CSA: Late Spring Session (Week 1); animal update; tomatoes

Kohlrabi starts

Our Late Spring Session began on Wednesday, May 1st.  If you're interested in joining for the remainder of the season, you can receive a prorated share cost!  Also, if you'd like to come out to visit the farm, our May Day celebration on Saturday, May 4th would be a great opportunity.

Dandelion greens are nutritious and super yummy, though they tend to be rather bitter, especially for kiddos.  I've found that putting the greens in mashed potatoes or even scrambled eggs helps Micah to eat them, since their bitter flavor is balanced out a bit.

Late Spring Session, Week 1: Box Contents

Eggs
Beets
Garlic
Apples
Chard
Braising Mix
Spinach
Asparagus and Dandelion greens for Regular shares only
Bok choi for Three Quarter shares only 

Turkey chicks!

We brought home five peeping turkey chicks today!  They're currently staying warm under a heat lamp in the duck shed but will be out and about in no time.

The ducklings have continued to grow like crazy and are already outside...

Ducklings in their movable pen

They weren't huddling together for warmth in this picture - they're still awfully shy whenever someone steps into their pen, so they all cluster together in a corner.  All of the ducklings are doing well, and they have a small pool to practice swimming in.

Tomatoes in a greenhouse

 Several of our greenhouses are full of growing tomato plants.  I'm particularly excited about Green Zebras - these are my absolute favorite tomatoes, and I found myself eating them like apples last summer.

Planting tomatoes, pruning apple trees, and visiting ducklings

Apple blossoms

We were thankful to have a lovely spring morning here today, especially after the crazy weather we had this weekend!  The crew is nearly finished pruning the apple trees, and the orchard looks so beautiful and vibrant.

Farmers David & Matt readying the greenhouse for planting tomatoes

I'm super excited to say that we'll be planting tomatoes this afternoon!  In the morning, Farmers David and Matt worked on preparing the first greenhouse for planting.  As the tomato plants grow, they'll be pruned to encourage vertical growth; the orange twine hanging from the ceiling of the greenhouse will be let down for support of the plants as they get taller.

Farmer Micah practices petting ducklings with one finger (with help from Farmer Wendy!)

The ducklings are still doing well and are so cute...  When kiddos visit with the small, fragile animals, we always teach them to pet with only their pointer fingers.

Ducklings

Ducklings have hatched!

The last farm babies appeared this weekend - our ducklings hatched!  These fuzzballs are the offspring of our Indian Runner ducks that patrol the side of our propagation house for slugs - they're very effective slug-hunters.

Unlike most ducks, Indian Runners stand upright and quickly scuttle rather than waddle - they're so much fun to watch. :)  The ducklings' mother is Sensei, a shy, brown duck; Sensei is accompanied by three drakes, or male ducks.

Pruning in the apple orchard

On Friday morning, before the rain hit us, we managed to make some more progress in the apple orchard.  Pruning the trees takes a lot of time, and, as you can see by looking at the pruned trees on the right side of this photo, we take quite a bit of growth off.  This will help the trees to produce a greater amount of fruit later in the season.