Summer CSA Newsletter: June 4th, 2024 (Week 2)
The first Strawberries of the season!
Hi Folks,
Week II. The first week of the summer season is always a big feat to accomplish. It’s always a wonder what we will give to the first shares of the season. Plants are fickle in the spring, as their growth pattern is a reflection of the weather and it’s usually a stop and start pattern, with the fluctuation of cold and warm temperatures. The warm sunny days things grow and then can slow or come to a halt with low temperatures, then growth can spike again with rain spells.
We were a half a degree from getting a frost this past week! That was a little scary, but Chris knew that we were going to be fine. “The soil is moist, I’m not worried”. This moisture retention always helps to trap the heat! So thankfully we didn’t get frost. We got spared at 36.6º. We feel grateful and lucky as this would have set back the harvest of many summer crops. Just .04º lower and tips of tomatoes and peppers could have blackened. This would be something that they could grow out of but these wounds are setbacks that take time to heal from, therefore bumping back the expected harvest date.
There is a lot of counting always happening here. Each crop has it’s own unique dates, and numbers. How many days do they take to germinate? How many days until they get potted onto a bigger cell tray? How many days until they get transplanted out to the field? How many days until they harvest from their seeding date? How many leaves go in a bunch? How many roots in a bunch? How many rubber bands are on your hand? As we are making bunches we count out bands and place a certain number on our hands so that we don’t have to think about numbers until we run out of bands on our hand, then we just count how many rounds of 5 or 10 bands we have done… This allows for the ability to have small talk, or deep talk, or joking, and not the need to constantly be thinking about what number bunch you are on.
This is just the beginning of another tasteful season. Enjoy the ride as you try to cook new things or eat the same old same old, maybe in a new way, or your favorite old time way.
Your Farmers,
Chris, Aeros & The Who Crew