Monday, May 7, 2012

CSA 2012 Begins

Tuesday, May 8 completes the first week of the 2012 Main Season CSA.   Shareholders boxes contain the current salad greens mix, the spinach mix, braising onions and braising garlics, potted strawberry starts, raspberry canes (for those that can use garden space at home), Giant Crimson Globe and French Breakfast radishes, a flower for the ladies and recipes to make Spanakopita, two salad dressings and suggestions for the salad presentations.

Next week, we will build on this foundation and include two more types of radish, rhubarb, Asian and European braising greens, an all lettuce salad mix and the leeks that overwintered, uncovered so well.   We will learn how to make a leek soup, how to stir fry or braise the braising greens and receive a potted curly willow start.    It will leaf out to be a rather confused looking plant, but waiting until winter, when the plant sheds its leaves, this will be a decorator's backdrop for floral arrangements at the dinner table.    We will also have instructions on how to do rhubarb/berry jams, rhubarb pies, rhubarb syrup for ice cream or pancakes and rhubarb sauce.

On the farm, there have been setbacks.    Two frosts in mid-April killed the all too early growing buckwheat and all the bean starts I had put out.    It was a gamble on the starts and some of the greens.   Most of the potatoes were hit, but came back within 10 days, as if nothing ever happened.   The greens were unaffected.

We had been down over 8" on the water year normal precipitation, due to the strongest La Nina in the Pacific since the great dust bowl of the 1930's.    Recent data suggest that the La Nina is breaking up and will be replaced by a weak El Nino, which may mean above normal precipitation.    Good news for produce farmers.

The germination and starting trays in the sunroom are full with third round seedling starts.    We have planted the following crops to date:
radishes (plantings of each type are bi-monthly through mid-July) 6 types
beets, 5 types
carrots2 types
soybeans for Edamame
5 types of fresh beans and 5 types of dry beans
sweet corn, Indian corn, ornamental and red kernel popping corn, blue dent corn for blue chips
All Red, Yukon Gold, All Blue, All Purple, Purple Majesty, White Finn and Mountain Rose potatoes
3 Arrugula, 2 Mizuna, Tat Soi, Pak Choy, 11 lettuce types, 3 Asian mustard types, 3 Swiss Chard types, 3 kale types, 5 basils, cilantro and parsley.
Celebrity, First Prize, Green Zebra and Cherry Tomatos.

The effort now is to move from 45 to 80 pounds weekly of salad greens.    You may now eat or buy them in Omaha at:
  • Dante's Pizzeria Napolitana,
  • Cafe Dolce,
  • Tomato-Tomato.
Iowa locations include:
  • Green Acres Market in Council Bluffs
  • the Willow Creek Farmstand at 360th Street and Highway 6 near Oakland,
  • Harlan Farmer's Market and
  • Exira Farmer's Market.
Brassicas are next on the list of things to plant.   

May 17 is our annual Organic Certification Audit.   In 2010 and 2011, we were fortunate to have no requests to change procedures, no mandatory corrective actions and a generally favorable review.   

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