Hello, dear friends,
we have one more week to go on the summer CSA and it has been a pleasure and so much fun to grow good food for you. If you have any comments about the season, please let me know. We love what we do and I hope you can taste it.
It has been so busy here with harvest frost, preparing for frost, lots of visitors and the regular Birdsfoot fun of canning and so on. Today we cleaned out chimney and the house before hanging out. Since we don't let any visitors into the houses we adopted a culture of having meals and activities outside, no matter what the weather.
we have one more week to go on the summer CSA and it has been a pleasure and so much fun to grow good food for you. If you have any comments about the season, please let me know. We love what we do and I hope you can taste it.
It has been so busy here with harvest frost, preparing for frost, lots of visitors and the regular Birdsfoot fun of canning and so on. Today we cleaned out chimney and the house before hanging out. Since we don't let any visitors into the houses we adopted a culture of having meals and activities outside, no matter what the weather.
 |  |
tomato canning and cheese making outside to be able to hang out with friends.
wood shed movie night
The wood shed has been very useful and will not hold wood for another couple weeks. It is furnished with several cozy chairs, a 8' pick nick table a little table, a cabinet and we have the big TV screen out there strapped to a bench to watch movies occasionally and of course the LED Christmas lights for ambience. We bundle up and sit with our friends and visiting family into the wee hours. So this is the first day in a long time where I get to hang out in the Hugging House, after chores. Steve and I sat in the lawn chairs him reading for school and me figuring out the winter CSA. We have not made many fires to stay adjusted to being outside all the time while teaching in the large school tents or farming or visiting. AS it clouded up I came inside to write this newsletter. The gardens are doing well. We finished harvesting the second potatoes (not scabby or full of holes) and started on the large 3rd planting. I covered most of them with 10' wide row covers and they made it through the 26 degree cold nights and they continue growing. The zucchinis, beans and tomatoes all froze even with covers. The peppers did not because they were inside a caterpillar tunnel and covered with a row cover. Every evening I have to fix the covers and make sure it did not blow off during the day.
Although it is sad to see and smell all the frozen plants, I am ready to slow down and have the evening free. We harvested 1000lb of tomatoes before the frost a couple weeks ago and I picked another 250 lb yesterday. They are all boxed up in the living room and need to be sorted every week.
Although it is sad to see and smell all the frozen plants, I am ready to slow down and have the evening free. We harvested 1000lb of tomatoes before the frost a couple weeks ago and I picked another 250 lb yesterday. They are all boxed up in the living room and need to be sorted every week.
beautiful spinach
We also have an ocean of spinach and mixed salad greens and no way to sell it all. The hospital and colleges have not been buying so far. I am donating some to the Canton Neighborhood Center.
The cows are happy, getting low on grass and I am supplementing with hay for the next 6 month. We loaded the barn with 450 bales of eating and bedding hay and it always feels good to have the barn full of hay, I feel rich.
This week we are starting in on harvesting the parsnips. There are 1800' and if we do one bed a week we are done in 4 weeks. We also start preparing for the garlic planting by chucking the XL seed garlic bulbs into individual cloves into boxes and by forking and de-grassing the beds to be planted. We also put in some cover crops, mostly oats, some wheat which is Eric's project and he hopes to harvest it next year.
We are just about out of garlic, could have used 2000 more. It was nice to be done harvesting this summer in one day.
Winter CSA:
As we had trouble with a lot of the root crops and have so much spinach and tomatoes now, we will start the winter CSA the week after next, when the summer CSA ends with no break.
We will have spinach, mixed greens/lettuce, kale/collards, tomatoes, peppers, hot peppers, and parsley/cilantro for the first 4-6 weeks and potatoes, garlic, cabbage and for those who like it, parsnips and celeriac and sunchokes also in the second half. We will be delivering Tuesdays every week, not every other week to Canton and Potsdam.
There will be 10 weeks, starting Tuesday 10/13 till Tuesday 12/15. If we still have some roots left we can do more after that. Since we have not harvested and don't expect much of the carrots and beets I don't want to promise any at this point.
please let me know if you are interested in the winter CSA. I hope you are all well.
peace,Dulli
The cows are happy, getting low on grass and I am supplementing with hay for the next 6 month. We loaded the barn with 450 bales of eating and bedding hay and it always feels good to have the barn full of hay, I feel rich.
This week we are starting in on harvesting the parsnips. There are 1800' and if we do one bed a week we are done in 4 weeks. We also start preparing for the garlic planting by chucking the XL seed garlic bulbs into individual cloves into boxes and by forking and de-grassing the beds to be planted. We also put in some cover crops, mostly oats, some wheat which is Eric's project and he hopes to harvest it next year.
We are just about out of garlic, could have used 2000 more. It was nice to be done harvesting this summer in one day.
Winter CSA:
As we had trouble with a lot of the root crops and have so much spinach and tomatoes now, we will start the winter CSA the week after next, when the summer CSA ends with no break.
We will have spinach, mixed greens/lettuce, kale/collards, tomatoes, peppers, hot peppers, and parsley/cilantro for the first 4-6 weeks and potatoes, garlic, cabbage and for those who like it, parsnips and celeriac and sunchokes also in the second half. We will be delivering Tuesdays every week, not every other week to Canton and Potsdam.
There will be 10 weeks, starting Tuesday 10/13 till Tuesday 12/15. If we still have some roots left we can do more after that. Since we have not harvested and don't expect much of the carrots and beets I don't want to promise any at this point.
please let me know if you are interested in the winter CSA. I hope you are all well.
peace,Dulli
