Farm News – May 11, 2015
Hello Folks, Welcome to the 2015 Circle Brook Farm CSA season! As you may have noticed it was another long hard winter! We have been busy in the greenhouse since the ides of March, but were not able to start working the ground until Mid-April. April 23 was the first day of work for many of my field crew and it was an overcast, blustery one with intermittent snow flurries all day. I’m sure they were wishing they could have remained in their tropical clime a bit longer. Since then the weather has gotten nice; unfortunately “nice” for most people is not always the best for farming.
We have had virtually no rain for the past 3 weeks. We count on spring rains to germinate the seeds and water in the transplants. So now along with everything else we need to do to get caught up on our planting, we are moving the sprinkler system 4 or 5 times per day. But we are accustomed to uncooperative weather and we do what we must. We have been working 12 hour days and 7 day weeks and are essentially caught up on the spring crop planting and ready to launch into planting the warm weather crops. This is appropriate since it hit 86 degrees here today, and if you can endure one more gripe- our 2 weeks of spring is apparently over.
By now some of you are probably getting anxious and wondering what this means to you and what you will receive in your share. If you are a CSA veteran you already know that despite perennial adverse weather we always persevere and manage to produce copious quantities of veggies for your dining pleasure. For the neophytes out there I can only ask that you have patience and some faith.
The early season shares are always a bit smaller and this year they will be thinner than last year. We will likely not have peas or spinach until the second delivery. But we are ready to plant tomatoes and summer squash this week, right on schedule, and many of the early season crops are only a week or 2 behind schedule (and they grow faster as the soil warms and the days get longer). I expect we will quickly get up to speed and make up for a slow start. And I, in my role as eternal optimist will choose to believe that 2016 will be the year when we have perfect weather for farming, since it is already apparent that it will not be the case this season.
Best, Farmer John
