Greetings, Spoutwood Farm friends!

Often this time of year sees us struggling already with drought, forced to irrigate regularly to keep our plants producing. This year, however, we are 4-5” above the usual rainfall for this time of year, and drought is the least of our worries. Still, early-morning rain and soggy fields did not prevent a healthy turn-out of shareholders to help us on this, our second harvest of the 2009 CSA season. We are deeply grateful to those who turn out to assist: although they’re fulfilling their contracted hours, they are doing so much more as well, including easing the burden of Spoutwood farm staff and apprentices, and helping to build the community we value. And there’s just something about seeing people of all ages, and especially families with children, in the garden together that is just a beautiful sight.

This week’s is a particularly bountiful harvest (see Harvest Guides for full details)! We have lots and lots of green leafy vegetables, including nice, large Chinese cabbages, and lettuces, some of which are also rather large. In the case of large shares, they will have two nice large Chinese cabbages to deal with, and no less than four lettuces! In addition, you’ll receive mustard greens, mizuna, arugula, Swiss chard, and bok choi. Radishes and beets also have edible greens. We urge you not to allow yourselves to become intimidated by your share! No matter how big it is, you are bigger! Make extra soup or stir-fry (Chinese cabbage is largely water, and cooks down a lot) and freeze it for Winter, or sometime when you may not get as many veggies in your share. Make lots of salads! Use the opportunity to learn to make fermented foods like kimchee (Asian sauerkraut). As a last resort, don’t feel bad about composting the excess. If you compost it, it’ll go back into the Earth and nourish new plants next year.

A couple of pages on composting:
http://www.greendaily.com/2009/01/21/the-perfect-countertop-compost-container

http://www.cleanairgardening.com/accessories.html

Spoutwood Farm Center Website

(sounds trumpet)

Announcing Spoutwood Farm Center, Inc.’s, brand-new (well, just before the Fairie Festival) website! If you're reading this, you've found it, now please feel free to poke around and enjoy to your heart's content. Thanks to the tremendous work of CSA shareholder, graphic artist, and web designer Marc Hudgings – who also, with his lovely Queen Chrissy, is King of the Spoutwood Fairies this year, crowned for his myriad services – we have a lovely and full-featured website which includes sections for each of our major activities, including the CSA, and Forums to discuss topics of interest.

To access the CSA section of the site, simply click on that menu item in the small green menu in the left column. From there, you can access much useful information on our CSA, including past and present Harvest Guides. Speaking of which…

Harvest Guides on the Web

Last week’s Harvest Guide, which unfortunately was late in coming out, is now available on the website. By the time you read this, the current Harvest Guide (this week’s, from which you are now reading a slightly modified excerpt) should also be there. We are, in fact, moving toward distributing our weekly Harvest Guides exclusively through the website: that means that, in a few weeks, you won’t be getting them via e-mail, you’ll need to actually visit this website to access your Harvest Guide. While you’re there, we hope you’ll take advantage of the opportunity to see what else Spoutwood has to offer, and maybe even participate in our interactive community through the forums.

Thank you for your participation, and bon appetit!