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!

I arrived at Spoutwood late Tuesday afternoon only to hear, from apprentice Pete McLean, a harrowing tale of disaster narrowly averted. It seems that some sort of small rodents – mice or voles – had wrought great devastation among the new seedlings in our germination chamber. Thankfully, our apprentices had wisely planted more seeds than were originally thought to be necessary, a precaution we'd also taken last year. As a result, they were able to plant up the backup seedlings and recoup the damage. Then they, along with farm handyman and jack-of-all trades Chris C., proceeded to heavily reinforce the germination chamber with plywood and wire mesh.

But it was a narrow escape, and just goes to show by what a thin thread farm success or failure often hangs. If they had not planted those extra seeds, the loss would have put our whole growing cycle weeks behind schedule. If we still lived in an early, agrarian-based culture, such a loss could have been catastrophic. As it was, our apprentices had to put in many more hours re-doing work they thought had been done for the season... which, of course, prevented them from doing other tasks they had planned to accomplish. This year, it was rodents. Last year, it was a "fungus gnat" attacking our brassicas shortly after they'd been planted in the field. Farming is nothing if not fraught with challenges! Yet somehow we manage.

 One thing working at a CSA (community supported agriculture farm) teaches, whether one is a staff member or shareholder, is that we can take nothing for granted. Another is that whatever produce we receive – and Spoutwood shareholders typically receive a lot – is a consequence of considerable hard work, and not a little luck. And, perhaps, the blessing of unseen forces, if you happen to believe in such... In any case, the disaster was averted, however narrowly. Kudos to our apprenices, Kat, Pete, and Ashlee, for catching on to the situation before it got worse, and for being foresighted enough to plant extras! We are, once again, blessed with an excellent team of apprentices, and are looking forward to another excellent year.

 Tom