Tomorrow is the first day of spring, and we’re celebrating by starting up CSA deliveries for the 2013 season. We’re looking forward to a good year of farming on our beautiful central coast farmland. We’ve had a busy few years, getting to know our “new” Lewis Road property and completing the big projects so we can be more productive with what we’ve got. We know what kind of carrots to grow in which ground (and how to pre-treat with mustard meal to foil the dread nematodes) and what crops work best in the hoophouses. And we have enough ground to optimally rotate our crops to maintain proper nutrient balance and pest control. So we’re excited about the coming season!
Production-wise we are off to one of our best starts ever. We have planted large (for us) blocks of purple, gold, and white cauliflower; scallions; several varieties of potatoes; red, gold, and chioggia beets; several varieties of summer squash; lettuces; carrots and beans. The strawberries will be a little later than last year, but the plants look good. And the blueberries are covered with blossoms, so we expect big things out of them this year. We’re excited about several different items that we are trying this season including: Striata di Italia squash, Butternut Rugosa winter squash, Purple Haze carrots, Thai basil, chervil, and several new tomato varieties. Our greenhouse is running more smoothly than ever thanks mainly to Aquileo, who joined us last season and has mastered the use of the vacuum seeder that we use for planting our transplant flats. I am amazed at how quickly he gets through the seeds that I set out for him, and consequently we have really stayed on top of our successive plantings. After a few minor tweaks our new greenhouse is working well and soon we will be adding a new row of tables to keep up with the newly planted flats.
For those of you who are just joining us this season, the boxes at this time of year are typically dominated by vegetables that were planted at the end of last season and carried over winter in the ground (beets, carrots, fennel) with a few storage crops (Butternut squash, Black Spanish radish, apples) and a few newly planted crops as well (Lacinato kale, dill). As the season progresses, more and more spring planted crops appear in the boxes until the 5th or 6th week when the boxes will be composed almost completely of vegetables and fruit from new plantings.
A big part of joining a CSA is about eating seasonally with the farm. Spring is one of those seasons that can be challenging for some, but also gives us the opportunity to try some vegetables that people don’t eat as much now that you can get summer vegetables all year round from all parts of the world. This is a good time for digging in the old recipe books–what did people do with large storage radishes in the early spring? Explore and enjoy!
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