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!