CSA Week 10 Newsletter

Greetings from soggy Dancing Hen Farm

First some information for our CSA members.  You will need to log on and pick items for Tuesday's box, since last week's picks are no longer valid.  This week will be an egg week and a CHICKEN week.  If you are getting a chicken share, please remember to look for a cooler at your drop site.  Your chicken will be inside the cooler.  Since we canceled last week's delivery, we will add one week to the end of our season to make up for this lost week.  Thank you for your understanding and patience with all of this.

So, I have decided this is the summer it rained, and rained and rained and rained and rained.....  And then it seem to rain again! 

Last Monday these rains were concentrated over our immediate area.  Flash floods raged through fields, yards, houses, and roads and eventually emptied into the Fishing Creek.  The creek then engulfed the town of Benton and charged on towards Bloomsburg.  Anything in the water's path was destroyed and swept along.  Driving around seeing the wide spread destruction and the force this water moved with is unbelievable.  Farmer Don and I feel quite blessed.  We did have a large volume of water running through the farm.  We do have some washouts on farm and on our road, got some water in our basement and lost our power, but compared to some areas, we have little to no lasting damage. 

To all our friends and neighbors dealing with flood waters, please know you are in our thoughts and prayers!  More showers are forecast for the next few days.  Let's hope they don't pack quite the inches of rain these last showers did.

Our fields are wet, very wet, but again we are blessed.  This time blessed to be farming rocky soil on a slope, so most of our fields dry out relatively quickly.  However all this rain, has brought us one of our most challenging growing seasons.  We have had problems getting into our fields to get things planted and once planted crops are not maturing as expected.  The weeds, however, are flourishing!  We are trying our best to get items to you.  We are harvesting some tomatoes right now and should continue to harvest until almost frost, as long as moisture loving diseases don't kill our plants.  Eggplant, peppers and okra are flowering and hopefully will set fruit soon.  Lettuce is growing slowly, as are cooking greens.  Speaking of greens, new this week are limited quantities of Asian greens, including bok choy.  We continue to harvest summer squash and our new planting of squash is coming along nicely.  Believe it or not we are still harvesting some cucumbers!  Beans are starting to mature, including green snap beans, wax beans and flat Dragon beans. 

Remember if you do not choose items for your weekly share, you will still receive a box, a farmer's choice box.  Farmer's choice boxes are sometimes a good bet if you find most of items are "sold out" on our pick list.  Farmer's choice boxes will receive some of our staples (potatoes, onions, etc), but may also includes items just starting to ripen, which are hard for Farmer Don to forecast harvest numbers for.  Farmer's Choice boxes may also include items which were available in greater numbers than Farmer Don predicted.  For instance, we may have more cherry tomatoes ready for harvest than anticipated.  You can also pick some of your items and allow Farmer Don to pick the rest when he packs your box.

Our kitchen has been quiet again, as most of Farmer Don's free time is spent dealing with opportunities as they arise on farm and I am still getting my strength back.  We have started some of our summer time  favorite traditions, including BLT's and Farmer Don's fresh pico de gallo.  Also, each weekend we cook chicken, which easily feeds us for 2, if not 3 meals.  This week we topped some pasta with leftover chicken combined with a quick sauce of sungolds and garlic.  I really like to either roast or quickly pan fry cherry tomatoes.  The quick heat, really intensifies their flavor!

Speaking of dinner and favorites, Farmer Don and the dogs just came in from the heat and tonight we are having BLT's, so I need to get the bacon cooking!

Until next week.  Be safe, be well, enjoy those veggies and don't forget to count your blessings.