The News from Windflower Farm
What’s in the vegetable share?
- Lettuce
- Swiss chard
- Tomatoes
- Peppers
- Eggplant
- Onions
- Parsley
- Assorted squashes
- An organic greenhouse cucumber from our friend Andrew Knafle at Clearbrook Farm
We are between plantings of sweet corn. More should arrive in next week’s shares.
The fruit share will consist of Yonder Farm’s plums this week. We’ll be back to their peaches next week. Sorry, the fruit share will be peaches instead of plums this week!
Thanks again and enjoy!
News from the farm
Sunday. I gave up after spending an hour or so reading the NY Times. I have no bandwidth left today for another of the Administration’s abominations. The only news I want today would have rain in the forecast. But search as I might among all three of my weather apps, I could find nothing but hot and dry for the foreseeable future. I water the plants in our greenhouse – the last cucurbits of the season and another round of greens – and then go in search of Nate, who is switching irrigation from lettuces, kale and basil in H2 to sweet corn and Nightshades in H1. These are fields we normally irrigate from the middle pond but, because of the need for water rationing in the north half of the farm, we are irrigating from the barn well. He is fussing with a booster pump he put in place to push water along the final 400’ of pipe.
Seated at the kitchen table later in the day, I can see Nate in the Front field. He’s seeding with the Sutton Seed Spider, a tool we had shipped to us from the Salinas Valley in California. It is the seeder favored by growers of carrots and spinach. On Nate’s seeding list are arugula, a mix of salad greens, beets and Swiss chard. It’s August, so immediately following seeding he’ll set up some sprinklers. The earth is so parched that we’d get nothing without artificial irrigation. They are accustomed to this out West, but here it is still a part of the new normal of production.
My brother has passed by on a mowing rig, having just cut the grass in the sheep pasture near the barn. The sheep are now in their new summer pasture and appear to be loving it. They are Icelandic sheep and spend the hot part of the day in the shade. If you were to walk by their pasture after dark, however, you’d hear nothing but the tearing of grass and the chomping of sheep’s teeth. I have spotted fox or coyote droppings – I don’t know which – all around the barnyard and in the tunnel in which we are drying onions and garlic, but I have not spotted any of the responsible party. I worry about the chickens, which are nearby, but not the sheep, which are protected by a deer fence and an electrified net fence. Plus, although they might be small, their horns are formidable.
I think of Coastal Maine during the month of August and of lobster and swimming in cold water. To take me there, I’ve been reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s first novel, Stern Men. Remarkably, many if not most early lobstermen didn’t know how to swim.
Hoping you find a way to stay cool this week, Ted
Central Brooklyn CSA 