Hi Everyone,
In this update:
1. Dates and times for 1st week of pick-up.
The week after next we will be starting our Summer Session farm pick-ups and deliveries. If you have signed up for a Tuesday pick-up at the farm, your first pick-up day will be Tuesday, June 13 from noon to six. If you have signed up for a Friday pick-up at the farm, your first pick-up day will be Friday, June 16th. If you have signed up for a Saturday pick-up date, your first pick-up day will be Saturday, June 17th from 10:00 until 2:00. If you signed up for delivery, your first delivery will be on Wednesday, June 14th (boxes available by noon, except for Duval and Woodinville which is 1:00). If you don't know what day you signed up for, or if you didn't sign up for a day, please contact us (jubileefarm@hotmail.com or 425-222-4558) and we'll get you down for the day of your choice.
2. Is it too late to sign up for Summer Session?
Our main sign-up period is October of the year previous to the current Summer Session. This is the month we get a large number of our sign-ups for the upcoming season. Obviously, the people who sign up in October are already members, and are certain they will be here the following year.
As we near the start of the Summer Session, we get another flush of applications. These are typically either from people new to the farm, or from previous members who weren’t sure that they could commit to Summer Session earlier (or those who just forgot to do it).
We value all our members. We would be lost without those faithful of you who are able and do commit to us in October (and make the deposit that is our literal "seed money" for the winter seed order). But we also know that there will always be people who, for whatever reason, join us at the last minute. All are welcome; all are important to the success of our farm. So if you haven’t signed up yet, you may certainly do so now. The easiest way is on-line: http://jubileefarm.org. Or you can give us a call at (425) 222-4558.
3. What will be in our first box?
I hope you don't panic if I say, "we don't really know." That's the truth, though. When you get your vegetables from a grocery market you can usually be pretty much assured that you'll have the full spectrum of vegetables available. And if you sign up for one of the many organic delivery services, you (and those who run those services) can say with a great deal of confidence what will be available on any date. The reason for the confidence is that most of these services buy from wholesalers, who can supply most things on most dates. We also buy from wholesalers during our "off season" (November through May). But during our growing season, your share will be what we grow on our farm, and that introduces contingency.
A lot of us try to eliminate contingency from our lives, but in so doing we distance ourselves from nature, and those things that follow the way of nature. A single, local, CSA farm that distributes only what it itself produces follows the way of nature, and hence is subject to contingency, as are the members of such a farm. It's really not such a bad thing. It teaches us and reminds us that as much as we want to plan and control our present and our future (both the significant and the trivial events of our lives), we really don't and can not. We don't know what tomorrow brings. Today we may enjoy health and success. Tomorrow we may lose our health; we may experience a change in relationships, or may have to change employment. We try to insulate ourselves from contingency, but it is always there, and I think we know and fear it.
Another thing about recognizing contingency in our lives is that it makes us more patient. There was an article in the Seattle Times this week that cited studies which claim that we as a nation are getting more impatient. Many times our impatience, our "shortness" with others, stems from an unwillingness to acknowledge that we are not in control of all (or really "many") situations. How do we become more patient? How do we come to relinquish an over-zealous sense of control? The cognitive element in this would be to acknowledge the things in our lives that we don't and ultimately can't control. Nature is a good teacher here, and any time we get around nature she is there to instruct. Maybe that's why we try to insulate ourselves from nature by building "climate controlled" shopping malls, enclosed sport stadiums, and vehicles that allow us to move in a completely manipulated environment. These things aren't bad, but they foster the "illusion," and prevent us from the daily reminder of the truth about our lives.
This may sound like an extended apologia for why you should be satisfied with us not telling you in advance what will be in your box. I didn't set out to do that, but it does seem to be where we end up.
4. Second try at "what's in the first box?"
Ok, now that we've established the presence of contingency in nature . . ., what might we have in the first box? The box will probably be "green," and that in more than the accurate and appropriate environmental sense of that word. As most of you know, the first boxes are always pretty green, pretty "leafy," and a little on the lean side. For those of you who are new to our program, don't worry about the "leanness," as we follow the rhythm of nature, these lighter boxes will be more than compensated for later.
Spinach, yes. Something really awful would have to happen for us not to have spinach - it's up and looking good. As are the lettuces, radishes, and mizuna, arugula, and totsoi. I can say pretty certainly that we won't have watermelons, cantaloupe, tomatoes or corn, not yet (but all of these are growing even as I write). There are a lot of things that are up in the air. Yesterday I saw the first blossoms in what looks like a great crop of snap and snow peas. They could be ready. The brassicas are doing well, and will probably be represented by either broccoli or kohlrabi in week one or two. Beets and carrots are still a way off. Because we rotate crops we didn't use our "sandy" field that gave us those early carrots and beets last year. But they are on the way. In fact, we weeded carrots today. We'll have turnips and radishes. Maybe garlic tops. The garlic are doing very well, and are one of the best looking stands we've ever had (that extra compost before planting last year really paid off!). Because it was pretty rainy for May Day, we still have a lot of cherry tomato plants that we've kept, and we will make them available week one (I want them out of the propagation house!)
5. A new delivery option for this Summer Session.
I hope by now you all know that we're doing deliveries again this summer. We're trying to make it easier for delivery members to get out to the farm if they can and want to. The way the delivery works is this. There is a $40 delivery fee for the year (a price that was made before the hike in gas prices, and may have to be revisited next year). Delivery members have the option on any week of coming to the farm - all they have to do is send us an e-mail or call by noon on Monday to let us know.
Our goal in this is to make it possible for more delivery members to be able to enjoy the farm when they can. Having now done the off-season deliveries as much as we have, we are confident we can handle the administrative end of offering this flexibility.
6. Weekend U-Pick for delivery and farm pick-up members.
We want to make sure you all are aware that we invite you to come to the farm to do your u-pick on weekends or on days that aren't pick-up days (Monday, Wednesday, or Thursday). We do this to accommodate members who would like to come to the farm as a family, but can't do so during our regular pick-up times. We will have a list of u-pick items for that week on the porch along with bags, containers, and a member check-off list. You are welcome, of course, to bring a picnic lunch. We want members to enjoy the farm, and see how and where their produce is grown.
There isn't a lot of u-pick the first few weeks, of course, but as we get into July there will be more and the weather will be better. We hope many of you will come out when it is convenient for you.
7. A reminder regarding "sharing" of shares.
We have members ask from time to time if they can "share" their share with another family. We have talked about this a lot in the past ("seasoned" members should just read on!), but for those of you who are new, you may be wondering.
The short answer is "yes" and "no": (1) once the boxes leave the farm, they are, of course, yours to do with as you wish, (2) farm u-pick can be made only by the family that applied for the share (except, of course, when you are out-of-town and have a friend pick up your box that week), and (3) we ask that your u-pick items not be shared.
Why do we have these stipulations? For good and sufficient reasons, we believe. Rather than reiterate what we've already written on this, I'll just refer you to question #3 (Can I "share" my share?) in our Summer Session CSA Handbook. The Handbook is on our web page, http://jubileefarm.org/handbooks/summer.html. If you have any question about this policy (or any others), please don't hesitate to drop us a note.
8. CSA Handbook On-line.
For those of you who skipped over the previous section (I don't blame you!), we want to remind you that we have written a Jubilee Farm Summer Session Handbook in a FAQ format which is available on our web page (http://jubileefarm.org/handbooks/summer.html). We strongly urge you all to read this Handbook. Thanks!
9. Work Shares wanted!
In the last couple of weeks we've heard from several of our past work share members, saying (something like) "hey, we want to do it again!" That's good news to us. We appreciate so much our work share members, and are glad both to have our past work share members return, and to welcome new workers.
Just in case you don't know . . . the way the work share program works is this. Work share folks work one four-hour period each week in trade for a couples share. It's simple and works well for both us and for those involved. We can use people who would like to do harvesting/farm work, or people who would like to help out in the market. If you are interested, or if you know someone who is, please sent us a note and we'll send you more information (jubileefarm@hotmail.com).
10. Farm Chatter
Two weeks into May I was wildly optimistic about this season. Things were going great; we were ahead of schedule on almost everything. Then came the rain; now I've downgraded to being just "optimistic."
May is typically a fairly dry month. We do certainly get our "showers," but rarely do we get much substantial rainfall (I think the average May rainfall at SeaTac is 1.5 inches). It would be normal to have to irrigate young seedlings during May, and we are prepared to do that. But this year there was no thought of irrigation. We got dumped on, and, here near the Cascades, we ended up with way, way more than in Seattle. It was so wet we couldn't get into the fields to weed or cultivate (although we had one little window in which, thanks to a sixteen-hour planting marathon, we were able to maintain our seeding schedule).
So as we enter June, we are looking at a fairly substantial sea of weeds. At one time (when we were less experienced and far more naïve) I probably wouldn't have recognized just how serious the weeds are. After all, they're still small. But they are everywhere, and it's going to take an extraordinary effort this week (along with some cooperative weather) to get caught up! The problem is that you can only weed one field at a time, and the weeds in all the other fields keep growing while you're weeding one of the others. It just doesn't seem fair! But we do have a couple of dry days forecast, and we're hoping to get a little extra help on those days. Not letting the weeds get away from us at this point is really important. The difficulty of establishing weed control at this time of year increases exponentially as the days you can't weed because of rain slip by.
Of course some crops do just fine in this weather. The tomatoes are inside and impervious to the rain. And they are in greenhouses, which, whether the outside temperature is 55 degrees 85 degrees can, through properly administrated venting, be maintained at the warmth they like. So they're doing well, and because of all the rain they've been very well cared for! The greenhouses are, after all, a great place to work when the rain is falling!
The other crop that has faired well is the peas, which thrive during these wet, cooler conditions. They are starting to bloom now, and if they're not ready for u-pick the first week, will probably be ready soon thereafter. Spinach also does well in the conditions we've been experiencing, as do the greens. But I can tell you the squashes just sit there (holding their breath, I suspect) and praying for sunshine and warmth. We've lost a few of them (while they pray, the slugs prey) and we are now replanting starts to replace the victims!
We're still holding the melons, eggplants, and peppers in the greenhouse, although we've laid the mulch into which they will be planted. It is pretty counter-productive to try to jump the gun on them when the weather is as unsettled as it is now (as I write these words we're having a torrential downpour that won't last long, but wouldn't be good for young melons or eggplants).
The mineralization project is almost complete. We've now mineralized all the fields we'll be planting this year, and one or two more days will see completion of the pasture areas we are doing this year. I believe this is a very important step in the process of achieving a soil quality that will produce nutritious, healthy plants that in turn will give us all proper nutrition and health. We'll be soil testing again this winter to find out just how far we've closed the gap between where we were and where we want to be. There will be more mineralizing, but hopefully not to the extent we've done this year!
Erick and Wendy Haakenson