2023 CSA Newsletter #3

I don't know about y'all, but I find it hard to believe that this is the last week of June already. I'm always amazed at how time seems to both be at a standstill and moving at a blazing speed. It was a short week for us last week because of the Juneteenth holiday. You can't think about agriculture in this country and not recognize the fact that our country's economy was built on the forced labor of the formerly enslaved. This holiday has a close connection to agriculture and food production and it's important to remember that. 

I mentioned in last week's newsletter about "suckering and trellising" that happens with our tomato plants. Well, the first of a now weekly activity has been completed. There are different ways to do this depending on the setup, tomato type, etc. I want to let you know a little bit about the why we sucker and trellis, weekly before the how we do it. Each tomato plant has a finite amount of energy for root production, fruit production and foliage production. By pruning (suckering) weekly we get the opportunity to manipulate the plants in a manner that benefits us. We get less fruit per plant but the fruit that we do get, ripens earlier, is a little bigger and a higher quality. We plant at a closer spacing, grow indeterminate varieties (they grow as tall as the season will allow) and keep just a "single leader". That means we prune any new growth that grows off of the main stem. How we do this is, is by wrapping our plants weekly around a string (biodegradable) to provide support for the vertical growth and snip the new growth. It's impressive to see how much growth the plants have in between weekly suckering and trellising. Since some of the tomatoes this year are being grown in the greenhouse, we will be ordering bumble bees to aid with pollination. We need to do this because our greenhouse has vents for air flow and circulation, but the sides of the greenhouse are permanent. The hoophouses have rollup sides and we don't need to worry about pollinators finding the flowers. 

This week's share is similar to last week's, with two exceptions. There will be strawberries again but this week enough ripened that each share will get a pint. It's not what we're used to but after the freeze in May, we will take what we can get. One thing that I get excited about each year when it's time to pick strawberries is how many praying mantises are in the patch. I think that I saw close to 30 babies while picking today. I even found two egg cases. If you didn't know, a praying mantis egg case can hatch up to 200 babies! Apologies for the side-track, but I get excited thinking about how we're creating habitat for beneficial insects to contribute to the farm's ecosystem. The other exception is that spinach is now done until the fall. Spinach is one of those crops that does not enjoy the hot weather. I was hopeful that we would be able to get a second cutting but that didn't happen. There will still be garlic scapes, salad turnips, carrots, rainbow chard and lettuce mix. The lettuce mix will just be a mix of 2 green varieties. There were heads that needed to be harvested. I will also put out the last of our plants that we have if you still have a little extra space in your garden or space for one more pot on your patio.

Have a great week!

-Farmer Todd