Of CSA Note!

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This Week's Share

Tomatoes
Carrots
Sweet Peppers or Sweet Corn (beware the worms! cut the tip off before removing the husk)
Yellow and Patty Pan Squashes
Cilantro
Chiles
Onions
Salanova
Collards
Swiss Chard or Red Russian Kale
Beets, Eggplants, or Cabbages
Fruit: Paula red apples

News from Windflower Farm

We have begun pulling the black plastic mulch from the vegetable beds that have stopped producing. We grow squashes, cucumbers, onions, and garlic, among other crops, on plastic mulch and those crops have run their course. The mulch suppresses weeds, conserves nutrients and water and helps warm the soil. Certified organic production in the USA requires the use of plastic mulch over the biodegradable mulch permitted in Canadian and European organics. The biodegradable mulch, which looks, feels and functions just like the plastic stuff, contains a small amount of petroleum, and the USDA has decided organic farmers should not use it. Instead, they would prefer we use plastic mulch and send it to a landfill. I’m not sure it’s the right tradeoff. Wanting to abide by the organic rules, we have been using the plastic product. But it is awful to pick up, expensive to dispose of and fills up landfills. I suspect that we’ll have a truly biodegradable product in the future. In the meantime, we’ll simply mulch less, or mulch with something else. Straw, perhaps, or a living mulch like ryegrass or clover.

A gentle and welcome rain has begun to fall just as we are wrapping up our day and we all got a little wet. Adam got wet taking out the compost – the detritus remaining from our vegetable processing – but he didn’t seem to mind. Nate got wet moving a tractor from behind the box truck. Don, our driver, is not really a morning person, and Nate thought he might not see it when pulling out in the morning. He was already wet from head to toe because he had been washing greens all day. Heidi got wet putting potting soil in a planter from home. Andrea was already wet. She had been washing tubs outside the processing shed when the rain began, and may not have even noticed. She has the best rain gear of anyone on the farm. The Medinas and their boys were working in the corn patch when the rain came. They came racing back to the barn in their old golf carts. It was quitting time anyway, and they saw no reason to get any more wet. But they didn’t seem to mind either - the day was unusually hot for September. Jan just came in the door. It had been raining much harder in Greenwich, where she was getting supplies, and she was disappointed in how little it appeared we’d get. “Just enough to keep the dust down.” We have been irrigating through much of the last two weeks, and she was hoping for a break. I got wet, too. We had come up short in our eggplant harvest, and I dashed out to pick another two dozen fruits. Happily, refreshingly wet. When it has been dry on your vegetable farm, rainfall is a relief. It is still raining - a fragrant, gentle rain – and it might just be enough. A rain to send our carrot roots deeper, and a little straighter. A rain for an afternoon nap.

Have a great week, Ted

IN CSA NEWS...

Check out what local food advocates are doing to combat declining CSA memberships here.

VeronicaSeptember 21, 2017