables are starting to fill up with trays of the cutest teeniest plants, and right now, this year's egg laying flock are at their just darn cutest!  Come by anytime on your own by arranging with us, or come on sunday the 16th from 2-4 and fill your senses up with the smell of warmed up soil, the sight of the seed leaves of your food plants, and the hilarious antics of week old chicks! 

we'll provide snacks if we know that you are coming! 
liz and matthew

Don't forget - our regular season CSA is now open for joining. Click the link to the right for info and membership form. Our first seeds will be planted later this week - onions, leeks, shallots and celeriac!
I want to apologize again for the lack of greens this winter. In the past we've always had at least kale  that stayed fine straight through the winter. But as some of you found out, even that has been wilted by these cold temperatures this year.

February 28 pickup; 7 items. 
Last week of CSA
 
watermelon radishes (~1 lb.)
daikon radishes (~1 lb.)
celeriac
tetsukabuto squash
garlic (2) 
potatoes 
onions, red or yellow (2)
shallots (~1/2 lb.)
carrots 
beets (~1 lb.)
sweet turnips (~1 lb.)
rutabagas (~1 lb.)
black beans (1 lb.)
kidney beans (1 lb.)
all purpose or whole wheat bread flour