Spring 2009 - harvest starts soon!

From The Farm

Everything is bursting with spring on the farm. The last few days have brought overcast weather and some good soaking rains. Here are some recent pictures from the field



Click here to view the slide show in a larger size...

What to Expect!

Harvest starts soon, so I thought I would try to give you an idea of what to expect for the first 4-6 weeks of harvest. Its important to understand that despite our very early start this season in the field, the crops we harvest in June and July are limited! Overall, the fields are looking fantastic and I am expecting a bountiful harvest, but don't expect too much at first - we are starting extra early this year which means a slightly longer wait until the veggies of summer hit - so enjoy all the greens of spring while we tend the corn, cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, peppers and other summer crops.

Below I have listed all the veggies I can think of that we will be harvesting in the next six weeks. As for fruit, cherries usually start by the end of June, we will have fruit nearly every week after that until the end of the season.

Early Harvests
Here is what we plan to harvest for the first few harvests (spring starts green!):

Salad Mix - we strive to have salad nearly every week of the season by planting salad greens regularly.
Braising Mix - we only have this in the spring, one or two times. a bag of spicy greens for cooking - baby kale, tatsoi, chard, mizuna.
Bagged Spinach - the first few weeks we'll bag the spinach, which is at its best in the cooler spring weather. We'll switch to bunched spinach in July and have spinach regularly until the heat of summer arrives.
Green Garlic - We'll dig up the growing garlic plants - these will mature into garlic bulbs by August, but for now try these for a delicious mild garlic flavor.
Radishes - we will have a variety of radishes for the first few weeks
Kale - we have beautiful kale coming in now. This year we have green frilly and purple frilly kale, plus red russian kale and tuscano or lancinato kale. The kale is really at its very best in the spring, but we usually have kale all season long. Email your favorite kale recipes and I will share them with the group! We will vary the type each week and may bag the baby leaves until they are large enough to bunch.
Chois - we will have beautiful baby chois for the first couple of weeks - these have been covered under floating row covers, but may show some small pert damage (flea beatles). This will probably be some of the only chois of the season, so enjoy their crunchy stems and mustardy flavor.
Head Lettuce - we'll have romaine, green & red butter, summer crisp and some beautiful frilly, colorful & unusual types. Head lettuce lasts the spring, then fades away in the heat of summer.
Herbs: Early season herbs include cilantro, chives, marjoram, sage and dill. Later in the season we will have thyme, oregano, and lots of basil!

Coming Soon - week 3 plus
After the first few weeks more of the early harvest crops will begin to mature
Carrots - we will have baby carrots from time to time then later we will switch to full size carrots. Several types and plantings extend the carrot harvest over many weeks
Beets - we will start with baby beets, then switch to full sized beets for a few more weeks before beets are done. these are mainly a spring crop, but we sometimes have a few weeks in the fall as well.
Peas - peas are a spring treat that come and go pretty quickly. Our first planting was eaten almost entirely by what I guess was a flock of birds shortly after they came up, but the second planting looks beautiful and should produce at least a few weeks of sugar snaps, snow peas and shelling peas.
Rainbow Chard - we have a large planting with some wild color variations this year, so you can expect a regular supply of chard. we will try not to overwhelm you with chard!
Scallions - we usually have these just a couple of times in the season.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What am I supposed to do with all these GREENS!?
A: Some people love cooked greens and can eat them every day, others can't figure out how to eat all the chard, kale, spinach, lettuce and salad that the early CSA boxes contain! If you fall into the latter group, here are a few suggestions: check out our website for recipies, use a cookbook and try something new, or add the greens to something old, like a lasagna with spinach. Finally, see if you can find a friend or neighbor who might want them rather than just letting them go to waste! As we enter the summer season boxes fill out with other vegetables, we will lighten up on the greens, and offer these in the "extras" area.

Q: Why didn't I get radishes (or kale, or spinach or something) in my box?
A: Each week I type out an email for members, and I make a best guess at what will be available for the box harvest later in the week. Sometimes what we actually harvest might be a little different than my list, or there might be a shortage of one crop and an abundance of another. As we pack the boxes each week, we try to ensure everyone gets the exact same box, but sometimes (usually as a particular crop is just beginning to ripen and we don;t have that much) there isn't enough for everyone. In this case, we substitute another crop, so if you didn't get carrots you got beets, or if you didn't get braising mix you got extra baby chard. We also watch the overall dollar value of the box each week to insure you get a great deal for your box fee. The first weeks of the season are always slim, later season big boxes are more abundant!

Turkey Hill CSA Newsletter - May 2009

Welcome to spring!

Its May again on the farm and the bees are buzzing! Our new early water proved to be incredibly valuable, allowing us to plant a small very early section of crops including spinach, beets, carrots, kale and lettuce. The new system  took some work to get the kinks out, but eventually worked perfectly, keeping our pond filled for the few weeks in April before Fire Mountain water comes on.  This main season water (Fire Mountain Canal) is now of and going full tilt. Early water means early harvest and we are on track for starting harvest the first or second week in June! There is still time to sign up before the harvest begins.

I've posted some pictures so you can see the early crops progressing.

the field beyond the old apple orchard	packed greenhouse
garlic and baby lettuce	beds ready to plant

I also posted these pictures and more as a full slide show with captions, click here to view the slide show.

Also, here is a video of me running our Celli Spader . The video doesn't quite capture the very slow creeper speed the tractor is in, moving slowly forward while the spades slice down and kick back, chopping, loosening and pulverizing the soil to over a foot.

With a little under an acre planted so far, spading is a big activity at the the moment. I spend more time on the tractor in the spring than any other time of year, and now is crunch time, trying to get all the beds I need for the year ready. The recent rain has helped a lot - without it, I have to irrigate before I can spade - or the soil is too dry and hard. After a day of solid rain, the fields are perfect for tilling this week.

In addition to the field crops, we have been working to get the hoop house planted. This big field house gets the first planting of tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and other heat loving crops. We rebuilt the house this spring in a new location and we are now getting the soil prepared for planting, we should start filling it up next week. 

We are also busy working in the heated greenhouse - we are transplanting the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, flowers and other long season crops into jumbo six packs. These will go out into the field in late May or early June. We are also planting the last of the spring head lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, chard and kale crops as well as large seeded annual flowers and some veggies like our early cukes and squash. 

 

We had a flurry of signups for the CSA before the discount deadline, but we also still have plenty of room for new members. Our first harvest is just five or six weeks away, so if you or anyone you know has been thinking about signing up - now is the time to act! Thanks for your support!

Turkey Hill April 2009 Update

Turkey Hill April 2009 Update

Time to plant!

After a very warm Feb/early march, the last two weeks have been intermittently cold, snowy, windy or rainy. All the moisture is great, but the cold is delaying the melt that feeds our early water and keeping us out of the field from planting (which is probably good since its been extremely cold at night). 

This week the storms have finally broken and the first seeding and field planting are finally happening. I'll be seeding salad mix, spinach, peas, scallions & pearl onions, carrots, cilantro, radishes and more, plus we'll finally be transplanting out the greenhouse plants that have been waiting for weeks: kale, chard, broccoli, lettuce, cauliflower, cabbage and more.

Its still very early in the season to be planting: I usually don't start until the last week in April. I'm a little nervous about the lingering cold and the deer, which can take down a swath of crop pretty quickly. Much of or early plantings will get covered in floating row cover - the thin, breathable spun polyethylene fabric. This will add a few degrees of additional frost protection to these already hardy crops, and also insure they aren't chomped by the deer.  

Here are some recent photos: 

The fresh beds await an early planting of crops.
Soon to be sprouting or transplanted: peas, spinach, lettuce, chard,
kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and more...

The humidity of the greenhouse is hard to
communicate in a picture! This is just the early crops, at the peak
every square inch of space is crammed with plants.

The chickens are moving down to the farm this year, this is the new chicken coop!

The garlic is up and slowly coming to life.

Turkey Hill Newsletter, March 2009

Spring is a lovely time on the farm! The air is crisp and cool, and the days are warm. Spring winds have been whipping up, and today a new storm is bringing snow to the mountains.

In the field work progresses preparing for the season. The moisture was good, so I was able to disc the entire field. I planted a variety of cover crops on around four acres - mustards, vetch & other green manure mixes. Some of these will get tilled in late spring for planting, others will stay in cover crop all season, getting mowed so they won't go to seed. We'll till these in next spring. Cover crops help build soil, adding organic matter and sometimes fixing nitrogen. In our climate, its a bit difficult to get a cover crop in because the season is quick! fortunately our field is expansive enough that we can devote a part of the field to cover crop while the veggies get planted in other sections.

This week we nearly completed the hoop house setup project. Our 200' x 20' hoop house has been in use for six years, but last year we took it apart to relocate it and never managed to finish putting it back together. This year we got an early start and the hoop house is nearly ready for planting. It will still be a few weeks before we can really get crops planted in there, but its great to have it ready to go! The hoop house adds night time heat that brings crops in weeks ahead of outdoor planting. This means a wider variety of crops early in the season.

We've already begun our early plantings in the greenhouse. I'm frequently asked about why we start certain crops in the greenhouse and some directly in the field. There are a variety of reasons, here are a few. Earliness - many crops need a jump start on the season to reach maturity in one summer in our climate - Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and some herbs and flowers. Taproots - root crops don't transplant well and do best when grown from seed in the field: carrots, beets, radish. Expense - some seeds we use are very expensive (for example orange cauliflower 'cheddar' costs around five cents per seed! planting in the field requires that we drill a line of plants, then thin to the proper spacing, wasting lots of seeds along the way. Starting seeds in the greenhouse insures that nearly every seed winds up reaching maturity.

Spring is a great time to visit the farm! We love having visitors, especially CSA members. Plan a visit this spring to see what's going on up here. We'll walk the fields, tour the greenhouse and  answer any questions. Just call ahead to let us know you are coming. If you would like to come the farm for a few hours of work, plan on later in the spring when we need more help weeding - usually after mid may.

Until next time...

Turkey Hill CSA Spring 2009

A little bit of snow is rolling into the valley today, so winter is still here, but the last week of sunny, warm weather got the farm thawing out. Spring is right around the corner and projects are sprouting like weeds. Several tractor implements need work, and we're building a new chicken coop down at the farm this spring. We're re-locating the hoop house which was unused last year, and doing all the usual spring tasks: clearing rocks, spreading manure, discing, spading, planting cover crops.

This year the hoop house will get planted with an assortment of early favorites for the CSA:
tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash as well as a few peppers, eggplants and melons. This should help insure a good supply of early crops. This year we are continuing to focus on the CSA and providing the best supply of veggies. We are extending our season by starting CSA harvest two weeks earlier, and collaborating with a few other local organic/natural producers to fill in possible weak areas.

Another reason we are able to extend our season this year is that for the first time we are going to have early water. Usually our irrigation season begins April 15th, when Fire Mountain Canal is turned on, and we can't count on rain to keep early plantings wet, severely limiting what we can plant early.

This year our neighbor developed his very old water right that provides a huge amount of spring runoff water from Jay Creek. He reestablished the old ditch a few years ago, and this winter he buried a 15" pipe nearly one mile from his property up the his diversion out of the creek. Before installing the pipe, most of his water seeped, overflowed or evaporated before reaching his property, now he'll actually get all his water. This ditch and now pipe also flow directly across our farm property directly beside our large irrigation pond and the new pipes will fill the pond soon after the snow begins to melt. This means we'll be planting early peas, lettuce, spinach, scallions, kale, chois and more some 4-6 weeks earlier than we usually do. I'm pretty excited about the prospect of starting harvest earlier than usual.

If you are interested in joining the CSA this year, we are now offering memberships. The 2009 sign up for is available at the website (turkeyhillcsa.com) and includes all the details, including slightly updated prices. Other than the earlier start and longer harvest season, a few other changes are in store. This year we are offering half share members a new half fruit share. Also new this year we are using re-usable plastic totes for our delivery customers, a $35 refundable deposit is required for two totes. Farm pickup customers can purchase totes if they want to use them or just bring their own containers.

Happy spring, please call if you have any questions.

Turkey Hill CSA Newsletter - 2008,

Last of the Season

Farm Survey

We want to hear from you! please email or call with your comments, or take a few minutes and complete our quick and easy 10 question online survey.

On the farm

We have two  weeks of CSA left.  The last pickup at the farm will be Fri. Oct. 10th. The last delivery to Crested Butte will be Sunday, October 12th.

This week we picked the ornamental corn (we'll process it for you by next week), the leeks, and more broccoli and cauliflower and kale.  Amazingly it still hasn't frozen and some of the tomato plants have decided to make ripe tomatoes. I'll dole those out as I can.

We picked the last of the cabbage this week, you'll all get that one more time. We are leaving the last of the carrots for next week - expect some huge storage carrots in the final box.

Cucumbers and squash are done, and we are still letting the butternut and other winter squash ripen, with no freeze to kick them into ripening they are just growing and mostly sitting there. I did pick some acorn squash this week, but it and all the other winter squash deserve a little ripening before you eat them. let the acorn, delacata and next weeks winter squash sit on a kitchen or cupboard for at least a week before you eat them!

We keep digging onions, as they size up, and we dug ALL the potatoes (there weren't that many unfortunately, it wasn't a great crop this year. You should get potatoes in the last two boxes, and plenty of onions.

This week's box (probable box)

Broccoli - still coming,
Cauliflower - orange ('cheddar') or purple ('graffiti') - still a bit more
Kale - chard is nearly spent!
Carrots - still more
Onions -  white, yellow & red onions
Garlic - keep saving this up!
Cabbage - green, red & savoy
Sweet Corn - Delectable bi-color, the peak for our corn - chop the end 1" off before shucking if you feel a wormy tip.


Fruit Share
 
Apples - Galas
Pears - Red Bartlett
 
This is the last week on fruit, hope you enjoyed the Santa Rosa plums from Ela Family Orchards last week, what a treat!
 

Turkey Hill CSA Newsletter - 2008, Week 12+

On the farm

This week marks the slow wind down of the farm. I'm getting this out late again, and my remaining newsletters will be sporadic as we wind down the season.

We have just a few more weeks of CSA left, I wanted to tell you what to expect for the rest of season. The last pickup at the farm will be Fri. Oct. 10th. The last delivery to Crested Butte will be Sunday, October 12th.

Next week we'll take a salad break, but we should have greens again for a few more weeks after that. The broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower should last a few more weeks (we'll give you a break on the cabbage this week!), as well as the kale (unless we get a fall aphid infestation which we sometimes see in). We'll have chard one or two more times and its done!

Carrots are still coming in and we have a few more weeks to go before they run out. Carrots store very well, so (take the tops off and) pack them in a bag in your produce bin to keep them from drying out and they should last a while.

I hope you enjoyed the corn, if all goes well we will have the bi-color one more week, then switch to a later white variety. We also have some ornamental corn as well as gourds you may see in the last few boxes.

Cucumbers and squash are starting to show signs of decline, and will stop in their tracks at the first freeze which could be any moment now. Winter squash on the other hand will get picked the moment it freezes (or in early october if it still hasn't frozen): we'll have a good supply of acorn and delacata squash, and pumpkins. Not sure about butternut, spaghetti, hubbard, buttercup or other types yet - depends on the exact freeze date.

I have some peppers coming in, but tomatoes are still in short supply. I tried to buy them from a neighbor who grows a lot, but his just aren't ripening up for him. Next year I'm planning to work in more of a budget for buying crops from other growers, this helps support other growers, helps assure a more reliable harvest for the CSA members and makes our load a little less. For now hit your local farmers market or stand and snatch up a bunch of tomatoes before they are gone!

We'll have a steady supply of onions: reds store really well, yellows, whites (also storage, coming later), also shallots and leeks for the last few weeks. The shallots have a fine, sweet flavor that is fantastic - they look more like a garlic bulb if they bulb out properly. We grow ours from seed each year, and they take a long time to mature, so I'm waiting until the very end to pick them. We also have more garlic to keep lining the boxes: it was a good crop this year. I'm guessing you have some stocked up by now, but let us know soon if you want more onions, garlic, extra winter squash etc (for purchase at a reasonable price) for storage.

We'll dig the potatoes in a few weeks and there should be enough to give everyone some, perhaps a good bit, but the early harvest survey was a bit disappointing. The potatoes were in the furthest field this year, an area previously used as a corral and the rockiest section of the farm. they struggled mightily out there against the encroaching grasshoppers - one the outside row was leaf chewed almost entirely. so we won't have much extra, but the potatoes we do have should be great.

On the fruit front we should have plums this coming week, as well as different apple varieties: honey crisp, galas, akame, golden and red delicious etc. apples store very well, so just pack them in your fridge if you get too many.

I hope you have all enjoyed the season. I'll be emailing out a short (10 question) survey you can fill out online sometime in the next week. please help us by filling this out, or feel free to call or email your comments. We are already thinking about next year, so this is a great time to give us your input. you can also call or email your comments.

This week's box (probable box)

Salad Mix - last of the mid-season crop, more in 1-2 weeks!
Broccoli - still coming, side
Cauliflower - white, orange ('cheddar') or purple ('grafitti') - still a bit more
Kale - chard is nearly spent!
Summer Squash - Zucchini & Patty pan - slowing down
Cucumbers - slowing down
Carrots - still more
Basil - a plant  - keep it alive - cut back and put in a pot, or just use all the leaves.
Onions -  more yellow & red onions
Garlic - keep saving this up!
Cabbage - green, red & savoy
Sweet Corn - Delectable bi-color, the peak for our corn - chop the end 1" off before shucking if you feel a wormy tip.

Crested Butte: look for extra boxes! some 1/2 shares got 2 boxes this week, and squash & basil were outside the boxes. please pick up on time, and look around for boxes that contain extra veggies or veggies for you to take.


Fruit Share
 
Peaches -   from First Fruits Paonia & delicious orchards
White Peaches - from Paonia, unusual flavor and color.

Early Akame apples, from First Fruits Paonia
Green Bartlett Pears, from First Fruits Paonia

Peaches end soon, more apples & pear varieties over the remaining weeks. Hope to get some plums next week.

Call or email to special order fruit for canning or freezing.