Baby Steps

Well, we've taken many baby steps this year at OHF: each year our sunflowers get a little larger, last year we planted lots of tithonia, which are also called torch sunflowers (even tho they are not really sunflowers), this year we have the real deal (by which I mean genus and species), but they turned out to be dwarf sun flowers. The positive side being that we already have a lot flowering, the negative being I'm not sure how they are going to react to being cut. But cut them we will! we have a great bunch of stems on our kitchen table and all of our members are invited to come down and get 'em and the zinnias and snapdragons and others. You can also note in the picture that it is exceptionally lush in Northwestern Vermont these days - weeds included. In case you're wondering how I ended up with dwarf sun flowers, they are some of the many replacement seed packets I've had to get this year. Let's just say in January I was less than organized.

Baby step #2: we have our first employee, Hannah, who I've mentioned before. It's going splendidly, and Hannah is even planning to make salsa with the tomatoes and peppers that don't make the cut for sale or for members. I'm speculating, but I think she might appreciate suggestions for a name for her product.

She along with working members and members who have been with us since the beginning (3 years that have seemed both a long time and flying by) received this bag, all of which were donated to us by Rachel's Mom.



Baby Steps number three is probably pretty obvious: Ciaran is, if not up and running, then crawling at a slow paces and obsessed with reaching the highest point he can by climbing and holding on to things, here he can be seen in his new tie dye (thanks Madelyn) at the greenhouses this Friday.
Beside the aforementioned weeds things at the fields are going really well. If I have any worries it's that the tomatoes are not too keen on so much fog, which acts as a pretty good disease carrier, but I don't really think I even need to set off that alarm. We are shockingly beginning week four of the CSA tomorrow: what will be in the share? Let's just say lots of little surprises!

Week One CSA

The first week of our CSA went off pretty well, two nice days for delivery, and I really enjoyed our new south end location: in front of champlain elementary. Always nice meeting new members and seeing old ones again, returning I should say.

One small problem was the deer eating alot of head lettuce, hence why the north side got lettuce greens. It won't take too many events like that to convince me to buy a deer fence, I swear.

This week we also had a close call with our baby eggplant and peppers, theylike heat but I think a few days of ninety and no water was more than they were bargaining for, once I saw them on monday it was off to the plumbing supply store to get the parts to fix the irrigation and then got the plants back on track the next day.

Our working members have thinned the next two bunches of carrots for us all, so thanks for that. looks like a few nice days ahead, perhaps even some needed rain right on schedule, after suaturday market.

More?

so it's been awhile. after we capped our membership, I realized it was time to do double time on planting: we got in the tomatoes wintersquash first round of cukes and summer squash eggplant peppers (sweet) and direct seeded alot and hoed practically the whole field once. Who is this we, Hannah and I. Hannah started at the tail end of May (and so actually want there for all of the aforementioned). Without Rachel I was just about at my wits end, both mentally (talking to self out in field alot) and work-wise. I won't say I'm totally sane now but we are on top of the work: I can make it official, we will have parnips this year! yeah for parsnips, as we spent the afternoon thinning them we figured our 200 foot bed is holding about 1600 parsnips, and it is definitely well composted so we will see what happens. Little side note: did you know parsnips have a phitotoxic (sp) chemical that reacts with the sun, so that when you are touching the leaves its best to wear gloves or else you'll end up with blistery hands, something which would be a real drag on the rest of your farm season. yes, it happened to me. well, eventually i will get a picture of hannah and some of the field up here.

we have already had some members come out to the field and the first flowers are starting to appear, and we have lots of herbs in the herb circle, so i encourage all farm members to come down (sorry burlington, it may not be enough for everyone)

i should also mention that we have two working share member who have stated helping: it is a grace de them that the herb circle is functioning at all, and that our peas are up and running, which I assure you they are.