June 6th 2008

OUR FIRST CSA BOX WILL BE DELIVERED ON WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18TH. PLEASE CALL OR EMAIL IF YOU LOST YOUR DIRECTIONS.

Where has the time gone? June already? It has been difficult to make myself sit in our cave-of-an-office to write a newsletter update with all that is going on here at the farm. But now that it is raining and is too wet to do much else, I have no excuses. Up until this recent bout of wetness, we have been very busy. Much of our crew is back from their respective winter jobs and travels and two new people have come to join the fray. All these hands have been essential to do all that needs doing: transplanting, weeding, putting on row cover, moving irrigation pipe (yes, you heard me, a spring where we actually had to irrigate!), organize the barns, and finish the last bits of flood clean-up. So far we have in the ground: peas, lettuce, spinach, radishes, dill, cilantro, corn, winter squash, summer squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants, broccoli, kohlrabi, green beans, leeks, shallots, artichokes, strawberries (they’ll fruit next year) onions, and I’m sure there’s more…. An interesting fact about the onions, if we were to have planted the them in a single line, it would be just shy of 2 miles long. Crazy, huh? Transplants funnel in and out of the greenhouse. No sooner is one batch of lettuce transplanted, and 2 more plantings are on its heels. We continue to do weekly seedings of beets, carrots, herbs, and other delights. When the weather dries we will be frantically weeding to make up for lost time.

We are down at the farmers market now selling tomato starts, lettuce, spinach, early garlic, and radishes. The market is open from 10-3 on Thursday through Sunday.

Our CSA is full. This is the quickest we have filled up in Rising River history. There is the temptation to get bigger, but we feel that the size and scope of our farm suits us at this point in our lives and we want to continue to do what we do well. It is encouraging to see how much the idea of eating local and organic is coming into practice. Each year there are one or two new small organic farms popping up and we all are thriving. I sense more camaraderie than competition between us. We are all unique in our own way, in what we grow and how we market. But we all share a common ideal: to provide our local community with healthful food and to take care of our little patch of earth.

If you didn’t get into our CSA this year, I hope you will consider us next year. We would encourage you to sign up in the fall to ensure a space.