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| Photo by Farmer Don. |
Greetings
from Dancing Hen Farm!
Welcome to
Week 7 or our CSA. Week 7 is an egg
week.
It is hard
to believe that tomorrow is August first.
We are already starting to notice the days getting slightly shorter.
Temperatures and evening thundershowers, however, continue to be very
summer like. Although this July has been
unusually hot, we are happy to have avoided the drenching rains of last
July. Hopefully we will also avoid the
drenching flooding rains of last August as well. Some of our neighbors (and our local roads)
still have not recovered from the flash floods last August.
In the
fields the summer temperatures continue to push along our tomatoes, eggplants,
peppers and other summer crops. We are
still several weeks from our own tomato harvest. However, Farmer Don was able to secure a
small number certified organic cherry tomatoes from a neighbor for next
week. These will be available as pints
of mixed tomatoes on a first serve basis.
Our chard is starting to slow a bit, but our kale continues to look
good. We are monitoring our tomatillos
daily and they should be ready for harvest soon. Basil continues to look good, but some of our
other herbs have gone to seed. Our next
planting of beans includes yellow, purple, dragon and flat Italian beans. The plants are up and beans should be ready
for harvest in the coming weeks. The
seed house is slowly filling up with seedlings for our fall crops.
The other
evening, Farmer Don came in telling me he had something to show me in our
tomato patch. So off we went to explore
and there in the middle of the sungolds was a fawn bedded down. Don tells me this baby has been alone for
several weeks and recently it has decided the coziest place on farm is in the
tomatoes. Deer do so much damage to our
crops, but it is hard to not love this beautiful baby!
Ok, so I
have to admit, I saw something I found even more inspiring than the fawn on
this farm tour. On farm we allow some
areas to remain weedy or more wild. One
of the plants we like to allow to grow are milkweed. Milkweed are a food source for Monarch
butterfly larvae. Several years ago Monarchs
seemed to have disappeared and there was worry about the future of the
species. Well, there beside the tomatoes
was a patch of milkweed with a large number of Monarch (and tiger swallowtail)
butterflies flying from plant to plant!
So exciting to see this species of butterfly becoming more common in Pennsylvania
again! Monarchs really are amazing
insects. Each fall they migrate, over
2000 miles, to a small area in south central Mexico, to overwinter. In spring the Monarchs fly back north. So, come September, if you see one of these
orange butterflies, wish it luck on its journey to Mexico! And if you have children in your life, I
would encourage you to point these beautiful orange butterflies out to them and
help them learn about the Monarch's life cycle and migration.
Today is
delivery day, Farmers Don and Phil were just here for lunch and to pick up the
boxes for afternoon delivery. I need to
get off the computer and continue checking items off my "to do" list
for the day. So, I will say, in Farmer
Don's words, "be safe, be well and enjoy those veggies"!
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