October 30, 2022
Food to Share
by Farmer Derek

Harvest #24 (Week B) should include potatoes, beets, napa/chinese cabbage, salad radishes, hakurei turnips, celery, fennel, lettuce, garlic, arugula, red mustard, kale, and italian dandelion. Some items will be a choice. U-pick will include flowers. The herb garden needs to rest and recover.

October 30, 2022
Workshifts for Week of 10/31/22
by Farmer Derek

This week's workshift schedule (may add more if we proceed with garlic):

Bring gloves, water, a hat, and sturdy shoes. We meet under the large red maple at the end of the barn by the pick up room.

Workshift Guidelines - Workshift Sign Up Instructions

October 30, 2022
Herb of the Week: Parsley
by Gia Yaccarino

Safe for Cats and Dogs: yes – in moderation

October 30, 2022
Water and Color
by Farmer Derek

It's a nice time of year. Even though it's been our wettest October in 14 seasons (3 inches above the average), the beauty of the fall foliage makes it all worth while. We continue to retrieve crops from the fields while our managed footprint outside shrinks. Most of our storage crops have now been harvested for safekeeping. Last week we pulled in the remainder of the beets, hakurei turnips, and red cabbage. While crops are coming in we're also continuously unloading crops that were harvested a while ago like potatoes, garlic, and onions. After curing for a couple of weeks, sweet potatoes will grace the pick up room during weeks 25 & 26. The supply of most greens remains steady and plentiful. The new variety of fall kale remains impressive. In fact all of the fall brassicas have performed well this year. On the horizon is trying to find a window to plant and mulch the 2023 garlic. Typically we do this around election Tuesday and will plan to do so again this year (we may try to fit it in this week if weather cooperates). Approximately 300 lbs of cloves are separated from bulbs, though every year we plant more than the previous year because we feel we can never have too much garlic. Hope you're able to enjoy this great fall weather outside amongst the trees and colorful leaves!

October 23, 2022
Frosty Fresh
by Farmer Derek

Harvest #23 (Week A) should include celery, potatoes, cabbage, salad radishes, hakurei turnips, beets, kohlrabi, onions, lettuce, romaine, garlic, arugula, swiss chard, red mustard, kale, and italian dandelion. Some items will be a choice. U-pick will include flowers. The herb garden needs to rest and recover.

October 23, 2022
Workshifts for Week of 10/24/22
by Farmer Derek

There should be weekly work opportunities through the first week of November. Over the next few weeks we'll be harvesting roots and tubers, pulling weeds, splitting garlic bulbs into cloves, and transplanting and mulching those cloves. Update: as of Monday 10/24, we've prepped most of the garlic that we need for seed.

If you signed up for a CSA share with work discount but are unable to work please consider remitting payment in lieu of work sooner rather that later.

This week's workshift schedule:

Bring gloves, water, a hat, sturdy shoes, and a pad for kneeling (if necessary for you)!

We meet under the large red maple at the end of the barn by the pick up room.

Workshift Guidelines - Workshift Sign Up Instructions

October 23, 2022
Herb of the Week: Dill
by Gia Yaccarino

Safe for Cats: Yes

Safe for Dogs: Yes

October 23, 2022
Warm Up
by Farmer Derek

This beautiful autumn continues even though we did endure four straight mornings of almost-heavy frost and one or two mornings of possibly subfreezing temperatures. All of our crops currently growing are cold and frost tolerant and didn't mind the dip in temperature. Any lingering annual summer weeds bit the dust, or more accurately, froze up real good. Frost and light freezes sweeten the crops as they convert starches to sugars while they deal with the cold. We did have to adapt and adjust our harvest schedule since the frost didn't burn off fully until after 9am.

I am very thankful for our 15 years of farming experience during weather and temperature fluctuations this time of the season. Knowing that we didn't have to cover any of the crops with floating row cover really saved us a lot of time and effort (and oftentimes frustration). We put a lot of trust in the forecast low but always do assume it will get colder on the farm than the forecasts show. So we are careful but don't want to engage in unnecessary tasks. Years ago I did make a decision to put up more tunnels for growing on the shoulder ends of the season to purposely avoid dealing with row cover out in the field. I guess we had enough frustrating experiences with it and wanted the guaranteed protection of the tunnel instead of the gamble with the covers in the field. A lot of the time the cold is preceded by and concurrent with extremely windy events. Billowing cover on top of plants can inflict more damage than frost on uncovered plants.

Hey, go Phillies!

October 23, 2022
Reminder: Registration Open for 2022 Late Fall, 2023 Main Season
by Farmer Derek

Sign up for your continued share of the harvest!

The 5-week Late Fall CSA commences the week of November 21 and wraps up the week of December 19. Follow this link to join.

2023 Main Season CSA will run 28 weeks from Mid-May through Thanksgiving. Sign up and pay in full by 12/31/22 to receive the current 5% discount on share prices. Follow this link to join.

October 16, 2022
Workshifts for Week of 10/17/22
by Farmer Derek

There will be weekly work opportunities through the first week of November. Over the next few weeks we'll be harvesting roots and tubers, pulling weeds, splitting garlic bulbs into cloves, and transplanting and mulching those cloves.

Dividing garlic bulbs into cloves will be easy-on-the-body work in the barn and will take place over a few shifts during the latter half of October and/or early November.

If you signed up for a CSA share with work discount but are unable to work please consider remitting payment in lieu of work sooner rather that later.

This week's workshift schedule:

Bring gloves, water, a hat, sturdy shoes, and a pad for kneeling (if necessary for you)!

We meet under the large red maple at the end of the barn by the pick up room.

Workshift Guidelines - Workshift Sign Up Instructions

October 16, 2022
Fall Feast
by Farmer Derek

Harvest #22 (Week B) should include bok choy, celery, potatoes, cauliflower, salad radishes, hakurei turnips, beets, kohlrabi, winter squash, onions, lettuce, romaine, garlic, arugula, swiss chard, red mustard, kale, and italian dandelion. Some items will be a choice. U-pick should include herbs and flowers.

October 16, 2022
Reminder: Registration Open for 2022 Late Fall, 2023 Main Season
by Farmer Derek

Sign up for your continued share of the harvest!

The 5-week Late Fall CSA commences the week of November 21 and wraps up the week of December 19. Follow this link to join.

2023 Main Season CSA will run 28 weeks from Mid-May through Thanksgiving. Sign up and pay in full by 12/31/22 to receive the current 5% discount on share prices. Follow this link to join.

October 16, 2022
Herb of the Week: Echinacea
by Gia Yaccarino

Safe for Cats: Yes

Safe for Dogs: Yes

October 16, 2022
Out of the Fields
by Farmer Derek

I know I think and say this way too often, but I do love this time of year. It's the combination of perfect weather for working in, the colors of the farmscape, the worklist getting shorter, the fields looking nice and tidy, and the shrinking of the farm footprint that we need to be conscious of right now. It's also the comfort that comes with stowing a good harvest of roots, tubers, and storage crops to carry us through many weeks of CSA distribution. Yields of almost all crops this fall have been ideally satisfying. I can't think of one crop I'm disappointed with. On the other hand, I don't think anything is what I would call a 'bumper', more just a perfect amount below that threshold. Our goal over the next five weeks of Main Season and the following five weeks of Late Fall will be to distribute shares that are an ideal balance between fresh greens and lettuces, roots and tubers, necessary alliums, and specialty crops like fennel, celery, cabbage, and napa, all while trying to give you as much choice as possible in the pick up room.

Our list of storage crops to pull out of the ground continues to shrink. With the aforementioned sweet potatoes successfully retrieved, what's left includes rutabaga (everybody's favorite!); the final round of beets; more storage radishes (if needed); napa, red, and savoy cabbages; and hopefully carrots (sown late after an unexpected initial germination failure).

While in storage crops still need to be maintained. Moisture and temperature requirements vary. We are fortunate to have three separate crop storage facilities. Sweet potatoes are currently curing at 75 degrees in their own room with the remnants of the winter squash harvest. Potatoes and onions share a cold and dry storage room set at 45 degrees. All other storage crops go in our moist and cold cooler, set at 38 degrees. In there we still monitor the crops and occasionally hose them down with water. Space constraints are still an issue. Each unit is the size of an old horse stall, because that's what they were. Rumor has it that when there is a full moon on Halloween on a Friday a horse named Anchor runs out of the barn with a cabbage, a squash, and a potato on its back.

October 9, 2022
Herb of the Week: Fennel
by Gia Yaccarino

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)

Safe for Cats: Yes

Safe for Dogs: Yes – aids in digestion and supports the immune system for dogs

October 9, 2022
Workshifts for Week of 10/10/22
by Farmer Derek

There will be weekly work opportunities through the first week of November. Over the next month we'll be harvesting roots and tubers, pulling weeds, splitting garlic bulbs into cloves, and transplanting and mulching those cloves.

Dividing garlic bulbs into cloves will be easy-on-the-body work in the barn and will take place over a few shifts during the latter half of October and/or early November.

If you signed up for a CSA share with work discount but are unable to work please consider remitting payment in lieu of work sooner rather that later.

This week's workshift schedule:

Bring gloves, water, a hat, sturdy shoes, and a pad for kneeling (if necessary for you)!

We meet under the large red maple at the end of the barn by the pick up room.

Workshift Guidelines - Workshift Sign Up Instructions

October 9, 2022
Six More Weeks of Harvest!
by Farmer Derek

Harvest #21 (Week A) should include bok choy, cauliflower, salad radishes, hakurei turnips, kohlrabi, winter squash, leeks, lettuce, garlic, arugula, swiss chard, red mustard, kale, and italian dandelion. Some items will be a choice. U-pick should include herbs and flowers.

We're in a bit of a transition phase this week as some crops will run out/end/pause (winter squash, leeks, mini lettuce) while others will get started in their place (onions, fennel, beets, romaine). Therefore the share may vary slightly from Monday to Thursday and Saturday. Fear not, what we switch to later in the week will be around for a while. So if you miss it this week, you'll receive it next go round.

October 9, 2022
Fall's My Favorite
by Farmer Derek

There is something especially enjoyable about the early fall season from the perspective of this type of farmer in this general climate zone, when sunshine returns after five days of hurricane-remnant rain quenches the land's thirst and the first frost descends. The farmscape is particularly appealing this time of year, with crops of varying colors, shapes, and sizes sharing the space with oats and buckwheat cover crop against a background of trees beginning their foliar transition. Perhaps it's also, or mostly, having more time to notice the beauty now that the pace and quantity of work is less demanding.

That said, most of our days are still filled with a lot of farm work. The aforementioned rain out last weekend and early this week gave me time to begin reflections and analysis of this season's successes and failures while simultaneously updating some of our crop plans for next year. Fortunately, most of that work can be accomplished near the wood stove. After a full day of that, though, I felt it was a bit premature to fully mentally embrace and plan for 2023 and decided to shelve this work for a later date.

Thankfully the rain was intermittent enough to work outside when necessary. We still battle summer weeds with the weed-whacker in the aisles and by pulling them out of the beds. Monday was a rough day since we had to harvest and wash in windy rainy cold conditions that seemed to catch us all by surprise. On Tuesday the farm crew was able to finish processing the hanging garlic and get caught up on leek clean up under the protection of the barn. On Wednesday we transplanted another round of crops in the tunnels, including arugula, lettuce mix, and spinach. The greenhouse was emptied out of all seeding supplies and infrastructure to make way for planting in the ground. Fabric had to be pulled up and the ground was forked to loosen it and help dry it out for before being manually hoed and raked into beds. Thursday was another harvest day but most importantly sunshine returned. Friday we harvested some storage crops and removed the 10-year-old greenhouse film that has an advertised life of four years.

Regarding the weather, this coming week looks mostly fantastic. Our goal is to harvest the hopefully 5,000 pounds of sweet potatoes from 3,000 feet of beds. Workshifts are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday for members to help with this fun task.

Hope you are having a nice weekend outside!

October 2, 2022
Herb of the Week: Catnip
by Gia Yaccarino

FYI:

Safe for Cats: Yes- but moderation is key – too much can be bad and cause diarrhea and vomiting

Safe for Dogs: Yes- it only has sedative effects for dogs (it can even be used to help calm an anxious pooch!)

October 2, 2022
Workshifts for Week of 10/3/22:
by Farmer Derek

There will be weekly work opportunities through the first week of November. Over the next month we'll be harvesting roots and tubers, pulling weeds, splitting garlic bulbs into cloves, and transplanting and mulching those cloves.

As soon as the ground dries out enough we'll begin harvesting sweet potatoes!

Dividing garlic bulbs into cloves will be easy-on-the-body work in the barn and will take place over a few shifts during the latter half of October and/or early November.

If you signed up for a CSA share with work discount but are unable to work please consider remitting payment in lieu of work sooner rather that later.

This week's workshift schedule:

Bring gloves, water, a hat, sturdy shoes, and a pad for kneeling (if necessary for you)!

We meet under the large red maple at the end of the barn by the pick up room.

Workshift Guidelines - Workshift Sign Up Instructions

October 2, 2022
Ian Watered Veg
by Farmer Derek

Harvest #20 (Week B) should include broccoli, cauliflower, napa/chinese cabbage, salad radishes, hakurei turnips, winter squash, leeks, garlic, green peppers, tomatoes (mostly green), arugula, swiss chard, red mustard, kale, lettuce, and italian dandelion. Some items will be a choice. U-pick should include herbs and flowers.

October 2, 2022
Four Inches and Counting
by Farmer Derek

Last week we continued cleaning up fields and putting them to sleep for the winter months, planted another round of crops in a few of the tunnels, seeded the final round of greens for transplanting later on, and did a lot of harvesting. With Ian incoming we knew this might be the final chance to sow cover crop seeds this fall. We harvested the rest of the leeks, green peppers, and first planting of fall beets; removed stakes and twine; pulled up fabric and drip tape; mowed; chisel plowed; spread cover crop seed; and worked the seed in with the disk harrow. We sowed oats which will terminate when it gets cold this winter and allow us to probably plant peas early next April. We sowed rye in spots where we don't think we'll grow any crops until later in the season. Rye overwinters and grows vigorously in the spring. When incorporated after plowing and working in, it takes a couple months to break down and re-feed the soil and the following veggie crops.

Three tunnels, or 62% of covered beds, are now filled with late fall and early winter greens. We transplanted another round of lettuce mix, spinach, chard, and kale last week. These spaces were prepped with the tractor after spreading compost and gypsum but were planted by hand. After planting we watered in each plug (about 5,000 total) to make sure there is good root to soil contact. We'll eventually apply drip tape and will irrigate the tunnels about once a week.

After 31 weeks of sowing seeds in the greenhouse, we finally deposited the last of them (arugula, mustard, kale). These will go in ground in about 3-4 weeks and will hopefully be ready to harvest at the end of December. They need to be decently established by mid-November when daylight drops below 10 hours per day; growth really slows down then.

Hope you're enjoying this rainy weekend!