Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm. Welcome to CSA Week 4! This is NOT an egg week. Next week (July 12) will be a chicken week. Happy Independence Day!
Ordering for the CSA is now open and will close at 6 pm on
Sunday. New this week are onions and
some cherry tomatoes from our Amish neighbors.
As many of you know, we do sometimes buy in product. When we buy in product, we purchase from
neighbors who share in our passion for organic and sustainable farming.
The weather, yes I am back to talking about the
weather. The weather word of the week,
here on farm is rain, lots of rain. I
will admit it has been a dry summer, but we really did not need 3 inches of
rain in less than an hour! But, that is
what we received Tuesday afternoon. The
fields fared well, some muddy conditions, but no real issues. Unless, of course, you consider, that
Wednesday Farmer Don tried to bury the tractor in one of the muddier
areas. Thankfully he was able to keep
moving and we didn't need to call on a neighbor to pull him free. Our road, on the other hand did not fare so
well. The ditch once again overflowed
its banks and flooded our yard and washed out the road. We got a bit of water in the cellar from this
flash flood, but other than an annoyance factor, all is well here and we are
drying out.
On farm, we continue to plant and weed. This week, on Thursday, Farmer Don and Ken
worked hard to clean up in and around our hoop houses (unheated greenhouses). The beds in these houses are now being solarized
and should be ready for planting in the next few weeks. When we solarize the soil, we place plastic
over beds causing the sun to heat the soil beneath the plastic to high
temperatures, thus killing weeds and pests in those planting beds. We will be putting plastic back on our greenhouses
and planting shorter season crops inside.
Then in a 4 to 6 weeks, beds will be replanted with crops for winter and
believe it or not early spring 2017 crops.
Our fields, in general, are looking good. The first planting of summer squash is
producing nicely and our second planting is beginning to flower. Cucumber harvest was a bit lower than
anticipated this week, but Farmer Don is expecting a larger harvest next
week. Greens are continuing to be
harvested. Snap beans should be
flowering next week and beans will follow a couple of weeks after flowers. Our first planting of potatoes are flowering
and we should have new potatoes available soon.
Farmer Don peaked under a plant last week and the potatoes are still a
bit small, so he is allowing them to size up a bit before he starts to harvest. I will admit, we sampled the potatoes he dug
for dinner and they were tasty!
We continue to share our harvest, not only with you, our
farm members, but also with the farm's population of deer, groundhogs and
rabbits! This year we are seeing
significant loss from deer and many of our Asian greens fell victim to the
groundhogs. But we persevere, replanting
crops and walking the dogs around our fields to keep the animals away, at least
while to dogs are out. With the losses
we are seeing due to deer, we feel it may be time for some deer fencing. Fencing our fields is a challenge. Our farm is hilly and therefore we have
multiple small plots scattered throughout our farm. We will need to decide if it is more cost
effective to fence the entire farm or individual production plots. Unfortunately, fencing to exclude deer is not
as simple as fencing to keep farm animals in.
Deer can easily jump a six foot high fence, so standard fence needs to
be close to eight feet tall to exclude deer.
Another option for deer fencing is install a five or six foot fence, but
angle the fence outward. We will keep
you posted on our deer fence decisions, as few things on farm are as
disheartening as finding a beautiful bed of chard or lettuce grazed off at
ground level!
Wow! Market season
has begun with a flurry! We will be attending
quite a few markets this coming week.
Tomorrow, Sunday, July 3, we will be at the Mountain Top Market at the
Crestwood High School. The Mountain Top
Rotary Club is really focusing on building this market and are adding a number
of vendors this year. On Tuesday, July
5, we will at the Pittston Farmers Market.
This is an established market, but a new market for us. Finally on Saturday July 9, we will be at the
Back Mountain Memorial Library Market in Dallas and at Forks Farm Market in
Orangeville. This week is the opening
day for the markets in Mountain Top, Dallas and Pittston. We should have a good
supply of chicken, eggs, pork and vegetables.
If you are out and about on any of these days, please consider stopping
by one of the markets, meet the farmer and pick up some fresh locally produced
foods.
As always summer in the kitchen, for us, is focused on what
we are harvesting. We tend to eat fairly
simply, meat, veggies and a salad for most dinners and leftovers or eggs for
lunch. Farmer Don did make a really
delicious rice dish last weekend. It was
baked brown rice with peas and mint, topped with goat cheese. It was based on a recipe from our Cook's
Illustrated Cookbook and unfortunately I cannot add a link to the recipe, as
the site requires you to have a membership.
The original recipe called for frozen peas and feta, but we had fresh
peas and goat cheese on hand, so Farmer Don used these items.
CSA members, please remember to return you share boxes,
berry boxes and egg cartons to your pick up site. Being able to reuse these items greatly
reduces our costs and our environmental footprint.
It's summer and it's Saturday and the sun is shining. Time to tackle the huge list of household and
farm chores needing awaiting me. But,
Farmer Don just came in from morning chores, so first I think we will enjoy
some greens and eggs!
Be Safe, be well, enjoy those veggies and have a safe
holiday!
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