This is the last newsletter from this year’s preseason (the time before we start the harvesting season).  As we’ve done every year since the beginning of this century we’ve again gone undefeated. Quite the accomplishment year-after-year!  Let’s hope we maintain a similar level of success during the regular season!

A couple announcements

A la carte fruit pricing is available.  If you would like to order blueberries please do so as soon as possible.  You can send me an email with quantity desired then follow-up with payment; no need to fill out an order form.  Other fruit later in the season include cherries, Colorado peaches, mixed stone fruit, mixed local apples and mixed pears.  All fruit are certified organic.

If you plan to add FruitShare, SalmonShare, CheeseShare, CoffeeShare, EggShare or MeatShare (we will prorate the price for the remainder of the season for MeatShare) please do so as soon as possible.  We need to place our order with our suppliers a week or more prior to delivery to the farm so timely ordering is helpful.  To order simply send me an email and follow-up with payment.  No need to fill out an order form.

We are about 9 pounds short for our salmon order.  Anyone want to add SalmonShare or upgrade to the larger 5 pound/month option?  It comes frozen and will store into the winter months.  But then again, you may like it so much you’ll be grilling salmon every week this summer!  Anyway, let me know if you’d like to add salmon, otherwise it looks like I will be set for salmon this winter and part of next.

The Calendar has been updated with all known dates including SalmonShare delivery dates.

Pick-up instructions have been sent via email (except for River Market in Stillwater and Great Harvest in Woodbury.  We are waiting for final sign-off from these two locations).  If you haven’t received them check your spam filter then contact me if you can’t resolve the problem.  Please read them and please forward them to anyone else who may pick-up.  I realize they are somewhat long but it will make pick-ups a lot less troublesome if people follow directions.

Please send in any past due payments.

Don’t forget about the First Annual Fresh Earth Farms Fall Film Fest on Saturday September 7th.  We are looking for more film submissions.  The criteria are: six minutes or less in length, must be suitable for viewing by children, does not have to be original — films gleaned from the net are acceptable.  This day also features a potato harvesting activity and a potluck dinner.  Mark your calendars.  You won’t want to miss it!

Farm Update

Surprisingly the farm is going quite well considering the weather we’ve been having.  We have everything we expected to have transplanted in the ground already (except for the fall crops that were just greenhouse seeded this week).  Everything we wanted direct seeded by this date has been direct seeded.  The plants are enjoying all the rain but are demanding more sun.  The lack of sun is noticeably slowing their growth.  On the few sunny days we’ve had we’ve seen the plants double or triple in size.  If we can get more sun and less rain things would be right on schedule.

With the late spring, long-term members will notice that early shares will be smaller than in past seasons.  As mentioned in previous newsletters we missed out on the first plantings of lettuce, broccoli, snap peas and other early spring crops; there just wasn’t an opportunity to plant them with 8 inches of snow in May!  Things will pick up after the first box or two though so not to worry.

The snap peas have finally started flowering.  It usually takes two weeks from flower to pod.  I’m hopeful for some snap peas by the second week.

The carrot patch is looking great.  We should have an abundance of carrots this season.  Since we figured out a way to reduce the weed pressure on the carrots we have increased our production significantly.  And, since we feel we are doing reasonably well growing carrots we decided to plant even more.  Compared to last season we planted more than twice as many carrots.  Maybe we went a little overboard.  But carrots are so tasty and versatile not to mention great for snacking.  Plus this year we planted not only the standard orange colored carrots and the purple carrots from last season but also added in red carrots.  Now we just need to keep the deer and gophers away from them.

The tomatoes in the hoop house are flowering and fruiting.  Could we have tomatoes in June?  Doubtful but it is likely we will have them by mid-July.

Just about everything has been cultivated and hoed at least once.  We have a reasonable handle on the weeds but of course that can change quickly, especially if we get a prolonged rainy period.

We are seeing more bugs on our plants.  Cucumber beetles have arrived.  The flea beetles are quickly reproducing.  I have only seen one potato beetle but I’m sure there are more out there.  I haven’t seen any squash bugs but I have to believe they are out there somewhere as well.  No leaf hoppers either as of yet though they are easy to overlook.  Unfortunately with the constant forecast of rain we haven’t had the chance to use approved organic pesticides.  Doesn’t do much good if the bugs shower right away after being exposed to the pesticide.  We are hoping being cold and wet from the rain makes them feel less amorous.

My best guess on what we will have the first week is green garlic, bok choi, radishes, Swiss chard, maybe lettuce and maybe green onions.  That isn’t all that small of a first box if we get the lettuce to grow!

As always, let me know if you have any questions, comments, suggestions, jokes or puzzlers.

In celebration of TAMHBFWD we here at Fresh Earth Farms – the hardest working farm in Denmark Township – will be hosting its annual TAMHBFWD festival.  This year’s theme is “Be a Farmer for a Day”.  Activities will include, but are not limited to, planting sweet corn, planting watermelons, planting cantaloupe, planting cauliflower, planting basil, planting gourds, planting winter squash, planting flowers, planting hot peppers, planting scallions, planting pumpkins, planting popcorn, planting ornamental corn, planting beans, planting cilantro, and planting carrots.  But wait, that’s not all.  In addition to all this exciting and heart pounding planting we will also include at no extra cost hoeing and drip tape laying.

And for those who really want to feel what it is like to be a farmer, we have the afternoon pest management program.  After you’ve spent the morning on your hands and knees planting a bunch of beautiful , little, delicate transplants we will come through the field, pull up all your hard work and laugh at you just like the deer do!  We will take thousands of small bites out of all the cauliflower transplants you put in just like the flea beetles.  And if you squeeze us we will emit a foul smelling odor that will attract more of us to do the same thing just like the squash bugs.  How cool is that?

Finally for the really adventurous among us we will conclude with an evening program titled “Here comes the weather, whether you like it or not!”  First we will walk through the fields shooting all your transplants with ice pellets.  Then we will turn on the hose full blast and spray it directly at the ground near the plants, washing a bunch of them down the hill.  As you scramble to recover them to replant we will blast you with the hose as well – think of the show “Wipeout” but with far more water, dirt and plants.  What fun!  Then we will take the 500,000 BTU propane space heater and direct it at all your pretty little transplants.  Can you feel the burn?  And if that is not enough, we can cover the poor little transplants with eight inches of snow.  Woo hoo!

With this program you will receive fresh air, sunshine, exercise and a break from the stress and strain of cubicle life.  Space is limited to the first 300 attendees.  So come celebrate the carefree life of a farmer.  Who’d like to join us?  Please RSVP and let us know how many people you plan to bring to the festivities.  Seriously.  Any help is greatly appreciated and what better way to celebrate TAMHBFWD?

Red Cross Lettuce

This week’s earworm: ”Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head“.  Not a problem if you are lettuce…

Just a few quick messages before we get into the meat of the newsletter.

Now is the time to make your final decisions on additional items.  Just to remind you, we have a Multi-product discount.  If you purchase three items you get $25 off.  If you purchase five items you get $50 off.  Included are VeggieShare, FruitShare, CheeseShare, SalmonShare, MeatShare, FlowerShare, and WinterShare. (EggShare, herbs, a la carte fruit and CoffeeShare are not included but you can still order them).

Speaking of a la carte fruit: I have uploaded an order form to the farm website with prices for a la carte fruit and meat.  If you’d like to order blueberries or cherries or Colorado peaches or a half hog or a chicken six pack or a quarter beef or some other combination of fruit and meat all you need to do is let me know via email and then send in payment.  No need to print out the order form if you prefer not to.

We are still shooting for June 19th as our starting date.  No guarantee.

Farm News

We planted a whole bunch of plants last Thursday and Friday.  It has been raining ever since, which in some ways is good but we need it to stop soon so we can get the rest of the plants planted.  This has been quite the challenging spring!

Other than planting and getting wet there isn’t a whole lot more going on at the farm.  So I thought I would rant about GMOs some more.

I hear this all the time, “How are we going to feed everybody without using high-yielding, genetically altered food?  We need GMOs to feed the world!”  Being a skeptic, and an arm-chair scientist I had to get to the bottom of this.  Do we really need genetically altered food to feed the world?  Time to hit the Google.

But before I do that, let me say a few things.  As I mentioned in a previous posting, there are very few GE vegetables on the market today.  This will change of course but as of the writing of this posting there are very, very few.  Let me also point out that we as a nation have been told repeatedly that we need to cut back on junk food and eat more nutritious meals including increasing our consumption of fruits and vegetables. And also let me point out that the main food crops that use genetically modified seeds are corn, soybeans and sugar beets (I think there may be GE rice as well but I’m not sure).

Time for a quick Google.  Ok, that really didn’t go well.  It is tough to find figures on where the corn goes after harvest.  So time to look at Wikipedia.  Bingo.  Here I found some numbers from the USDA.  This is from 2008 but I can’t imagine the percentages have changed much in the last five years (if anything, moving more toward fuel production and away from human consumption).  The total amount of corn grown in 2008 was just over 12,000 million bushels.  That’s a lot of corn.  Of that, 5,250 million bushels was fed to livestock, 3,650 million bushels was converted to ethanol for fuel, 1,850 million bushels was exported (but we don’t know what it was used for), 943 million bushels was used for oil, sweeteners and starch, and finally only 327 million bushels was used for direct human consumption – or to look at it another way, only 3% of the corn we grow each year is eaten by people.  Now you could include the amount used as sweeteners and oil but is this a healthy way to eat corn?  Even then we are talking about only around 10% of the corn grown.  Good thing we use GE seeds to produce all that corn. How else could we feed the world?

So, what if instead of planting corn and soybeans we planted fruits and vegetables – the things we all know we should be consuming more of?  We could easily grow enough food to feed the world on far less land than we do for corn.  Our diet would be far healthier.  Our levels of obesity would decline.  Our cost for healthcare would plummet.  What could possibly be wrong with this approach?

The main issue is that growing fruits and vegetables is far more labor intensive than growing corn and soybeans.  Corn and soybeans are easily planted and harvested mechanically.  Some vegetables can be planted and harvested mechanically – e.g. carrots and bean – but many of the fruits and vegetables have to be harvested by hand.  And we as a nation don’t want to do this type of labor.  We have to “farm out” the work to immigrants – legal or not.  Why is this?  Mainly it is due to what we the consumers are willing to pay for our food.  Hiring people at a living wage to harvest our fruits and vegetables would dramatically increase the cost of the food.  On my farm labor is the number cost—by at least a factor of 10, and I don’t even pay a living wage (and barely make a living wage).  Of course even if farmers did hire local residents and paid them a living wage, thus driving up the cost of the food, they would still have to compete against farmers in foreign countries paying labor rates far below what they paid here.  And only a minority of Americans are willing to pay significantly more for an American made product no matter what it is.

But there is more to cost than just labor.  Don’t these mechanized crops have to purchase chemicals thus driving up their cost?  Sure they do.  And it is a big expense to them.  But what I find really interesting about the costs incurred by the large, chemical farmers is they don’t cover the cost of their farming on the degradation of the environment.  There is a lot of pollution generated by chemical farmers.  This pollution doesn’t stay on the farm.  It flows into our lakes, rivers, oceans and underground aquifers.  It pollutes our air.  Do farmers pay to mitigate this problem?  Absolutely not.  The shrimp fishermen and women in the Gulf of Mexico shoulder the cost by having to fish farther out to sea or with reduced catches.  The land owners near farms – and downstream of farms – have to shoulder the cost of digging deeper wells to reach uncontaminated aquifers.  All taxpayers shoulder the cost by funding the dredging of our rivers and toxic waste disposal done by the Army Corp of Engineers.  Recreational fishermen and women shoulder the cost by the restrictions on the amount of fish they can safely eat.  Beekeepers shoulder the cost by having to replace their hives practically every year!  And this doesn’t include the increased healthcare costs to society.  If we add in all these cost – as well as the many not mentioned here – to the cost of growing our food chemically it suddenly becomes far more expensive and organic vegetables become far more cost competitive (and we didn’t even include the subsidies corn and soybean farmers get from all us taxpayers).

But what about feeding all those animals.  44% of the corn grown goes to feed livestock.  We need the genetically altered seeds to grow enough grain to feed our cattle, no?  I’m not going to get into all the details about corn fed cattle.  There has been plenty of research and documentation on why it is a bad idea.  Suffice it to say that cows are not built to eat corn.  Their digestive tracts are designed to consume grasses.  A much better approach to raising cattle would be to rotationally graze them on pasture near the final consumer.  We could turn all these corn farms back into pasture for the cattle thus eliminating many of the problems associated with our current approach to raising beef.  There goes 44% of the need for GE corn!

Which brings us back to the original point.  Do we need genetically altered foods to feed the world?  No we don’t.  We can grow far more food/acre growing nutritiously dense foods like fruits and vegetables.  But if we want the cheapest “food” possible regardless of the cost to the environment and the cost to our collective health we will continue to grow the stuff that is easy to mechanize no matter what its effects are on us and our planet.  So the next time you hear or read we need GMOs to feed the world ask them to explain why.  I would be interested in hearing their side of the story.

First some good news.  We grow 6 of the 7 Fruits and Vegetables that Reverse the Signs of Aging.  That alone would be a good reason to join the farm!  To see for myself how well eating these vegetables reverses aging I dug up a couple pictures from last season – one of me at the beginning of the season and the other at the end of the season – and put them side-by-side to show the subtle changes.  You might have to look closely to see the difference but I think it is still pretty remarkable.

How about more good news?  Farming has dropped to 8^th in the “Most Dangerous Jobs in the US” list!  I feel safer already!  You probably didn’t realize how much we were risking our lives every day to bring you the freshest, most delicious produce available.  The last time I read a similar report farmers were 4^th on the list.  Moving down four spots is a huge relief!  And since we can now reverse the signs of aging, survival has become even more desirable!

Enough of the good news, let’s get to news about the farm.  Right now we are in a holding pattern.  With all the rain we’ve had the last few days the ground is pretty saturated which prevents us from farming (but lessens our anxiety now that we realize how risky farming is).  We have 1000’s of plants waiting patiently to be transplanted.  Hopefully we can get a few dry days this week to get them all in.  Then it can start raining again (just not so much all at once).

To date we have planted – in no particular order – snow peas, snap peas, carrots, parsnips, radishes, cilantro, potatoes, tomatoes, tomatillos, cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, onions, shallots, garlic, scallions, summer squash, zucchini, leeks, Brussels sprouts, Swiss chard, kale, summer cabbage, fall cabbage, red cabbage, lettuce, flowers, oregano, parsley, thyme, red beets, golden beets, bok choi, broccoli, kohlrabi, fennel and melons.  Phew, I’m exhausted just writing all of this!  For the most part they are looking reasonably well.  The plants that were planted before the freeze followed by the 96 degrees have lost many of their leaves but they are growing new leaves.  Hopefully they will recover well and produce acceptable veggies.  The plants we planted just before the rain look great.  A few potatoes are rising from the earth, not as many as I would hope by now but we only planted them a few weeks ago.  We will keep our fingers crossed.

Recruiting is going quite well.  We have the equivalent of nine FamilyShares left.  If you know anyone who is thinking of joining tell them to get moving.  And thank you to everyone who referred someone to us.  We appreciate the support!

A reminder that payments for your shares are past due unless you made arrangements with us for a payment plan.

We are still taking orders for all the other shares (fruit, cheese, salmon, eggs, meat, coffee, flowers, winter, etc.)  Please consider adding them to your account if you want to support other small, family farms/businesses.

We have free-range chicken eggs available on the farm!

Typically during the spring we have a few days in the 90s.  This by itself will not significantly impact the production of cool season crops.  But usually these 90 degree temps are preceded by normal or near normal temps, NOT BELOW FREEZING TEMPS!  And as the capitalization implies, this also is not a good thing.

And to add to the capitalizations, early spring crops normally are not subjected to BLAST FURNACE STYLE WINDS with a relative humidity index IN THE NEGATIVE NUMBERS!  The heat and wind are sucking all available moisture out of the ground and out of the plants!  Their poor little roots can’t keep up.  Now if they had been planted and growing for weeks this may not be a problem; it wouldn’t be great but it wouldn’t be horrible.  Having these poor little recently transplanted plants subjected to this level of stress, to put it mildly, is a bit of a problem.

So my prediction that spring transplanted early season crops will be delayed and less abundant isn’t quite accurate.  In fact, with the BELOW FREEZING TEMPERATURES FOLLOWED QUICKLY BY THE OVER 90 DEGREE TEMPERATURES and the BLAST FURNACE WINDS we will have even fewer early season spring planted crops.  Plants just aren’t designed to be transplanted, then subjected to temperature fluctuations of 65+degrees in a little more than 48 hours!  Weeds on the other hand don’t seem to be negatively affected.  So some of our little transplants may meet an early demise.  This might be a good time to mention the fine print about crop failures…

Anyway, we put the sprinklers on the crops starting with what we felt were most susceptible – lettuce – and moved them to other susceptible plants as the day/week progresses.  It is looking more positive as the week goes on with the weather forecast to be closer to normal and significantly cooler.  Hopefully this will save them.  Only time will tell.

On a positive note it seems like it will be a good week to transplant warm season crops.  However, with this random spring it is a little frightening to put something in the ground that will parish in freezing weather.  Is it possible to have frost after we hit 96 degrees?  Let’s hope not.

Other than all hell breaking loose here on the farm things are going quite well.

A couple announcements:

We have free-range eggs available at the farm.  If you are interested please let me know.  Price is $5/dozen.  Supplies are limited.

We still have shares available.  Tell all your neighbors, friends, relatives and co-workers.

We are still taking orders for all other shares (egg, cheese, fruit, salmon, etc.)

Payment for your shares is due unless you made other arrangements.

Lettuce Transplants

What has been happening on the farm this week?  Transplanting, transplanting, transplanting. I calculated we transplanted 13,760 plants the last two and a half days.  That’s the most we have ever transplanted in recorded history (mostly since we have never actually recorded the number before).  This would have been a good year to have a transplanting machine other than Rebecca and Simon.  But they held up well and didn’t breakdown the whole time.  The combined length of all the rows we planted was 12,400 feet.  That’s equivalent to over 41 football fields or 2.3 miles in length.  All done on the ground on our knees.  I think we all are thankful for today’s rain.

A few people have recently asked me, “Hey Chris, when do you think the season will be getting underway?”  That is an easy question.  I don’t know.  But if I were to put on my speculation cap (it looks a lot like a thinking cap but far less precise) I figure around June 19^th would be a good guess.  That isn’t much later than last year and probably about the same as most years.  “How can that be with this late spring?  You’d think it would have to be a later start”.  Sure, that’s what you’d think.  But you’d be wrong.  June 19^th is a really good guess since, well, because June 12^th is too early and June 26^th would be too late.  So it has to be June 19^th.

“Ok, so let’s say it is June 19^th.  What will we be getting that week?”  Another easy question.  I don’t know.  But putting on the conjecture cap I would surmise that it would be some type of spring vegetables.  Most likely green onions and lettuce and bok choi and maybe radishes.  But it is still over a month away so I may be wrong.

Another question I’ve been frequently asked is, “How is this late spring going to affect the season?”  Such easy questions.  I don’t know.  But if I were to put on my pondering cap I figure it will look something like this:

Any fast growing spring crop will not be affected.  These include lettuce, bok choi, beets and radishes.  They will not be affected since they will be planted at the usual time for them to be planted.

Any cold season slow growing crop will be smaller than usual.  These include leeks, Brussels sprouts, and celery.  These will be smaller due to their later-than-usual transplant date; they won’t have as much time to grow.

Any warm season, slow growing crops will not be affected.  These include tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, melons and winter squash.  Unless the winter extends to the end of May these plants will be transplanted at their usual time and therefore shouldn’t be affected.

Any fast growing, warm season crops shouldn’t be affected with one possible exception.  Cucumbers and summer squash are examples here.  Summer squash may be delayed since we sometimes are able to plant it early in May even though it is frost sensitive.  Since it is fast growing if we plant it too soon and it dies in a late frost we can easily start over with a new planting.  This year we won’t be planting it until late May.

Direct seeded early crops will be delayed and some likely less abundant.  These include snap peas, snow peas and carrots.  Our April planting of peas did not happen.  So there will be one less planting of peas and therefore fewer peas.  The carrots were planted later than usual so they will be ready later than usual, but the quantity should not be affected.

Transplanted, early cool season crops will be delayed with some less abundant.  These include broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage and kohlrabi.  We missed one planting of broccoli that usually goes in in April so there will be less broccoli overall, plus it will be delayed due to our starting with the second crop.  Cauliflower, cabbage, and kohlrabi will just be delayed.  The amount should be about the same (though we did cut back a bit on our cabbage planting this year).

Summer direct seeded crops should not be affected unless the winter continues into June.  These include green beans and edamame.

Potatoes and garlic will be delayed but the quantity should not be impacted.  The size of the garlic bulbs may be smaller than usual due to the shorter growing season.

Sweet corn will be delayed a bit since we aren’t sure yet when we it will be warm enough to get the transplants going.

So overall it won’t be a huge change from a usual year.  Mainly the early shares will be smaller due to the missing early cool season crops (e.g. peas and broccoli).  But the season will work out in the end.

A couple quick announcements:

The corn planting event reschedule for this weekend is postponed until we feel the weather will cooperate.  Once the corn is seeded and growing in the greenhouse there is a small window of opportunity when we can transplant it out into the field — generally between 10 and 14 days from seeding.  So we want to make sure the weather has warmed sufficiently to ensure we can transplant it when it is ready.

We still have a few more shares available.  If you are planning on joining and haven’t yet please do so soon.  I’ve sent out monthly reminders.  If you haven’t received them check your spam folder.  If you are not sure if you rejoined please contact me and I will let you know.

We are still taking orders for all our other shares (fruit, cheese, eggs, salmon, meat, coffee, winter, flower).  These are great, tasty additions to the veggies and you’ll be helping out other small farms with your purchase.

Don’t forget about our Pinterest boards.  As a reminder we and fellow members are pinning recipes to the different Fresh Earth Farms Pinterest boards for us to enjoy during the season.  If you’d like to participate simply start following the farm’s Pinterest boards and we will invite you to pin to them.  I appreciate all who have added recipes.  I think this could be quite useful this summer!

Here is the usual reminder about the First Annual Fresh Earth Farms Fall Film Fest on September 7^th.  Mark your calendars and send in links to films you think others would enjoy.  Requirements: must be family friendly/appropriate for children to view; no longer than six minutes.

Here is the usual reminder to send in your payment for your shares (unless you made payment arrangements).