I tried to capture the essence of the day in photos, but of course parts of it are blank 🙂
Started out finishing up four CSA boxes for pickup today and the lettuce is still doing great
Some of the varieties are starting to bolt and taste bitter, but there is a new bed of seeds germinating, a bed of transplants, and several flats of plants ready to transplant in a couple of weeks, so we should be good on lettuce for a while longer. One of the advantages of living “in a holler” is that it’s cooler here so crops like lettuce, kale, and chard will continue to grow during the summer (most of the time).
Today was Open Farm day for the CSA members. Several families were off on vacation and the threat for rain was REAL, like it thundered all around most of the time we were outside, but the rain held off. One of the members and I set up a croquet court thinking maybe someone might play, but it was just too hot and humid to play. BTW I found the croquet set at a yard sale for $3.00. It was missing the red ball, which has been replaced, and today we discovered that one of the stakes and 2 wickets are missing–oh well, those are easily substituted.
Back to the farm…..we had good eats. I love it when you say “pot luck” with no rules–well, the only rule I had was it had to be finger food and we cheated a little by scooping the beet and pea salad with chips, but all the food was great and the CSA members got to meet and visit with each other AND see where their food comes from.
We worked our way from the house, through the orchard, down to the high tunnel
where I explained how the peppers are doing really well and the tomatoes are doing really crappy–well, tomatoes are doing crappy everywhere from what I here. The awesome organic salad tomatoes are starting to make a showing though…..
The chickens showed everyone how much they love their new “chunnel” for “chunnelling” back and forth between their portable yard and their happy hen empire
and one of the members was explaining about how large the rose hips are on the rosa rugosa shrubs in the new border along the walkway to the empire of the happy hens.. future plans are for an arbor to support the kiwi vines I purchased very very early in the spring. I read somewhere that it is best to leave them in the pots the first year until they become established. They were purchased from one of those catalogs where you can buy 10 plants and get 10 more for a penny or something like that. Four female and one male plants made it to my place and are doing great in their gallon pots. It will be in the area between the two beds in the photo below…..
I also explained to the group how I’m slowing killing all the lawn area in the yard by mulching with newspapers, cardboard, compost, putting the chickens in an area for a time, and using bagged leaves from the enormous leaf pile. I have sprayed a few really weedy areas prior to mulching, but I’d rather experiment more with sheet mulching and leave the spray for the fence rows.
One thing that we did collectively do was everyone brought a coffee cup or plastic drink cup to use (well almost everyone) today and then leave at the farm. I’m going to keep them in a “party box” to use instead of throwaway cups. We’ll get to the plates next 🙂
All in all it was a great day. As you can see, the dogs Hattie and Lucy are in most of the photos, and the newly rescued kitty cats “Smokey” and “Bandit” got their share of attention as well!
It’s fun to share this little corner of the world with folks that appreciate knowing where their food comes from! And thanks, Kim for being the photographer 🙂
Wild Things Farm 