Author: Bryan Housel

Hello Everyone!  So, we have arrived at the end of another CSA season; a sad time for many of you and perhaps a relief for some of you as well.  I know that it sometimes a challenge to put to good use all of the produce you receive in your share each week.  We try to give a good value but sometimes we overwhelm.  We have tried our best to provide variety and quality, and I believe for the most part we were successful.  In any growing season, there are challenges and disappointments; this year it was with the tomatoes and, to some extent, the melons.  Both of these were the result of a wet summer.  For next season, we will be constructing more high tunnel greenhouses to grow tomatoes where they are protected from wet conditions.  We have a few of these now and were continuing to harvest a few tomatoes each week for market but never enough to ship to members, at least until last week when we suddenly had a preponderance of ripe fruit.  We sent a few out to several groups and will be attempting to cover the rest this week. (more…)

Hi Folks!  So, we’ve enjoyed a very mild fall thus far but it seems that is about to end.  We are expecting frost every night this week, and temps are forecast to dip into the teens on Friday night.  This is quite worrisome, as temperatures that low can damage even the hardiest of crops.  We are going to have to harvest a lot of stuff ahead of the deep freeze and cover whatever we can that is left in the field.   (more…)

Hello Everyone!  So, we received 4 inches of rain from Sunday’s big storm.  We lost power around 8:30 just as we were sitting down for dinner.  Power was restored at around 2 AM.  We still maintain a considerable amount of produce in the walk-in coolers, so it is always worrisome to experience an outage.  Fortunately, it was brief and we did not suffer any damage from the high winds.  We have some very muddy conditions in the field to contend with, but all in all very lucky to have been spared the damage that has befallen much of New England.  I have come to accept worrying as an occupational hazard of farming.  One of the first songs I ever learned on the guitar was “Worried Man Blues,” an old folk song popularized by the Carter family (and covered by just about every folk and bluegrass artist).  I didn’t know back then just how well it would serve me! (more…)

Hi Folks!  A week after our frost event we are seeing the damage that was caused.  It seems bit strange, but while the peppers and beans were not completely killed, we had damage to some crops that are usually quite hardy.  Lettuce, which is much tougher than one might think, had quite a bit of tip burn, as did the chard.  Even the broccoli and the kale have some white spots on the leaves — a sign of frost damage.  (more…)

Hi Everyone!  Today, in addition to harvesting for the Tuesday deliveries, we spent preparing for another cold night.  This will be our first hard frost and will likely finish off most of the tender crops such as the peppers, eggplant, beans, and summer squash.  We have covered as much as we were able, to try to keep them alive for a few more weeks.  This will be a single cold night after which it will warm up again for a week or so.  The sweet potato vines will certainly be killed and we can begin harvesting them in earnest.  They will be featured in most, if not all, of the shares remaining in the season.  (more…)

Hello Folks, as I write we are receiving some much-needed rain; hurricane rain but without any damaging winds.  This will be of great benefit to the greens and the fall brassicas which have been slowed down by the dearth of precipitation through most of September.  We have some spinach that is sizing up and may be ready to begin harvesting next week.  We also have a lot of broccoli planted which will be heading up through the rest of the season and cauliflower should be starting soon as well. (more…)

Hello Everyone!  So, you may have noticed I haven’t had much to say about the weather for the past few weeks; a deviation from the norm – since most of my updates begin with a weather report.  I jokingly refer to it as griping about the weather, but it’s really meant to help the members understand what we are up against, and in what ways the weather affects our production.  With the devastation caused by Harvey and then Irma and now Maria, it didn’t seem appropriate to utter a single word that might be construed as complaining.  Besides, the frequent rain had ceased, and after a cool beginning September, the weather has warmed up nicely.  (more…)

Hi Everyone!  As we head into the fall we will be transitioning back into cool weather crops, but for now we are still abundant with summer veggies.  Next week we will begin to have broccoli again and we will start to ship some of the winter squash in the shares.  We have a nice crop of fall carrots coming along, but we will give them one more week to size up.   We have salad turnips for everyone this week.  They are great either raw or cooked and have beautiful greens. (more…)