Hi Everyone,
In this update:
1. Road Closure
This note may be especially important to those of you whose share is normally delivered but decide to come to the farm to pick up produce between now and September 21st. Signs have been posted for some time now around the farm that the little bridge (which is hardly noticeable as being a bridge) on our road, the one just fifty feet north of our loafing shed, is going to be rebuilt. What that means is that for two months the only access to our farm is going to be from the South (i.e. from Highway 202). To complicate things, other bridges are also being rebuilt, so there is only one way into the farm that will be open all summer.
So, here is the one way into the farm that will not be blocked by bridge work this summer. Highway 202 (also known as the Redmond-Fall City Road) runs between Redmond and Fall City. Normally, if you were coming to the farm from Redmond, you would turn east on Tolt Hill Road, and ultimately arrive at the farm from the north. Because the bridge is closed, you must enter the farm from the South. So you need to go South on Highway 202 a couple of miles past the Aldara baseball field on Highway 202, to 324th SE, where you turn north. ( If you are coming from Fall City, take Highway 202 toward Redmond until to get to 324th SE.) This road will wind you through the valley. The first (and only) right turn you can take is onto West Snoqualmie River Road SE; take this turn and proceed north two miles to the farm.
This will be inconvenient for many of us. But it's just one of those things we have to endure. The route described above will be open all summer. Other routes will be open some of the time, but if you want to avoid the question marks, this is the way to go. We call it the "scenic route."
It also turns out that the contractors who are doing the work on our bridge and King County agreed to build a "cat walk" across the creek between the construction site and the river, just about 50 feet to the north of the north end of our loafing shed. So, if you don't need to drive your car right to the farm, and if you're willing to walk a little rather than drive around, you can park your car on the side of the road near where the construction work is going on, walk to the foot bridge and cross there to our farm. For those of you who come from Carnation and points north in the valley, this may be an especially attractive alternative. I think you can park your cars on the side of the road; just be careful not to block the road as the construction crews will need to get to and from the construction site.
2. Farm School
We've been enjoying our Farm School this year, and have been pleased that many children have been able to participate. Farm school occurs each pick-up day (at various times—Tuesday, 12:30, Wednesday, 2:00, Friday, 3:30, and Saturday, noon) on the farm during the months of July and August.
We've had many requests from people who aren't members of our CSA asking if their children can attend our Farm School. We would love to accommodate those requests, as we have always believed that education is an important goal of our CSA. But as the Farm School draws more interest, we feel our first responsibility is to our members. So we have had to tell others that we can't have an "open door" policy on our Farm School. At the same time, we want you, our members, to know that if (as often happens) you have friends or family visiting and they come to the farm with you, they can certainly join in our Farm School activities.
3. U-Pick Policies
We want to remind everyone, new members and "seasoned" members, to read carefully and respect postings we make regarding u-pick and to carefully supervise their children when they are picking. Sending young children off to do your u-pick is not a good idea. The "two-handed harvest" rule (see below) is a good one—one I always use myself—because I find it is the only way I can be sure to protect the plants. Beyond this, we would ask that all of you read and comply with the instructions we give about what and how to harvest. If you have questions, please ask. Thanks!
4. Two-Handed Harvest
Most of the damage we find in our crops following a membership u-pick is caused by one-handed picking. It's natural for children to see what they want (a pea, a strawberry, a bean), then to grab and pull. But sometimes the fruit or vegetable they want is attached more firmly to the vine than the roots are to the soil! Many strawberry, bean and other kinds of plants get pulled out this way.
The remedy for this is the "two-handed harvest," and it is something we should all practice. With one hand, hold the vine that the fruit is attached to. With your other hand, pull the fruit off the vine. By doing this, the very worst that can happen is that the vine will break. But using this method, the roots won't get pulled out of the ground, and even if the worst happens—a vine is broken—the plant will live and continue to produce. So take a little care, and model for your children the two-handed harvest method. It demonstrates respect for the farm and for the plants that provide our food.
5. Autism Day
On August 9th we will be hosting the annual Autism Day here on the farm. This event has grown each year and attracts hundreds of people who have autistic family members or who are just interested in autism. There are also autism support groups and businesses that provide a wealth of educational information. Everyone is welcome.
You can get more information about this event on the Autism Day web-site (http://www.autismdaywa.com/). If you have specific questions you may email the founder and organizer of Autism Day (our long-time member, Lynne Banki) at lifelightbooks@comcast.net
6. Time for changes: Monday noon
This is just a gentle reminder that changes for pick-up days and/or notices from delivery members about picking up at the farm need to be e-mailed to us by noon on Monday. Each year it seems that people forget and we get messages throughout the week advising us of changes in plans. Wendy tries to get all the administrative work done on Monday (our day off) so she can lead the harvest crew on Tuesday. It is very helpful to her (and hence, to all of us!) if you get those notes in by noon on Monday so she can process them before our work week begins. Thanks!
Please also keep in mind that Tuesday's pick-up day is full. If possible, when changes are made avoid changing to a Tuesday pick-up.
7. Compost is Happening
The fact that the lights in our house dim every few minutes is a constant reminder that "compost is happening." In our on-going effort to make more and better compost we have now instituted a forced air "static pile" approach to composting. What it involves is building the compost windrow on top of a long, perforated pipe that is connected to a forced-air fan. The fan is on a timer and every few minutes it goes off, sending oxygen to billions of microbes in the compost pile. This not only eliminates the need to spend time and energy turning the compost pile, but keeps the pile "working" at a steady rate all the time.
Compost is essential in Biodynamic farming, as it is the means whereby a farm can provide its own fertility. This fall we are going to be taking the next step, by planting a winter cover-crop specifically for the purpose of harvesting in the spring as a compost component. The crop we have in mind is faba beans. This crop has proven itself to be able to survive flooding, which is obviously important to us. It is a legume (nitrogen fixer), and it gets huge, up to four or five feet tall, providing a large quantity of fibrous organic matter. Our plan is to use most of the crop for compost, leaving enough to go to seed which we can combine later. Obviously, if the farm is going to be truly sustainable, we can't be bringing in seed from the outside each year, so we have to save enough seed to replenish our supply.
8. This Week's Toxic news
In a decision heralded by conservation groups as big step in saving wildlife, the EPA has proposed a ban on the use of Carbofuran, a toxic chemical used on corn, sorghum, alfalfa, rice and other crops. The granular form of this chemical was banned in the mid-1990s, after it was shown to have killed more than two million birds. The company that makes the liquid form of Carbofuran thinks their product poses no danger on food crops; the EPA thinks otherwise.
Also in the "news of the week" was a confirmation of what many of us have suspected for a long time, and of what others of us have known to be the case for a long time—that many of the fragrances that are so commonly used—air fresheners, laundry additives, and other household products—emit toxic chemicals. Among these is acetaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane, both likely human carcinogens; and methyl chloride, which has been linked to liver, kidney and nervous-system damage in animals.
I suppose neither of these two items is shocking. Maybe they are not even surprising. But just consider the implications of the fact that most of us who are adults have grown up being exposed to these and to many other similar chemicals. The extent of those implications to our health and to the health of the environment is not fully known. It's possible that they are not significant (at least to healthy adults); but the opposite is possible too, and this is the point. It would seem that with reason to be suspicious (two million dead birds should give us pause) that we as a society would invoke a "precautionary principle." I believe we are moving that direction; hopefully it's not too late. But on an individual level we can do what I hope all of us do: rid our homes, offices, cars and other places over which we have control of substances that are legal (now, at least), but questionable. Beyond that, we can become a part of a growing segment of society that is becoming politically active by telling its elected officials they don't want to enrich chemical corporations at the "likely," "probable," or even "possible" risk of undermining human and other life on our planet.
9. What's up with the Garlic?
I really don't know what to say about this year's garlic except that the crop produced the smallest heads we have ever had. We've wondered if we should even distribute them (especially in the boxes where you don't have the choice that you do when you pick up at the farm to take them or not!) because they are so small. We will be doing some research and trying to figure out the "why" on this and see if we can't remediate the problem for next year. We have a few ideas, but nothing solid yet. In the mean time, can we just call it "baby garlic" and hope for better things next year?
10. Farm Chatter
We are at that time of year when the planting phase of our farming is slowing down. All our fall crops are now planted (except rotational crops like lettuce, greens, brassicas and one more planting of beets and carrots). The greatest onslaught of weed growth has come and began to subside. The same is true of the grass—the spring/early-summer growth spurt is over, and we are unlikely to be overwhelmed with grass again this year.
It's been interesting to watch our cows as they have tried (unsuccessfully!) to eat their way through the massive amount of grass that our bottom soil produces in the late spring. Each of the last few years our herd has gotten larger. This year we had over 30 bovine (cows, heifers and steers—for those of you who know your bovine, and those of you who have accompanied your kids to Farm School!) and it's clear that we need a lot more grass-munchers to keep up with the grass. We're trying to find the balance point between number of bovine and our available acreage. The key word in this equation is "our." There are all kinds of statistics floating around on how many animals one can raise per acre. But those numbers vary so much. In fact, in Eastern Washington they don't talk about the number of animals per acre, but the number of acres need for each animal!
We are still thinking that we will find a balance with 60-80 bovine, which would be a great boost to the fertility of our farm and to our beef sales. But we are committed to growing cautiously, and making sure we can handle the animals we have.
We have also been taking steps toward achieving a goal we've had for some time—the successful production of grain. To that end, we purchased a new combine that we will use this season to harvest our test plots of barley and oats (about 2 acres in all). We also this year are one of three participating farms in a WSU research project in which we are trialing 18 different varieties of spring wheat. As you may know, most of the wheat in our state is grown east of the mountains. One of the reasons is that many of the varieties of wheat develop a "rust" condition when grown in our wetter, west-side climate, which renders its "berries" unusable. But there is a great deal of interest in growing wheat here, so WSU decided to sponsor a west-side trial. You can see the 18 trial varieties growing just east of our strawberries. If you look, you will notice that there are many varieties that have succumbed to the wheat "rust," but that there are also a number of varieties that have not. I probably don't have to connect the dots on this—next year we will be growing the trial varieties that have done well here on our farm!
The disappointing garlic harvest was sandwiched among what looks to be an outstanding onion crop. Go figure—both are alliums with similar mineral and fertility requirements! The onions really do look good, as many of you have noticed. We usually are harvesting them by now, but this year we had the late spring, and even though they are getting to be good sized, they are still growing. As anxious as we are to get them into your shares, it's hard to harvest when we can see them getting bigger and bigger each week! Usually the onion tops turn brown before we harvest, and now they are almost all completely green. So, we may just milk this one more week...
This has been a challenging growing season for tomatoes, at least for many of the growers in our valley. Our e-mail "grower chat page" has been full of concerns about tomato plants not setting fruit, or not growing, or that are diseased. We've been fortunate, and although our tomatoes are a bit late, we have now begun our harvest. We've had to do a little more pruning this year than normal because our very wet and cold early June produced some bacterial growth on some of our plants. But we've pruned away the branches that looked problematic, and are hopeful that our tomato harvest will proceed as usual. We certainly have a lot of fruit hanging, but in our climate there is no guarantee that hanging fruit will end up being harvestable fruit. So, our fingers are crossed, and we're spending a lot of time and energy opening and closing our greenhouses, trying to maximize ventilation and temperature. A serious outbreak of late blight is always possible, but we are hopeful that it either won't happen or if it does it won't happen until we have had a lot of fruit ripen. With what I'd have to call the "most challenging" spring we've had in the last 15 years, I guess we should be happy for whatever we get.
Wendy and I are going to try to get away from the farm at the end of this next week. Neither of us have had a day off since May, and we are feeling the need for a little R and R. So it will be up to our able crew and our work share members to carry on for a few days.
Erick, Wendy and the Crew