Week 1 CSA Newsletter

Greetings from Dancing Hen Farm!  Welcome to Week 1 of our 2017 CSA.  Week 1 is an egg week.  Week 1 is also a Chicken Share Week.

Welcome to Summer!  Happy Summer Solstice! 

The weather has been almost refreshing the last couple of days, but Monday was anything but!  Mondays are our big harvest day here on farm.  We spend the whole day and into the evening harvesting and packing CSA boxes.  This Monday was a challenging harvest with high humidity and tropical like down bursts throughout the day.

 

Speaking of harvest.  Our greens are looking good right now.  Swiss Chard and Red Russian Kale are beautiful and plentiful and our lettuce and salad mix is looking really nice as well.  Some Asian greens and lots of herbs were also on the harvest list this week.  We are harvesting both garlic scapes and green garlic.  These are two garlic products only available in the spring, so enjoy them while you can.  Our peas are starting to recover from their deer attack and although we anticipate our yield will be a bit low, we are still hoping to have plenty of peas to harvest.  Zucchini and cucumbers are flowering and slowly starting to set fruit so, you can expect to see these crops increase in availability as the weeks move along.

Our fields are filling up. 

Tomatoes and summer crops are planted and the tomatoes in our unheated greenhouse are flowering.  Sungold tomatoes, a real favorite around here, have been planted twice.  Yes, twice.  Our first planting, out in the field, was completely eaten (or stolen?) by some critter.  Almost 100 tomato plants vanished overnight!  That is a first for us.  I was in a panic, afraid we would have no sungolds this year.  But, Farmer Don still had a tray and those were quickly planted in the high tunnel, hopefully far from the tomato thief! 

We have several plantings of snap beans in the ground and if we can keep the deer away from them, we should have a nice harvest in several weeks.  Our potatoes are looking good, but not quite flowering.  However our second planting of zucchini is flowering, so lots of squash coming your way!  We are already looking forward to fall , with winter squash and pie pumpkins planted last week.  Greens, cooking and salad, will continue to be planted in hopes of keeping these crops available throughout the season.

 

In the kitchen we are so happy to be eating greens every day!  This time of year finds us too busy to create in the kitchen, so simple and quick meals rule.  The day usually starts with a kale smoothie or green eggs (eggs scrambled with greens).  Dinner usually starts with a salad and includes simple sauted greens with a protein on the grill. 

CSA members, remember choice for week 2 opens tomorrow, Thursday, at 6 pm. 

A quick note, concerning reduce and reuse.  We try hard to reduce our contribution to landfills and reduce our carbon footprint.  One way we do this is by, whenever possible, reusing packaging from your weekly shares.  As you all know, we reuse the wax produce boxes your shares are packed in.  We also reuse the green berry boxes items are portioned into and clean dozen sized egg cartons.  Any of these items can be returned to your pick up site for us to pick up.

As always, I cannot express our thanks to you, our members and friends of the farm.  Thank you for your support of our farm, local agriculture and sustainable farming.  Without you, our community, we would be unable to do what we do.  Unable to work to preserve this rocky hillside we call home.

Oh my, I just looked at the clock and it is past my bedtime.  Morning will come quickly tomorrow!  So, I will end here, quoting Farmer Don, "be safe, be well, and enjoy those veggies".