(CSA Newsletter: Week 5)
Meet this week’s vegetables:
We still have a couple weeks before the spring equinox, but we tend to think that seasons arrive several weeks earlier than the calendar mark here in Oregon. And, thanks to the unseasonably warm and dry weather we’ve had this year, it feels like spring has arrived even earlier than normal.
The daffodils are in full bloom, along with magnolias, camellias and other favorite spring flowers. Some of the fruit trees here on the island have already budded (the Asian pears for example) and others have been threatening to open for days now (peaches!). (Although this week apparently represents a return to more frigid winter temperatures!)
Spring is of course the beginning of our truly busy season here on the farm. I thought I’d share what some of that work looks like with you all …
In spring, we begin by sowing seeds into flats for later transplant. At this point, our hot house is almost full, and most of the flats already have healthy looking bright green starts growing in them. The starts in the hot house are always a source of hope and inspiration — they represent so much potential for the upcoming season!
We also take time to tidy up our storage areas and infrastructure (a great use of wet spring days!). Theoretically, we always aim to leave spaces ready to go at the end of fall, but it never fully happens. Having visited other farms, I think this is a shared phenomenon. In fall, you’re ready to close up shop but not quite ready to think about the next season yet. It’s important to get some weeks or months where it’s ok that the shed isn’t perfectly tidy or whatnot.
And, even if we did leave it ‘perfect,’ winter brings entropy: mice burrow into piles of tarps and eat holes for nests; wind blows down branches; rain brings films of mildew on greenhouse walls; a bin of forgotten squash starts to rot in the garage … these things are fairly inevitable but fixable. Spring fortunately arrives with a blast of fresh energy on the farm — after a winter of rest and darkness, the warmer, bright days get us moving again, and it feels great to clean up piles and get everything in tip top shape again.
As part of the ‘clean up’ and get ready process, we also assess our tools and equipment. We ask: what needs to be replaced or fixed, and what do we want to upgrade this year? This year, we’re buying very little compared to our start-up years, but there are still a few important tool upgrades. We recently purchased a 11’ tow disk for the tractor, because we wanted a way to do more field work without operating the PTO on our tractor … for those of you who less tractor savvy, the PTO, or ‘Power Take-Off,’ is the device that ‘spins’ the parts on moving implements. Running the PTO requires much more power and fuel to run than simply pulling a disk through the soil, so we wanted more low-power options. We’ve already used the new disk to prep ground in our new greenhouse (which will soon be sown to early spring greens), and it works beautifully! Now we can’t wait to try it out in the rest of the field, which brings me to the next activity of spring …
In spring, we also start looking to the fields and tapping our feet. In Oregon, the only predictable thing about spring weather is that it is unpredictable. We’ve experienced temperatures over 100° in May and snow in April, rainy weeks in June and mini-droughts in March. The one thing we’ve learned is that we need to watch the soil carefully and be ready to work it at a moment’s notice. There is no waiting, because tomorrow could bring another rainstorm (or weeks of rain!). But, eventually, a dry window will allow us to work the fields. Over several weeks, we’ll mow the cover crop, plow with our chisel plow, disk with our new disk, harrow with our power harrow, and then finally plant our mature transplants and direct sow other crops too!
And, of course, here at Oakhill Organics, spring means maintenance of over-wintered crops. As soon as we start back to full-time work in February, we’re weeding again, pulling out the tenacious Oregon grasses to give our precious over-wintered kales and chicories room to grow and thrive. Because these plants are in the ground so long, they require much more work and attention than quick in-and-out summer crops. We can’t just weed them once or twice and move on expecting that they’ll be fine.
And, on Mondays and Tuesdays in spring (as in every season), we harvest for the CSA! Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
