Working Open Farm this weekend: You're Invited!

Hello CSA Members!
I hope you are doing well and enjoying our (somewhat) lovely spring!

You may be wondering what is going on here with your food... The seedlings are coming up, and so are the weeds! Most things seem to be really exploding in growth right now.

It's a big-push sort of time, and of course the weather hasn't been super cooperative, so we are a bit backed up on work. Now is your opportunity to come out and help out *if you'd like*. (And if you'd like to do more later, let us know!) And you'll get to see how things are coming along so far! It looks good!

WHEN: Any time this weekend, just let us know about when you'd like to drop in. Sat. or Sun. any time between *10 a.m. and Sunset.*

WHERE: Our farm... 3439 Shadow Hills Dr., Eagle. From Boise, take State St. to Hwy 55 towards McCall. Take a Left at the Chevron Station / Beacon Light Rd. Take a Right at the next 4 way stop, Eagle Rd. Take the next Left on Valli-Hi (Lillypad farm on corner). Then the next Left on Shadow Hills. Second driveway on the Right.

WHAT: Working Open Farm Weekend. We'll be shoveling, making new rows/beds in light weight / sandy soil that's been tilled. Then raking it. Planting lots of stuff! Corn, beans, carrots, herbs, greenhouse starts, maybe even tomatoes. Also need to hoe out weeds in already-planted beds and do some thinning. You can take home / eat thinnings if there's anything good. You could probably run the weed eater or mower if you really want to...there is plenty to do!

BRING: shovels, rakes, and hoes!! (let me know what you can bring here)

Thanks and hope to see you there! RSVP to this email... To be clear, this is totally optional, for folks who'd like to be a little more involved with the production of their food. Children are welcome, we have a netted-in trampoline, sand box, and play structure. There are some hazards around, so some sort of supervision will be necessary...we can talk about this.

Thanks again!

May already! And Carrots...

So...we're just getting more greenhouse plants into the ground, in between storms as usual. Today's a good windy wet soil cold day for computer work. In the last couple of weeks, we planted about 70 asparagus plants...sorry, they won't be producing for a couple of years! Then I got some carrot seeds into the ground...now that is quite a job! My 250-dollar 'precision seeder' isn't really working out because our ground is too full of chunks, rocks, and such for now. I honestly haven't done a great job at growing beautiful, straight carrots in the past, and this year I am determined to do it!! And that means spacing the seeds out properly. So...that means I've been on my hands and knees planting carrot seeds out of a dial seeder, one by one...very time consumingly, but lovingly. I also waited until our 'new' area was ready for planting because it is nice and sandy...great for growing straight carrots, I hope! (last year they were in clay and not thinned enough, so were fat, stubby, twisted, and forked).

April Update

April 6, 7, and 8 (and some more days after that) we put a lot of crops in the ground, and now several have popped up! We've planted peas, potatoes, lots of green leafy things, summer turnips, beets, onions, and some other stuff I'm forgetting at the moment. It's so hard to put my little baby greenhouse plants outside into the dirt! I'm just scared they won't make it after all the work I put into them...but, so far, so good! We have an area we're trying to plant that is quite rocky unfortunately...and our precision seeder (for the smallest seeds) sure doesn't like it! So, so much for 'precision seeding.' I'll be out there hand-thinning all that stuff pretty soon.

We got our 50 baby chickies (red cornish broilers) a week ago! I know, I need to post photos! But, that often goes by the wayside when we are busy. Plus, one of our daughter's favorite toys is the camera, so we never quite know where it's at! They little guys started escaping their brooder tub on day 4, at 5 days old! So, we had to scramble around and make a new one for them out of some junk we found lying around here. It's actually pretty sweet. They're pretty happy now, and running *fast* all over their place, and growing wing feathers already. It's hard to catch them! Of course Lea likes to hold them as much as she can, and put them in a basket for Easter. Pretty cute!

*Will* try to post pics soon!*

First crops are in the ground!

So excited! It's been a rough spring with all this rain...most folks think "rain is good for the crops and farming," but this is not so this time of year when we are trying to work the soil and plant. You can't work in it when it's wet or you will compact it and do some long term damage. In between the storms, we finally did the final tilling on one of the fields and got some snow peas and snap peas in the ground, just before the next storm... with more to go in, but at least it's something!! And, probably my favorite spring crop, hence it's priority!

Greenhouse Blues & Goats

So, we're brand spankin' new at this whole greenhouse thing. Now, don't worry about your produce, we can always buy starts if we need to as a back up. :) That said, here is the story. Isaac built a greenhouse. The pluses are: it's made mostly of 'junk' we found around here for free, and, it works, most of the time. The minuses: it doesn't have a way to ventilate in the heat. So, yesterday, I cut some of it open because it was 70 degrees out. Let's just say I provided a way to close it back up, but it wasn't very wind-proof. So, being Idaho in spring, it had to get super cold, wet and windy today. We looked out and saw the greenhouse practically blowing away! Well, the bones of it are sturdy, but the plastic was flapping all over and the ... other solid parts ... were falling over too. We had a fine episode out there trying to fix it in the wind and rain, while our newly 3-year-old daughter was inside potentially destroying our house with her new exploring abilities! It was enough to keep the plants happy for the day, but when I saw the temp dip to 37 at 9:00 tonight, I went out to rescue them. We do have a heated cold frame and our house as a back up for such emergencies, luckily. And, all of the plants out there are cold-types anyway, except the tomatillos, which do seem pretty hardy too. ... Tomorrow, we rebuild!

We also fenced the goats into a smaller area 'temporarily' while we rip down fences in order to bring in large trucks of compost and such. Well, they've figured out a way to get out. Today we came driving in from a birthday party and noticed they weren't there, but they came to us right away in the driveway. Luckily, they seem to want to get back to their new little home. But, we've got to do something about this before we set our precious little veggie plants out!

Also...3 days til chick time!!

Compost Delivery

I'm feeling pretty industrial looking at these! As a small farm, it seems you have to do strange things like this...we are too big for a pickup load, and too small for a full semi, so we got half semi. (It's 20 yards, or about 30,000 lbs). Now we just have to figure out how we're going to spread it!

Tractor!

We hired out some tractor work this weekend. Pretty exciting! We tilled up quite a bit more than we are going to plant in veggies, so we can plant some cover crop to put in some nutrients for the future. I sure hope we can get our own tractor soon!