CSA Open House

We are having an open house this Saturday, June 29th 2-4pm.  Come out and look at the gardens and chickens.  The strawberries are slowly ripening, so you can take a stroll through to see if you can find a few to eat.

Directions:
Our address is 1005 Birch Ave, New Salem.  If you're coming off the Interstate from Bismarck, take a left to head South towards New Salem.  Drive South until you get to the stop sign.  Turn left/East onto Ash Ave.  Turn right/South on 5th St.  Drive straight through the stop sign on Main and across the RR tracks.  The first street after the tracks is Birch Ave, take a right to drive west.  Our house is gray with red trim, right after the road turns to gravel.  We are the last house in town on Birch Ave, so if you drive by the chicken coop, turn around and come back:).

Please RSVP. - Thanks!

Week 3 CSA pick up

What you'll find in your basket this week:

• Rhubarb
• Green Onions
• Lettuce (leaf & head)
• Kale
• Radishes

Don't forget to return or boxes and bags when you come to pick up your produce.  Thanks!

This weekend we got most of the gardens weeded and mulched....Whew!  What a big job.  We just have the small house garden left.  The strawberries are just starting to ripen.  We each found one red enough to eat today.

We're planning to have an open house next Saturday, June 29th in the afternoon (I'll send out an e-mail with more details).

Let us know if you are getting enough lettuce in your baskets.  We have a lot right now, but we're not sure how much to give...Don't want to lettuce you out.

Everything is growing well.  The gardens look so nice weeded, with the fresh mulch.  I took a few pictures today to share with you.  The peas are blooming now.  I'm excited.  I think they are one of my favorites.

Lettuce in Paddock Garden

Pasture Gardens...Look at the beautiful sky we had today!

Potato Garden

Weedy house garden

Herb Boxes

Paddock Garden

Lettuce

Carrots

Popcorn in Pasture Garden

Beets

Green Beans

Tomato...They are huge and some are starting to flower already!

Peas

Pea blossoms

Potatoes, Soup beans, and Cucumbers in the Pasture Garden

Vine Garden

Pumpkins

Strawberries

Strawberry Bed

Week 2 CSA Baskets

Here's what you'll find in your basket this week and how we've been eating it.

• Rhubarb
• rhubarb crisp-dice up rhubarb into a 9x13 pan and cover with apple crisp topping
• Green Onions
• chicken salad sandwiches-add to the chicken salad instead of regualar onions
• Spinach
• Salad-covered in a vinegrette dressing
• Lettuce
• Salad...we eat a lot of salads this time of year
• Oregano
• Dry and save for when the tomatoes are ripe
• Kale
• Steamed and tossed with olive oil and Parmesan cheese

Hope you enjoy the veggies as much as we do.

The strawberries are starting to set berries and the birds are noisily singing in the neighbor's trees.  We're excited for the strawberries and hope the birds don't affect them too much.

How the gardens grow

We went around and took some pictures of the gardens this morning.  I hope you enjoy them.  We plan to do an open house some time in June, so you can come out to our farm and see the gardens yourself.  We'll keep you posted as to which day we plan to do this.

Paddock Garden

Sweet Corn

White Potatoes

Garlic and Lettuce/spinach

Radish

Lettuce...Needs to be weeded.  The light green lettuce is what you should be getting next week.

Fennel

Kale

Johnny and Lu Lu next to their blooming pansies

John and Lu's garden

Pasture Garden

Popcorn

Strawberries in bloom

Strawberry bed

Beets

Peppers.
Mini grasshoppers are eating holes in the leaves.
Josh said last night, "If it's not a drought, it's the pests!"

Here is a bean seedling that was damaged by the seed corn maggot

Healthy bean plant.  Thankfully they weren't all lost

Cauliflower under the rowcover

Tomato

 So we had some issues with our tomato plants before we transplanted them.  The seed starter that we used to cover the seeds couldn't support the tomato stems, so they kept falling over.  We kept transplanting them as they fell over.  (Once transplanted, they did fine.)  Anyway, it was always a discovery as we were sitting down to a meal (since our 'greenhouse' is in the dining room) and a quick fix was required.  We didn't label the tomatoes when we transplanted them, so it should be interesting picking them this fall.  I think we at least kept all of the cherry tomatoes together.

Broccoli

Vine Garden (pumpkins, gourds, squash)

squash that germinated before the seed corn maggots infested

cabbage

cabbage

peas

potatoes in front, then soup beans

asparagus patch, hopefully we'll be able to pick some next spring

Farm Funny's

(I wish I had a video to go along with my story, but Josh and I butchered chickens by ourselves this weekend.  I didn't have the time to get the camera.)

So Josh and I butchered our first batch of chickens this past weekend.  Last year we had help doing both batches (which was very necessary since I was 9 months pregnant during the first butchering and 2 weeks post c-section during the second one).  So it's been two years since I had to chop chicken heads (my least favorite job).  But the kids helped make it more comical.  Josh and I work together to get about half the chickens heads chopped and bled out, feathers scalded and plucked, and tails, feet, and wing tips cut off.  Then Josh starts to gut (once they've had enough time to cool).  I am then left by myself to do the first job on the rest of the chickens.  My goal is always to keep up, so he doesn't have to stop gutting to help be chop heads again.

Anyway...Josh was gutting and I was chopping heads while the kids (John and Olue) were watching.  Josh's job is boring to watch.  I have the live chickens next to me...They're more interesting.  I would catch a chicken, put it head first into the killing cones (they look like upside down caution cones) and cut off the head.  This way they can bleed out without jumping around.  They usually kick a lot.  So the kids are watching, I grab the next chicken to scald and am dipping it in the hot water.  The kids are creeping closer and closer to the chicken I just chopped because it's not kicking (like all the other ones have).  "I wouldn't get too close, Johnny."  (Lu Lu is a step behind him, like a good little sister.)  "This one's not kicking, Mom."  As soon has he said it, the chicken's legs started kicking like crazy and those two almost jumped out of their skin.  It made me laugh.  It still makes me laugh.:)

Don't worry....The kids still eat chicken (at least John does, Lu has never liked meat much...more of a veggie girl).

I thought I had posted one year the whole process of our chicken butchering.  I can't find it now.  I'll have to do that sometime.  We have a pretty nice set up and we're pretty time efficient.  Maybe I'll get the chance to take some pictures next time.  Josh's brother, Jared, and his new wife (come Saturday...we're pretty excited for the wedding), Stacie, plan to help us, so maybe I'll have a little time to wash up and take pics when we're in the middle of "chopping heads";)

No CSA Pick-up this week

Everything is pretty little yet, due to the cool, wet weather this spring.  We will not be having a basket this week.  Sunday we discovered that seed corn maggots were eating our bean (green, edemame, and soup) seeds and seedlings, cucumber, pumpkin, and squash seeds.  So the kids and I spent this morning replanting what we had left for seed.  Josh bought some more seed today and we'll be replanting the rest tonight.  The rest of the gardens look good.  Everything is growing fairly slow, but I'm sure it all likes the heat today!

First CSA Pick-up

This week's basket will include:

• Rhubarb
• Chives
• Kale
• Bok Choy
• Green Onions
• Popcorn

Bismarck Pick-up will be on Tuesday, June 4 at 5-5:30 pm.

New Salem Pick-up will be on Thursday, June 6 at 5-6 pm.

To those of you who chose the payment plan, please bring the remainder of your membership fee to the first pick-up.