A complicated week

(CSA Newsletter: Early Season Week 2)

Meet this week’s vegetables:

After a winter of focusing on capital projects, we finally began the season’s work last week: we harvested for you all in the early season CSA and we sowed the first flats of the year! We sowed three days last week and sowed 111 flats total.

We sowed leeks (which we won’t harvest until next winter) and the first round of ‘succession’ items (vegetables that we sow ‘in succession’ all year long): broccoli, beets, lettuces, chicories, chard, mustards and fennel. These will be the first transplants we’ll plant as soon as the ground dries out enough to begin spring ground prep. Although they still have a ways to grow before we can transplant, this weekend we saw the first set of seed leaves emerge on a flat of broccoli! The first tiny green thing in the greenhouse is always an event to herald … and today (Monday), many more little shoots have joined the front-runner. It won’t be long until the greenhouse is full of plants!

This weekend, we had some gorgeous dry weather and were able to attend to the fields for the first time in months. After weeks of waiting for the chance, we finally were able to hand-weed our garlic planting. We weeded all day on Saturday, which was a beautiful day to be outside. The garlic beds look much better now, but our backs were certainly sore afterward. Apparently, we need to get back into shape for the season.

Unfortunately, these exciting starts towards a successful new season were tempered by bad news about our well. We spent much of last year fretting over this irrigation well and the water rights, which we then received. So, now we have legal rights to the well and … it doesn’t really work yet. We’re not sure exactly what went wrong, but when we tested it for the first time last year after installing the pump, it blew sand. Last Friday the pump guy pulled the pump out to examine further and found sand completely clogging every part of the pump. We still have options, but the well is certainly not what we were lead to believe it would be last year when we had it drilled. In the meantime, we’ve spent a lot of money getting it set up. So, water is back on our minds in a serious way, just as we’re moving forward into the season. We’d hoped we wouldn’t have to worry about water in 2008, but it looks like that dream may be deferred.

In the meantime, we’re grateful that we weren’t planning to expand our operation again this year. We know that between the well and the slough we’ll have enough water — but no more, unless a solution arises soon. We’ll keep you posted.

For now, we’re glad for drier, warmer weather: a hint of spring. No matter what our stresses are, it’s hard to begrudge the sun’s return. Enjoy this week’s sun-kissed vegetables!

Your farmers,

Katie & Casey Kulla
Oakhill Organics

P.S. Another reminder: There will be no CSA harvest or delivery on February 26. We will be out of town, attending a retreat that day. CSA deliveries will recommence the following week, March 4.

Looking for some helpers … As we look to the future, we here at Oakhill Organics have realized just how lucky we’ve been so far: any illnesses or accidents we’ve had have yet to interfere with any of our harvests or deliveries. While we’re grateful for that blessing, we realize that we need to make plans just in case something ever does come up. To that end, we are collecting names and numbers of people who are willing to be on an ‘on call’ list for emergency help. If all continues to go well, you will never be called. When might we call? Only in case of unexpected interruptions, such as if one of us falls ill and can’t realistically help with harvest of delivery or if our van breaks down. In such a scenario we would ask for no more than a few hours of help bringing the harvest in from the farm or setting up the CSA display tables. Again, we hope to never use the list. But we would like to have one anyway, just in case. Knowing we have ‘back-up’ support from our wider community will help us feel more secure as a two-person operation. If you’re willing to be on the list, please just call or email us to let us know. Thank you!

Two books for your winter reading list:

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, Michael Pollan (2008) — This is Michael Pollan’s latest tribute to food, and I think it’s one of his best works yet. Unlike some of Pollan’s recent works, Defense is concise and gets directly to the point. His point being that as a society we aren’t eating quite right. What would be a better way to eat? Pollan’s answer: Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.

Of course, Pollan guides us to that answer (and through the history of the American diet & what he calls ‘Nutritionism’) over many interesting pages of evidence and anecdotes. The entire book is a delightful and compelling read. We highly recommend it for anyone interested in issues of food, especially members of the CSA.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, Jared Diamond (2005) — This is the first book I’ve recommended to the CSA that isn’t focused exclusively on issues of food or farming; however, anyone who reads this book will realize its significance to both. Collapse is a global investigation into why past human societies have ‘failed,’ what factors played into that failure, and how we can learn from those failures.

At 525 pages in hardcover, Collapse is certainly not a light read, but Diamond does a great job keeping the reader interested. Besides, there is the almost universal fascination of past societies such as Easter Island to keep the reader on board.

So, it’s an interesting book … why recommend it to CSA eaters? Although Diamond outlines several factors that lead to societal collapse, the end practical reasons societies die out or ‘collapse’ is food — lack thereof. Therefore a discussion of failed societies includes analysis of their soil type, weather, available water, farming choices, and more. As farmers who aim to grow food sustainably, reading Diamond’s observations gave us new tools for thinking about a very long-term food system.

Whatever your personal interests, I think every reader will find something fascinating and paradigm-shifting in Diamond’s analyses. And, as environmentalist farmers, we also love Collapse’s underlying theme, which can be summed up in the clichéd bumper sticker’s words: “Trees are the answer.” Happy reading!