Hello All:

Hope everyone is having a wonderful spring and getting ready for a great season. The vegetables here on the farm are positively delighted with the recent rain. After the field-check tonight, I noticed many of the greens and other crops have grown 1-2" in the past day alone. It's just amazing what a nice dose of water from the heavens will do to spring the plants to life.

Big News This Week: All of the farm's tomatoes are planted! I haven't done the exact count, but it is roughly 900 plants...quite a job, but looking at them all out in the field in the ground brings a great deal of satisfaction to me. They are just beautiful plants. May they yield bountifully for us all!

Sunflowers, more green beans, pole beans, lettuce were all seeded or transplanted this week. Today the snap peas started blooming.

This weekend the zucchini, summer squash, and cucumbers will go out, and next week peppers and eggplant, melons will be planted.

Orders can be made today (THURS) on the online farm stand for Friday evening pick-up at the farm. There's quite a bit  to choose from: radishes, spinach, spicy spinach mix, red and green mustards, kale, collards, Napa cabbage, Komatsuna, Pac Choi, and numerous plants for your garden.

All of these crops, and perhaps a couple more, will be at the Battle Creek Farmers Market on Saturday as well. The market is located Downtown, corner of Jackson and McCamley, from 9-1 PM.

Hope to see you at the farm or at market!

Best wishes, Trent

CSA Members: Details will be going out this week about your pick-up point. You will receive confirmation of your first choice as your pick-up point, a map of the pick-up point, and other CSA basics in the mail.

A close-up of Pac Choi in the field...

Lorraine will be the farm's flower girl this year, helping out with the perrenial flower garden and making bouquets. She has quite the green thumb and an eye for beauty. She is also using a small plot of land on the farm to grow plants to landscape local Habitat for Humanity homes. Nice work, Lorraine!

It was a beautiful night last night here on the farm, so I just couldn't resist getting out the camera and taking a few shots around the farm of the vegetables. The golden hour, the last hour of the day on a sunny evening, is my favorite time to be on the farm. As darkness sets in, life on the farm seems to calm down, getting ready to relax and recover through the night to prepare for another busy day the next morning. Here are the photos...

I just want to let everyone know out there that the frost last night did not do any major damage to the crops. The early tomatoes were covered. Most other crops were covered as well and many crops that were exposed could easily handle a light frost like last night's. So, no major problems. A few cauliflower (a frost sensitive brassica) left uncovered may have been injured slightly...we'll see. A guinea pig tomato plant left exposed, however, was a casualty. The Reemay (sheet-like material I used to cover the tomatoes) worked great! Hope everyone is looking forward to a great season. It was nice today taking the Reemay off of the Kale and Collards and seeing them in their full glory. Based on the 10-day forecast, it is looking like last night will probably be the last frost of the season...keep your fingers crossed!

Monday, May 11 was the first major plant-out of potatoes (about 75% were planted, next week the remainder will be planted...the order has yet to come in from Irish Eyes in WA). In total, 1600 row feet of potatoes were planted, or 8 rows. The farm gets the bulk of its seed potatoes from Wood Prairie Farm in Maine. All are certified organic. I think the farm is growing a nice mix of potatoes this season. Varieties include: Onaway, Yukon Gold, Red Cloud, Rose Gold, Russian Banana (a fingerling), and All Blue as well as German Butterball (from Irish Eyes). Here are a couple photos...

For gardeners out there who have never planted potatoes, here are some basic steps: 1. Cut potatoes larger than 4 ounces in two or three pieces. Ideally, each piece should weigh at least 2 oz. and have a couple eyes. Potatoes that are 2-3 oz. in size can simply be planted whole (called a single-drop). 2. Place potato pieces/whole potatoes in a 6" deep furrow, 12-18" apart. Make sure that eyes are facing upwards on cut pieces. 3. Cover potatoes with soil and water. 4. Hill-up potatoes with soil when plants are 4-8 inches tall after a few weeks, covering a large portion of the plant stems. Continue hilling for another month or so...after 3-4 months after planting, harvest with digging fork! Also, watch out for potato beetles! Kill' em if you see 'em.

In other farm news, early tomatoes will be going out tomorrow, May 14. They will be covered with Reemay (a thin fabric) for an extra 4 degrees of frost protection just in case!

I never thought I would be seeding green beans the first week of May this year, but I did just that yesterday. Since the first half of April, the night temperatures have been quite warm...similar to last year's late May and June. I just couldn't resist getting a couple early plantings in. An early round of tomatoes will also go in the ground early next week. The thought of green beans in June and tomatoes by mid-July was just too tempting!

Artichokes were planted yesterday and potatoes will go in the ground over the weekend as long as it doesn't rain too hard today.

The online farm stand is now open for ordering today for Friday pick-up from 6:00-8:00 PM. No produce is available yet (still 2-3 weeks away), but several varety of brassica and tomato starts are available for your home gardens. Flower, pepper, and cucurbit (zucchini, summer squash, melon, winter squash, pumpkin, cucumber) starts will be available later in the month. All starts were raised using organic methods...no synthetic fertilizers or sprays besides a little fish to give them an extra boost. Hours and days (Tuesday night will also be a pick-up night) will be extended for pick-up in future weeks (likely June).

Note to CSA members: Your pick-up point is your 1st choice. I will be mailing out your receipts and pick-up point location details within a week. Also, if you have any recipes for the CSA's weekly recipe sheets, please e-mail Sue Case, the farm's recipe guru, at scase@greengardensfarm.com. She would love to have them in advance of the season starting (remember, the first boxes go out Tuesday, June 9).

See you soon!

Trent

An artichoke nestled nicely in straw (for mulch to control weeds and to reflect sunlight, artichokes hate the heat of Michigan summers) after yesterday's planting...

Been super busy here the last few weeks getting the crops in. It has been so warm I decided to go ahead and plant several crops earlier than usual. So far so good. I don't have too much time for commentary tonight...I'm going to try to get some early seedings of more root crops and spinach in at 6:30 AM before the rains come. Here are some photos over the past few days...

I realize the website does not get the site traffic of larger sites, but please feel free to post any comments you may have here on the blog. I've decided against Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and other time draining portals for the farm simply because we already have a wonderful interface for dialogue here on the farm's website. Your comments help me gauge what you think about food, your community, and what the farm can do to improve its operation. They may also help you connect with other community members. Don't be afraid!