(CSA Newsletter: Week 2)
Meet this week’s vegetables:
This last week was a big one here on the farm. Not only did we begin the CSA season again for 2010, but we also started back into other farm work as well. In year’s past, this time of year was relatively slow — over February and March, we’d slowly ramp up our daily grind until the main season began in April (at which point, we’d start working more than full-time, making up for the quieter winter work weeks).
This year, however, we have Jeff working with us, and he and Casey have begun an almost full-time workweek schedule already. Consequently, last week was more productive than what we typically expect for early February. In addition to harvesting for the CSA, Casey and Jeff got some big projects done. On Wednesday, they pulled the greenhouse plastic skin on our new permanent field house for tomatoes and peppers. Casey had been slowly building the structure all last fall and winter, but the poly covering completed the greenhouse and made it functional. This new greenhouse is bigger and taller than our prior one (and permanent so it shouldn’t fall down except in a very extreme storm), so we can drive the tractor through it. It’s now ready for ground prep. Depending on how the spring goes, we might plant some early spring crops there; or, we might just wait until it’s time to plant this year’s tomatoes and peppers.
On Thursday, we celebrated another milestone of the season as we sowed the first seeds of 2010 into flats. We sowed 63 flats, ranging from broccoli and cabbage to lettuce. These will become our first transplants of the spring, which we will plant in late March or April. We’ll keep sowing through the spring and summer, but seeing the first little germinating seeds is always an exciting sign that spring is around the corner.
In between all these big tasks, Casey and Jeff also managed to do some winter weeding and equipment maintenance. At this rate, we’ll fly through our long winter/spring ‘to do’ list!
We’re flying towards spring in other ways as well. Even though December brought some crazy low temperatures, January was an extremely warm month. There were many days that felt more like March, and that feeling has continued now into early February. Casey and I basked in this weekend’s warm sunny weather. We had temperatures in the 60°s in the shade on our farm — in early February!
We are loving this warm weather — it’s helping our over-wintered plants recover beautifully. Our mustards and kale are putting on tasty tender new growth and everything remaining in the field looks lush and healthy.
Of course, every kind of weather has pros and cons. In this case, the ‘con’ is that the warm weather is speeding up the usual winter cycle of growth and flowering. Many of the crops we over-winter are technically ‘biennials,’ which means that they flower and set seeds in their second year. In some cases, we welcome those shoots since they are edible and delicious ‘rapini.’ But the appearance of buds also means that the plants are beginning to approach the end of their edible life cycle. Once all the rapini is picked, the crop is usually done. This year, we’re seeding shoots and buds earlier than normal. The cabbage in this week’s share is already just beginning to unfurl and send out its buds, which is many weeks earlier than last year for the same variety. There are more factors in this than just the warm weather, but we’re definitely consistently seeing everything happen earlier this February than in past winters.
Hopefully, this early and warm trend means that we’ll be able to plant earlier this year too. We have some ground that will only need a little bit of ground prep to be ready, so we’re anxiously awaiting the arrival of longer dry and warm spells. Now that we have seeds germinating in our greenhouse, we’ll be ready!
And, of course, we now have another sprout on our mind too. It was fun this week to restart our farm routine with Rusty around. It’s a big adjustment, especially for me (Katie), now that I’m no longer working in the fields and instead spending most of my time ‘baby wrangling.’ We’re still figuring out our new rhythm, but we feel so blessed to live and work in the same place. The farm is bringing new joy to our life as we realize how wonderful it is to raise our child here. Part of my new daily routine is to put Rusty in our baby carrier and go for a walk in the fields to say hi to his Papa. At this point, Rusty pretty much falls asleep immediately on these walks, but before he nods off I tell him about all the vegetables and birds and people in the fields.
We hope that you too have been getting outside on walks to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather — sunny winter days are so good for the body and soul. Enjoy this week’s vegetables!
Your farmers, Katie & Casey Kulla
P.S. Reminder! There will be no CSA harvest or pick-up on February 23! We will be gone that week at a farmer retreat.
Thank you!!!!!!
We just wanted to say a quick and heartfelt ‘thank you’ to everyone who has given us a gift, card or kind words on the occasion of Rusty’s birth. Your generosity and support and enthusiasm have been overwhelming and beautiful. We have received so many touching notes and cute items — thank you! Our goal is to give you all real thank you notes, but our hands are busy with baby (or farming) most of the time, so in the meantime: THANK YOU! We have never felt so grateful for our community as we have during this beautiful time of change in our farm family.
