This will be a short note to let you know a little of what is going on at the farm. We’ve been too busy to find much time to sit down and write, but in general, things are going well and on schedule. As always, we’ve itemized our topics for your perusal:
1. Start of Summer Session: days and times
2. Information for first-time members
3. Eggs
4. Farm Chatter
5. Our Children and NDD
6. CSA Handbook
1. Summer Session: days and times
Our first week of pick up will be the week starting Tuesday, June 14th. Pick-up times are from noon till six on Tuesday and Friday, and ten till two on Saturday. You have all been sent a confirmation letter (we hope!) which tells you the day that we have in our records as your pick-up day. If you’ve forgotten your day, or have not picked a day, please send us a note at jubileefarm@hotmail.com and we can get that taken care of. We need to know how many to harvest for each day!
2. Information for first-time members
We want to offer a special “welcome” to our many new members, and provide a little information. The season is almost here, and some of you would probably like a little more information before you arrive for your first pick-up.
You are welcome to come any time during our pick-up hours, but we don’t open the barn doors until exactly at the start time. That’s because we are almost always busy harvesting and washing produce right up until that time.
You should bring a box or bag with you to bring your produce home. Many folks bring laundry-type baskets. Some bring ice-chest/cooler type containers that are especially good in the summer for getting veggies and fruit home in good condition. You should also bring a pair of scissors or some kind of cutting implement for u-pick. Most of the u-pick begins later in the season. In fact, you need to be aware that in the Summer Session, the variety and quantity of produce follows our growing season. The first couple of pick-ups will be mostly greens and less quantity that you might have hoped for. Don’t worry, the day will come later in the season when the boxes will be over-flowing and you’ll wonder what you will do with it all. It balances out over a season, like a lot of things in life.
When you come into the market, the first thing you should do is check your name off the roster. Julie will be there to help you. In the market there will be a list of what to get from the barn that has been pre-harvested, and what is available for u-pick. Guidelines for u-pick are outlined in the Jubilee Farm CSA Handbook which is now being finalized and will hopefully be on-line before June 14. This handbook should be especially helpful for those of you who are new to the farm.
You are welcome to bring a lunch and stay as long as you like. We close the barn doors are 6:00, but members often stay after that, and are welcome to do so. You do need to keep track of your children, of course. There is machinery, equipment, and the usual kinds of ways kids can get hurt or in trouble, so please don’t let them “disappear” into the back forty!
There are many other policies of the farm pertaining to the CSA that are presented in the CSA Handbook, and we ask that you all take some time to read the information there when it becomes available to you.
3. Eggs
This year we will be depending entirely on our own chickens. At this time we’re getting about 5 dozen a day, or 35 dozen a week. We have another 50 chickens that we just moved into the “eggmobile.” They should start laying in early July. We also have a little more than 100 chicks that will be in production before the season is over. So we should have plenty of eggs.
In the past we sold “egg shares,” but that created a lot of paperwork. This year we will sell the eggs on a first-come basis. We’re thinking there will be plenty for everyone.
4. Farm chatter
This has been a very different spring from those we’ve experienced in the last several years. It’s been wet! We’ve spent a lot of time getting ready for irrigation, and while it’s not time wasted, we certainly haven’t needed irrigation this spring. This has been a year of waiting for “windows of opportunity.” Windows always occur, but when we first started farming we didn’t recognize how important it was to capitalize on them. Now we do. Yesterday, for example, the surface of the soil dried out enough to get on it with tractors. It wasn’t dry for long—we had another rain last night—but we were able during that time to get 5000 row feet of black plastic down. But before we put the plastic down, we need to till; and before we can till, we need to subsoil. So, it ended up being a long day. But the window was there, and we were ready for it.
We don’t like black plastic much, but we need it for the watermelons, cantaloupe, peppers, and eggplant. Right now the first rotation of melons is putting on their third leaves. We start them from seed in our propagation house, and transplant them into four-inch pots when they are big enough. They need to get into the ground when they get their third true leaves, so now is the time! We’re also going to try sweet potatoes this year, and they, too, will need to be grown through plastic to get them ripe. The plastic keeps the roots much warmer, and although our valley is warm in the summer, without a little boost it’s just not enough.
Amidst all the rain and clouds, we did have one hot day. Wendy took a picture of the thermometer to document the fact that it was 102 in the shade here last week. When I drove to the hardware store just after Wen had taken that picture I heard on the radio that it was currently 79 at SeaTac. That’s a pretty dramatic difference! If that heat had persisted, we’d have had a great test of the irrigation. But the rains returned. In all it’s been a great spring for growing.
The rainy days have provided us time to work our regular three tomato houses, plus the two houses that we converted to tomatoes this year. One of the new houses is our “trial” house, in which we are trialing about 25 varieties of heirlooms that we’ve never grown. The 375 tomato plants in this house are doing great—I don’t think there has been a single plant not make it. But they certainly have different growth habits! It will be pretty exciting this year to figure out which ones are good enough to include in our regular rotations.
We’re also doing some “trialing” with squash, melons, eggplants, and peppers. Except for the tomatoes, the “trials” will be in a section just west of the apple orchard and south of the grape arbors. Everything is logged, and we’ll try to get some signs so you’ll know what you’re looking at. Unfortunately, our ducks decided the night after we planted out the trial squash that they should dig the squash up, which they did. Most were replantable, but a few bit the dust. Oh well, that’s life on the farm. I should also add that we didn’t actually “see” the ducks pluck out the squash—they don’t exactly leave footprints. Wendy says don’t be so quick to blame the ducks!
We also had an “incident” with the pigs that only in retrospect seems amusing. They got out, and headed straight for the big tomato house. It’s hard to get too mad at them. Just think how hard it must be for them with their pen right where they can see into those tomato houses every day! One can only imagine what kinds of tomato fantasies they entertain. Anyway, apparently under the vale of darkness they’d been lashing together old sunflower stems into a long pole. It was pretty clever, really. They were using, appropriately, “pig weed” for the lashings. Last Sunday we went to the Skagit Valley to look at irrigation pipe. They were watching, and when our car pulled out, they one-by-one pole vaulted over the fence (I wish we could have caught that on film!), and made for the tomatoes. I’m not sure how long they were there, in “hog heaven,” so to speak, but Francisco was walking by and sensed something amiss. Once caught, they lowered their dirty little noses in shame, and repentantly filed back to their pen. Hopefully they’ve got that out of their system. And I don’t think we’ll have any more problems with them. They’re growing by the day, and soon will be too heavy to clear the fence; have you ever seen a full-sized pig pole vault? Of course not! Interestingly, they dug along the tomato’s rootlines with their noses, but only a half dozen or so were dead. It could have been much worse!
There are many more stories that could be told. For example, if three little pigs getting out can raise havoc, just think about what damage eight 1000 pound calves can do! Well, we survived that one too. Animals on the farm are in some ways like our kids. They can be a real bother at times, we all know that; but what would life be without them?
5. NDD
There’s been a lot of talk recently about NDD: Nature Deficit Disorder. Books have been written (for example, Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods; Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder) articles written, NPR reports made. All point to the observation that children being raised today experience only a small percentage of the amount of interaction with nature that children of all previous generations have had. In place of spending time in the woods, in the family garden, or on a pond or river, our children spend their time behind a computer screen, or in front of a TV. What will the impacts of this change be on today’s “experimental” generation? Louv suggests there is strong evidence that independent play and exploration of the natural world builds mental, physical and spiritual health. The argument at the very least seems intuitive: how can we know ourselves if we as children are separated from the natural world, deprived of intimate observation and interaction of plant and animal life? What kinds of understanding of the world emerge from a steady diet of TV, video games, and cheap (in all senses of the word) Hollywood movies?
One of the things that attracted me to the CSA model of agriculture from the beginning was the opportunities it presents for, in some small way, bridging the gap for children (and parents!) between the plastic world we have created and the “real world” that exists whether we understand and/or know about it or not. Farming certainly isn’t the only way to bridge this gap, but it is an important way for children and parents to learn about how the food they eat is produced. And understanding the ups and downs of a particular farm acquaints people with the vicissitudes of the “real world”—a world not created by us, a world not controlled by us, and a world we must respect and learn to co-operate with. These are valuable lessons, and lessons that “ground” us in the world that we must live in. What will happen to a generation without this grounding?
6. CSA Handbook
We want to let you all know that the CSA Hand Book is nearing completion. We’ve had several members volunteer as “interlocutors,” and we’re hoping to collate their collective input and get a final product. It will be something that will be, no doubt, revised again and again. But this is a starting point, and I’m sure will be helpful to us all, and especially to new members.
The handbook will be posted on the web page. We’ll be sure to send a note when it is on-line. Whether you are new or have been a member for some time, please be sure to take a look at it.