(CSA Newsletter: Week 10)
Meet this week’s vegetables:
Yes, the farm is growing in every sense — in expected and unexpected ways! Spring is here, and green is everywhere. The over-wintered cole crops are going to flower, so our fields are bursting with beautiful yellow blossoms. The cherry orchards are also in blossom, created white-pink horizons on both sides of our farm.
Yes, the crops are growing; life is returning in full abundance; and we’re glad.
Growth is happening on other parts of the farm too. Our little son Rusty is growing like a weed. Yes, this is expected and wonderful! Every experienced parent has told us that this first year is a tremendous whirlwind of change, and now we are experiencing first-hand. The other day, Rusty and I had a serious conversation about exactly which kind of weed he might be growing like … is he a thistle? Or, possibly a chickweed? Or, more likely a wild chicory … Anyhow, he’s four months old now and seems like a giant compared to when he was born. Every day we get to see new parts of Rusty’s burgeoning person: laughs, giggles, pouts, flailing arms, reaching hands … it’s been a very fun experience and a delightful addition to our farm life.
And, yet, there is more growth too. My dad always says, “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.” This has been very true for us recently. Let me briefly explain:
Knowing that we were going to complicate our life by having a baby, Casey and I intentionally shrank the size of our farm’s CSA program this year — from 126 last year to 108 this year. This was the first year that we haven’t grown the program, and we were excited about how much easier the slightly smaller numbers would feel (or, at least, maybe the farm work wouldn’t overwhelm us as we simultaneously learn how to be parents).
So far, we feel good about this decision. It’s great to have a better sense of how much produce to grow and exactly what it will feel like to tend and harvest it all.
But apparently it’s hard to keep a successful farm from growing. Even though the CSA is being sustained at one size, other parts of our farm are growing this year. As I mentioned last week, our seed production is increasing this year quite a bit. And, we’ve put in another small orchard, so we now have 210 fruit trees to tend on our property (which will hopefully start producing in a few years).
And, the biggest new growth of all: my parents recently purchased the 8 acre property next door to us, which adds more farmland, a two acre cherry orchard and building infrastructure to our farm! We were already renting some of the farmland before the sale, but the addition of 100 more producing cherry trees is quite a momentous occasion! They won’t be organic yet (but they won’t be sprayed either), and there will possibly be an opportunity for CSA members to get some of these cherries this year — woo hoo!
The property also has a beautiful old white farmhouse, which Casey, Rusty and I will soon be moving into! We had been planning to build a second larger house on our own property, so this opportunity is a big change in our plans! We’ve only known about this upcoming move for one week, so we’re still sort of reeling from the change in how we see our future as a family and as a farm.
We will miss living in our little house that we built (and where Rusty was born), but we also want to stay open to positive opportunities. Even though we had the idea that our farm should stay one exact size, life had other ‘plans.’ We’re still working through exactly how we’ll integrate all these pieces into one strong farm business, but I’m sure that you as CSA members will benefit greatly. The CSA remains the core of our farm’s income and purpose — we love growing vegetables for you!
If we ever seem distracted at the CSA pick-up over the next few months, now you have a better sense of why. Even though the CSA vegetable growing is almost becoming familiar, we have a lot of other new things to think about and do too. It’s good timing that way — the move into the big house and a baby would have been impossible a few years back when we were still challenged every day by the CSA. It justd goes to show that (most of the time) life’s surprises, challenges, and joys come whend we are ready for them.
And, in case you are wondering about the status of those important growing vegetables in the field — the spring stuff is getting bigger and bigger. Soon your over-wintered vegetables will be joined by fresh radishes, arugula and other fun treats! In the meantime, enjoy this week’s selection of tasty vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
