CSA Week 1: It's salad time!!!

Hoophouse going up in field!

Welcome to the 2018 CSA season- we are delighted to finally be harvesting the food we've been growing since March. As usual, we've had some successes and some failures as a result of all the things that can go right and wrong with nature, soil and weather. The weird but relatively warmer side of spring has meant that many things went in a little earlier than usual, so we should see some quicker arrivals of our favorite fruiting crops, but insects are hitting us hard this year. The not so cold winter meant that a lot of pest insects survived to torment our baby plants. We've been fighting them as best we can with row covers, rotations and more, but we are still seeing a lot more damage to our leafy greens and broccoli and cabbage crops than in past years and we've even had a crop failure in our spring cabbage. So sad- don't worry, we are going to be turning to other local growers to help supply our cabbage needs.
It hasn't all been a struggle...we have incredible incredible strawberries this year (and we thought we weren't going to have them at all!!!) Due to a stay on the construction of a new septic for public bathrooms for the summer, we were able to salvage our strawberry beds from the damage done by the excavators over the winter and the berries are abundant and incredible. And they are ready NOW!!!
I am going to encourage the use of reusable bags for all your produce. We go through a whopping ridiculous amount of plastic bags every year and we would like to see this number go down. There are reusable mesh bags for sale in our farmstore, but you can also buy them at nearly every grocery, online at Amazon, etc. They will get gross, but just toss them in the wash and they are good as new. Please consider getting at least a few so that we can move to eliminating plastic bags at the CSA!

Field happenings:

If you look up from picking strawberries and turn a little to the south, you will probably see the new

hoophouse going up in the field this week. We received a grant from NRCS to build this lovely piece of equipment which will allow us to grow nearly YEAR ROUND. This means a little more of our favorite tomatoes for a little longer in the season, fresh, local salad in February, and maybe even ginger grown right in your community. We are super excited to have this addition to our farmscape!
We also have our new well most of the way finished! This is so vital to our operation, we have been working for the past three seasons with a well that only has 7 gals of water per minute. That means we can only water 14 lines of drip tape at one time in the lower fields and we can't reach the upper fields at all with water because there just isn't enough pressure. The new well, which is at the point where it only needs its new electrical service, has 50gals of water per minute! WhooHOOOO!!! That's means 7x more water and almost 100 lines of irrigation at a time. That's more than an acre at a time and we can push plenty of water up the hill!

Goat info: 

As most of you know, we have increased our goat flock size to almost 60 animals. They are hard at work eliminating invasives all over the farm and most of them will soon be moving off farm for the summer so that they can do the same thing at Moose Hill Farm in Sharon, Weir River Farm in Hingham and other Trustees properties in Metrowest. This is pilot project partly funded by an Innovation Grant and we are super excited to participate. Using goats in a low impact, environmentally friendly manner to eliminate troublesome plants such as bittersweet, buckthorn, poison ivy and many others is a long term sustainable alternative to herbicides. And for the moment, we are sorry, they are not available to come to your house/yard. :) Maybe we will be able to work that in in the future, but right now, there is a lot of conservation land that also needs our help.

Goats just turned on to stone wall

Events:

Notch Brewing Biergarten is coming to Chestnut Hill Farm on June 22-24!!! Notch Brewing Company from Salem, MA will present their German-style beer garden experience right here in our orchard. Come enjoy a delicious cold brew and relax in the glorious beauty of the farm at twilight. There will be delicious grass-fed burgers for sale with farm-made cole slaw and salads.
Friday June 22- 4-9pm
Saturday June 23 Noon-9pm
Sunday June 24 Noon-6pm

Our first Friday Farm Dinner is in July and these are popular and amazing so don't miss out on the fun and sign up early. There is gorgeous food, great live music, cash bar and the BEST company around.

Same wall after grazing 24 hours

What's in Your Share!

Butterhead Lettuce
Salad mix
Radishes (courtesy of Appleton Farms)
Spinach
Arugula
Baby Bok Choy
Rainbow Chard
PYO- Strawberries
PYO- Perennial Herbs (oregano, sage, thyme, lemon balm)


Recipe of the Week: EAT YOUR SALAD!
There's a whole lot of goodness in just a salad- toss in a little arugula into your mixed lettuce, add some strawbs, add a little oil and vinegar and it is perfect or dress it up with all kinds of deliciousness and make it your whole meal. Enjoy this return to the freshness of CSA lettuce and greens. They were harvested this morning folks- it doesn't really get any fresher.