Busy, Busy, Busy
We have quite a bit to do in these early spring months. Most of our tasks are weather related and we go through constant rescheduling of our to-do list. We have plenty to work on even when the weather isn’t cooperating. A gallery of photos is at the end of this post for you to take a peek at what is going on around here.
We are building a new High Tunnel. This will be where your tomatoes will be growing this season. The transplants are ready to go, but we still have to finish the construction. We try to do quite a bit ourselves but this project is a bit much for just the two of us. We called all of our boys back, Jay stopped by, and our dear friends and fellow CSA Members Jenna & Tommy have all helped us out. Jay was here with the boys and helped us square the site before we could pound in the posts. We ran into an unfortunate delay when we were pounding the anchor posts into the ground. The posts must go 39″ below ground level. There were quite a few large rocks and boulders that we needed to dig out. The boulder harvest this season has been a bumper crop! Jenna and Tommy helped carry the bows, insert them into the ground posts and then install the initial perlin top bracing. That was a big day! We have the main structure almost complete. We still need to construct the end walls, bracing, and cover it with a giant plastic sheet. We are hopeful that the weather will cooperate and we can complete some more on Monday or Tuesday. We have taken a break from construction to focus on preparing our fields for direct seeding and transplanting.
We had lush green cover crop growth this year. This is planted to keep the soil covered over the winter and is beneficial to our soil structure and microbial health. We plant the cover crop in the fall and it is incorporated back into the soil in the spring. This cover crop takes a few weeks to break down into the soil before we can plant in it and it adds organic matter to improve soil structure. This is a main goal of organic farming. It is our job as organic farmers to continuously strive to maintain and improve our soil health. Most of the plots have been tilled at least once to incorporate the cover crop, green manure. The snow peas, hakurei turnip, radish, mizuna, arugula, komatsuna, and red kale has been planted.
Did you know?
We start all of our own transplants. We begin the first week of March. We have a small hoophouse that is heated with a radiant heater when necessary. Due to limited space we start most seeds in smaller trays to germinate and then repot to bigger cells. The plants are looking fantastic this season and we are pretty much on schedule.
Plants that we have growing now in flats: onion, leeks, shallots, scallions, bok choy, swiss chard, celeriac, tomato, pepper, eggplant, cabbage, summer squash, cucumber, tomatillos, parsley, pac choy, curly kale, lettuces. Once the plots are ready we can begin transplanting.
Have you seen our new signs?
We are placing these on the roadside near our delivery locations – hopefully while it is raining on Sunday. If you happen to see one and then it disappears, please send us a text with the location. Thanks!
Delivery begins Tuesday, June 4th!
It is not too late to sign up for the season. Please complete your membership form asap and choose your payment plan.
Bi-Weekly Members that paid a deposit – Your balance of $200 is due by June 1st. No processing fees for checks mailed to the farm (Ever Green Farm, 5942 Old Lake Road, Rock Stream, NY 14878) or Venmo (@EverGreenFarm-CSA #3197)
Images are cropped in the gallery – click on a photo and you should be able to scroll through
Building the High Tunnel
Preparing the plots for planting
Transplants in waiting….
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