Here is the weekly CSA Newsletter update from the farm!
Enjoy
1/25/10
I did say that the rain is actually doing more good for us than harm, right. I just hope that we don;t over do it. It has made it more costly to harvest our crops for you (you try walking through the rain and the ankle deep mud pulling carrots and than carrying those 40# boxes out of the field!). We thought that we were pretty smart by direct seeding a lot of crops prior to the rain. Well, it rained so much that it washed a lot of the top soil away along with that expensive seed that we planted. Whatever seed that did not get carried away is struggling to pop through the hard packed soil. Hopefully enough seed makes it so that nine to twelve weeks from now we will have enough vegetables for all of you. We will get out as soon as possible to plant some more.
What about the STRAWBERRIES????!!!!! For all of you strawberry afficianados you know how much damage the rain can cause and you are correct. Anything with any color at all that is on the plant will have to be picked off and thrown away. Under the heavy rains they just turned to mush. If we do not pick them off of the vine and throw them away they will begin to rot and the fungus will spread to the strawberry laying next to it and rot that berry also. More non productive work!!!!!
Still, overall, we really did need that deluge to flush the topsoil of the built up damaging salts. Now if we can tone things down a bit and maybe get a half an inch of rain once a week, things would be just fine. Will someone please order that up for me?
Some of you that are paying attention to what is in your boxes have got to be wondering where the cherry tomatoes are coming from. I mean this is January, winter time and we should not have tomatoes until the warmer months like May or June. We happen to have some tomato plants that were planted late summer and the winter was actually pretty mild and what do you know, we have some cherry tomatoes. The larger beef steak tomatoes did not survive.
Enjoy the leafy greens because that is what grows this time of the year. No green beans, corn, cucumbers or squash yet, those warm weather crops have not been planted yet. The kind of winters we have here in southern California is very deceiving. We could have a warm spell and think that we can plant the warm weather croips, they may germinate and then we get a cold snap along with a lot of rain and all of those warm weather crops either die off or get so severly stunted that they grow slowly and never produce well. So please, be patient and enjoy what we have to offer at this time of the year.
We have hooked up with Farmer Steve and Stehly Farms, both organic growers and from the San Diego area, to provide you with some tree fruits. This week we have some lemons and navel oranges from them. In the near future we will also be getting some avocados and grapefruit. We look forward to working with them.
One last thing, with the heavy rains last week, many of the leafy crops that grow close to the soil, like spinach, romaine and the salad mixes, get very sandy. Please make sure to wash them thoroughly before prep, otherwise your family will complaining of gritty salads.
Stay dry!!!!
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