Dear CSA members,

The first harvest event is here!!  The pea pick will be this weekend.  We are guessing the bulk of the members will come on Saturday.  If you need to come outside of Saturday, just give me a call at 218-205-4739 as you are arriving so we can help you.  This letter will include directions for the pea pick, things you can do on the farm and other harvest events so you can plan for the ones you want to attend.

If you are coming from The FM area, here are driving directions:

Take the first exit to Fergus on Old Highway 88.  Turn left at the ramp and head toward Fergus.  When you see the old State Hospital on the left and a Stop and Go on the right, there is a y in the road.  Take the left part of the y which is straight east on Fir Avenue.  You will head east until Fir ends.  Turn left on Co. Hwy 1, which is by the YMCA and go 4 1/2 mile on 1.  Then turn right (east) on Co Hwy 18 for 3 1/2 miles.  You will see our wind turbine on the right.  We are the driveway to the right immediately after the turbine.  When you get in the yard, you will see two huge oak trees where there is a y in the road.  Take the right of the y, which is straight and go to our house.   From DL, follow 59 south and use the same directions when you get to Old 88.
If you are coming from Perham, look for 35.  At the Tingvold Church, turn left on 38 and after four miles or so, look for 18.  Turn right on 18 for 3 1/2 miles and look for the peas signs after the wind turbine on the left.

We will have peas signs at the two approaches where you can enter the field.  Please walk down the approaches and not down the steep ditches.  I do not want any broken ankles.  Our insurance would end these harvest events if we are not careful.  Flags will mark where we shall walk.

There will be three kinds of peas for you to pick.  The regular shelling peas will be the most prolific.  They are green arrow.  We will have orange flags that you will leave where you finish.  We will progress south through the field.  Sugar snaps will be the next productive.  They are the ones you eat the whole pod.  The pea pods are more filled out and slightly past their prime but you will still find more slender ones.

To pick peas, you have to hold the plant up with one hand to find all the pods on both sides.  To pick the peas, you have to hold the plant with one hand and pick the peas with the other.  If you just pull at the peas without holding the plant, the plant will be ripped apart.  We will be using this same patch next week, so we ask everyone to walk carefully and pick carefully.

This is the most prolific harvest event.  We don't have limits for this one.  You can bring friends but the the actual harvest is for CSA members only.  They can help you pick.  Make sure you spend time just eating the peas right from the patch!!

When you arrive, we will ask you to sign in by drop off location.  If you can't come yourself, but are sending someone, just have them give your name.

Other things to do on the farm:

~At the end of our driveway, which is just east of the wind turbine, if you follow the blue flags in the ditch along the highway to the east, you will find the magic woods on the hill.  It is out of this world and will offer the most perfect getaway for you and your family to have a picnic.  You are welcome to use this any time this season.

~You can come up in our yard and check out the high tunnels.  At the very east end of the yard are our newest chickens.  They are a red chicken and are considered better for free range meat chickens.  They are considered gourmet in the fancy restaurants of Europe.  You will have those and cornish rock chickens to choose from this summer.  You will note that we don't have the most manicured yard.  Somehow managing 150 acres of vegetables is overwhelming enough!!

OTHER HARVEST EVENTS: We have added many new ones.  Our goal is to bring CSA to a new level!!  Half share members can choose three and full share can choose seven.  Drop off hosts get a harvest event for every five boxes they host.

HERB-  If you choose the herb pick, you can actually take part in this this same weekend.  The basil is ready.  Just make sure you prune leaves and leave the plant still growing.  There is also some parsley and cilantro.  The other herbs you can gather at another thyme.

TOMATO-  We have nursed the tomatoes through an early blight and potato bug infestation.  But they are looking better and our hopes are many members can harvest their bushel later this season.  We will let members know as soon as the tomatoes run away from us.

GREEN BEAN -   Beans always get away from us so we will let you know when you can join us in picking those.

SWEET CORN-  There are many days when we have corn left at the stands, so if you want the ten dozen sweet corn, give us your number and we will call you when we have the surplus left at the end of a stand day.  Or we may have a portion of a patch we can't get to, and we will call you out.

FALL HARVEST-  This is where you fill a fifty pound mesh bag with a smorgasboard of fall items such as potatoes, squash, etc.

PICKLING CUCUMBERS-  They are looking great and are nearing being ready.  Get on a list by emailing us, some have already, and we will call you to come and pick your bushel.  Our dill didn't turn out, so be looking for dill.  You can freeze it.

PUMPKIN PICK-  Bring your family out and gather eight pumpkins of your choice from our field!

FALL DECORATING PICK-  Gather gourds and small pumpkins for your home or office.

POTATO PICK-  If we have rows left, join us late in the season to harvest and leave with your fifty pound bag of potatoes.

KALE PICK-  Some of you make great chips from the kale.  At the end of the season, harvest a brown grocery bag of kale for chips all winter!

BEET PICK-  Gather a five gallon pail for beet pickles.

CARROT PICK -  If we have carrots left in the fall, gather a five gallon pail for winter.

It is the glorious time of year for greens!!  Please share what you do to make your spinach, lettuce and radishes come alive!!  When you share your recipes and stories, they will stay here but also be transferred to the recipe section of our website.  You can remain anonymous or preferably use your name and get the credit for your gourment talents!!

Dear CSA members,
We could not believe the amazing turnout to come to get the lettuce and bok choy!!  It was great to hear how you enjoyed the first round!!  It was an amazing treat to meet you all.  What a beautiful group of people you are.  I am so energized for the fun season we will have.  We have more lettuce and bok choy available so you are  welcome to come again. We also have spinach in high tunnel two, while it lasts.  This is the one item you will get to harvest yourself. (Notice the word "get".  You can tell I was an elementary teacher for 34 years!!)   It was amazing how you banded together already and had people pick up for many families.  I would like to find a way for you to connect with other CSA members to allow this to occur even more.  I know it is tricky with new privacy issues.  So, once again, you are invited to come and get more lettuce, bok choi and spinach Wednesday through Saturday.  (Our son, Dillon's confirmation is Sunday.)  If you want to call to say you are coming, we could be more ready for you.  My phone is 218-205-4739.
 
Pretty soon, WE will be bringing the produce to YOU!!  Today I got the new CSA trailer and ordered the CSA boxes.  The packing shed is ready to be built if it ever quits raining!! 

We have really hustled to get many jobs done in the beautiful April weather.  Those crops are doing awesome!  Following are some of those jobs:
~The ten thousand pounds of Norland and Yukon Gold potatoes are coming up.  They look so robust and healthy.  The early shoots froze this weekend but they will send more from below.  No problem!
~Before yesterday's rain, we planted the fifth stage of radishes, lettuce, bunching onions, and spinach.  The patches of these crops look amazing for this time of year!  We have planted enough for the CSA and stands.
~The first two patches of sweet corn are planted and are germinating very well.  They should be up soon.  As soon as it dries, the next patches will be planted.  I plant sweet corn stages until about the 8th of July.  We are usually the last ones in the state to have sweet corn.  Some lucky years, it is til the middle of October!
~The 36,000 onion plants, which include Walla Walla, Ailsa Craig, Big Daddy and two red varieties look awesome and weren't hurt by the frost.  The 160 pounds of onion sets are doing great as well.  It is not on the list, but we planted a lot of garlic, which is doing awesome.  That will be in your fall box as well.
~The ten acres of the first peas and beans look spectacular.  I have never seen them come up so well.  They include two early varieties of shelling peas, many Green Arrow peas, which will be a big part of the pea pick, sugar snap peas and pea pods, also part of the farm harvest pea pick, and green beans.  The beans have germinated well but luckily aren't up yet with May's ugly weather.
~We planted thousands of cabbage, broccoli, kale and bok choi.  They love the cool and wet weather.  It's good somebody does!!
We really need the weather to clear so we can continue planting the crops in stages.  Planting tomatoes, cucumbrs, melons and peppers on plastic with trickle irrigation covered by low tunnel plastic and cloth is our next urgent job.  We had wanted to do this in early May and all it does is rain.  Luckily, Stuart and Bill are joining us soon so we will have the troops to do this quickly.  We also need to resume weeding of all the crops such as onions, spinach, carrots-which look better than ever- We planted Bolero, a sweet and tender carrot.  We are also planting 3,000 asparagus, 10,000 strawberries and plum, apple and pear fruit trees.  Can you imagine the fun stuff we will have in our CSA boxes of the future??  And the harvest events we can add??

I plan to email you soon about more drop off locations.  We have great new locations in Fergus, and the FM area.  We even have a drop off in North Fargo now.  If you find a better drop off location on the new list, you can change.   I can't begin to relay our gratitude to you as members for making this all work.  Our members have found the drop off locations and volunteered to be hosts.  You are the most beautiful, excited people we have seen.  What a season it will be!!  We are still taking signups, and most signups now say they heard of us by word of mouth.  That is all of you!!  What a crew!!

Many people are signing up to be part of our Summer CSA.  Thanks to all of you for trusting us in this adventure.  It will be an amazing food celebration and revolution!!  It is totally fun to watch the amazing ownership and involvment of CSA members already, to find drop off locations and spread the news to friends!!  Almost half of all sign ups now are from word of mouth.  THANKS  to all who are a part of this.

I can't wait for the box deliveries to start and for the farm harvest events to occur.  I love to read your response, which is part of the CSA check out.  It tells what brought you to us.  Your emails are awesome!  But the real connection lies ahead of us.  The box deliveries each week, the sharing of recipes and the farm harvest events will become the glue that brings us all together!!

I am most willing to come and talk about the CSA opportunity to any work site, neighborhood, senior living center, etc.  Just email me through this website or call me at 218-205-4739 and I will find the time to come!!

Remember a recent blog telling about a stroll through the field and seeing the flash of the bluebird??  Well, those serene moments are replace by YIKES!!  With the amazingly beautiiful spring, everything needs to be done at once!!  So it is full speed ahead.

Priority is given to getting the seven high tunnels ready and planted.  We are a long ways on those.  There are many steps to getting them ready but it is going well.  Cucumbers never like transitions so they always make me hold my breath.  Tomatoes love adventure so they thrive on new settings.  We are planting the secondary crops of cabbage, lettuce, spinach and kohlrabi along with the primary crops of tomatoes, cucumbers and pole beans. 

Field crops need to be planted as well.  However, we need to add the missing soil elements first.  This weekend, they arrived (all $20,000 dollars worth) so now field planting can go full speed ahead.  Our farm is mostly missing copper, zinc and sulfur so those are the main ones added.  The balance of soil elements allows the soil to open up and let soil life thrive.  When we plant, we are also adding an organic product called Soil Infusion, which not only has nutrition for the plant, such as uncooked kelp, but has the soil life spores.  This soil life feeds on our cover crops and works symbiotically with the plant to bring nutritional density to what we raise.

The first plantings of radishes, spinach and lettuce are coming up in the field so it is time to plant the next stages.  We are planting enough to accomodate the anticipated CSA membership.

The chickens have only been here a week but they are growing so fast.  I have never seen such an interactive group of chickens.  When I kneel down to talk with them, they come running, gather around, climb all over me, and listen!!  When we open the door, they come running to look out.  They are chomping at the bit to graze on our cover crops.  We are planting clover and cereal grain for them so they should be out grazing in a couple of weeks.  The mobile home trailer we got for them is ideal.  We need two more.  If you know of someone who has a trailer they don't want or an old school bus, let me know.  The next batch of chickens is coming in a few weeks so we need another home for them.

As soon as the brooders are removed from the trailer, we will put roosts up for them.  They will graze in the field by day and roost safely in the trailer at night.  As they eat up a grazing area, their pen will move to the next section of cover crop.  The goal is for the land to help the chickens and for the chickens to help the land.  When all things are in such harmony of working together, it is called permaculture.

On Easter Monday, the first batch of chickens arrived!!  We ordered them through the Country Store in Fergus and they came from Hoover Hatchery.  These include five hundred broilers for meat and two hundred Gold Star for egg laying.  As soon as they have feathers, they will begin rotational grazing on our cover crops.  We got a mobile trailer home for them to live in.  It has been great.  For warmth, they are in just one end of the trailer house.  When they are ready to start grazing, their home will just move to the field.

They are a fun group of chickens.  Maddie, our Pomeranian, just loves to play with them.  When I kneel down to talk with them, they come running and turn their head to one side so they can really see me out of one eye and listen to what I am saying.  They have a radio going all the time so they are less likely to panic over other noises.  So far they have been listening to Oldies but last night they switched to classical!!  They really looked and listened when I made the switch.  They could tell it was a new sound.

Wow!  What a beautiful Sunday!  I have never seen such a nice March.  Hopefully April and May can follow this same pattern.  But that might make us Minnesotans and Dakotans spoiled...Ya think?  Later in the afternoon, Maddie, our year old Pomeranian and I took another walk across the new land we are buying.  Each time we walk, we make new plans!  Part of the land has a bit of a steep slope and will be great for strawberries with a living mulch of white Dutch clover in between the rows to hold the soil in place.  I was planning to do cover crops there this year and next year plant strawberries.  But if we did wider paths of the clover in between the rows of strawberries, we could accomplish both.  So Maddie and I decided that we should plant strawberries there this spring.  That means next year's CSA boxes and stands could have strawberries by next season!!  We could even have a CSA strawberry harvest event!  Do you know how sweet strawberries get when the soil is balanced and filled with life?  We will see!

Anyway, on the way back, I saw the flash of a bluebird.  It had been in one of the flowering crab trees along the driveway.  It led the way as we walked up the driveway.  In the winter, we have a grand view of cardinals, pileated woodpeckers and all the others at our bird feeders.  But...nothing compares to the flash of a bluebird's back in the bright sunshine.  Man has created no color that comes close to matching that!