Farm News – February, 2024

We are gearing up for the BIG planting and seeding season!  The weather is great!  We are moving outside and into the Greenhouse!

The fields are bare at the moment, but only of saleable crops.  Most of the fields are covered with cover crop – oats, peas, radish, rye, and clover.
We are pruning peaches, blackberries, nectarines, and black raspberries.

     The tunnels are in full swing now.  We are harvesting lettuce, chard, kale and spinach weekly.  We are picking beets and  radishes.  The weeding and replanting is continual.  As soon as one weekly amount of lettuce is picked, the bed is cleaned. Then we are direct seeding leaf lettuce, radishes and lots of spinach.  The ground temperatures are high enough in the tunnels for direct seeding.  The daylight hours are over 10 hours so everything is growing faster.  On the sunny days we are opening the doors and unzipping the sides to let in cooler air.  We are also beginning to pick up most of the row cover from the inside beds.  Even if the temperatures go down to freezing at night the daytime temperatures are high enough that the plants do not need the covers anymore.
The tomato tunnel is being cleaned and it will be ready for tomato plants by March 14.  We are putting a ground cover down this year to keep the weeds at bay.  Last year we were so rushed with this tunnel because we barely got it up and running before the tomatoes arrived.  The spinach in this tunnel was picked last week for the last time.  Moving into the spring is exciting, but also a lot of work!

The seeding has begun.  We seeded sage, oregano, and chive for plant sales in the spring.  We potted up some strawberry plants for sale and seeded cherry tomatoes for the tunnel for summer and fall sales.
It takes a long time for tomatoes – seeding on February 20; potting up on March 7; transplanting to the tunnel on April 15; pruning from April 15 until September 15; and harvesting beginning around June 15 until October 1.  A long season of tomatoes!
We will be seeding the first planting of sugar snap peas in plugs this week.  They are then planted in the field in about three weeks and covered with row cover so that we can have the earliest snap peas possible.

    The new dates for the 2024 CSA are on the website.  We have not changed any of the prices.  Things will remain the same.  We have begun to take checks for the 2024 CSA.  If you are interested, you can email and let us know that you are signing up for the CSA and then send us a check.  We will let you now when we get your check.  Be sure to include an email address so that we can get in touch with you.  Send an email if you have any questions.
We are looking forward to another great year for the CSA.  We have lots of great vegetables on the planting schedule for the year.  We will have more strawberries this year since we planted more strawberry plants last spring.  We are expecting a bumper crop of asparagus.  Hopefully the cooler weather will hold until the first full week of June when the CSA begins for the year.
We are thankful for all of you that sign up for the CSA.  Your checks which come to us during January, February, March and April are very important since these are the lowest monetary months of our year, yet they can be the most expense with repairs, seeds, supplies and trees.

CSA dates 

June 6 – November 16th -24 weeks- Special price – $700
Add one dozen eggs for 24 weeks for $144 or one/half dozen for $72
Price good until April 30

June 6 – August 24 -12 weeks – $375
August 29 – November 16  -12 weeks – $375
Add a dozen eggs for $72 or one/half dozen for $42

Canning, Gardening, Grilling and Preserving

I hope everyone is enjoying the fruits of their labors from last summer’s canning and freezing.  We are!
Are you a soup eater?  I love to eat soup during the winter and spring.  Last week I made split pea soup with a ham hock, carrots, onions and hard boiled eggs.  (The hard boiled eggs are a Pennsylvania Dutch standard in most soups.)  This week I made tomato soup with canned tomatoes and tomato paste plus an onion and wonderful cream.  It is delicious!
Have you been using any of last year’s fruits?  I made a trifle this month.  Trifles are so easy and versatile.  I use whatever fruit I want.  This month I made a pie filling with red plums that I canned and a cherry sauce from the sweet Bing cherries from July.  Gregg loves it with chocolate pudding- so chocolate pudding was made plus a 8×8 cake cut into small pieces.  The chocolate and the cherry sauce were great and the plum filling added a bit of tang.
We eat canned vegetables all through the winter, expect on Fridays when we get some fresh things from the tunnels. Since we are picking for the market on Saturday, we pick a few for ourselves too. Otherwise we eat canned corn, lima beans, peas, carrots, red beets, and green beans.  I have some snow peas, but I mostly use them in the soups.  Hopefully you are enjoying the canned vegetables from last summer.
It is so rewarding to eat the fruits and vegetables that you “put up”  during the summer months.
Our goat is back!  She was off for her yearly breeding session, but she is back and hopefully bred.  Many of you know Lilly because of her wonderful cheese that Gregg has at the stands all though the summer.  Hopefully by June or July we will be back into the cheese-making.  Hopefully she will have a nanny this time.

Let me know if you have any questions about the CSA, markets or food tips.

The St Luke’s Farm Stand is open every Saturday from 8 – 1 pm .  Come out and support the local farm on Saturdays!

We will be back at Fairfax again this year on Saturdays and Belle View and Columbia on Thursdays.  We are looking forward to the start.
Gregg looked at the calendar last week and said there is only 10 weeks until the first market in Columbia at the library.  Time flies!

Have a Great Day!
Louise