Farm Happenings

Weather: We had the most beautiful weekend of rain on Saturday and Sunday. Unlike an office worker, I prefer rain on the weekends, because then the crew can get more done during the week. Cool, mostly-grey days dominated the week, but you could almost hear the barley and pea cover crop stretching for the sky.

What We Did: We took advantage of the end of a dry week last night to mow and plow down cover crops, seed a cover crop of buckwheat on the rental farm, transplant oodles of perennial herbs, and put out some other transplants. Everybody continued to rotate through asparagus harvest on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Inga led a rotating crew of valiant herb weeders where things had gotten away from us last fall, working through the tall weeds and then the not-so-tall weeds. Sarah continued to reorganize the packing shed. Bekah started propagation on some herbs that will get transplanted in the spring of 2010. We seeded more crops in the greenhouse. Zane and one of the Ben’s whacked thistles on our water diversion, where it’s too steep to mow – the thistles are just beginning to head up, so hitting them now gets them at the weak point in their lifecycle.

Comings and Goings: Chris hosted a greenhouse open house on Sunday afternoon for fellow producers in the region, which led to many interesting discussions and a lot of information sharing.

Extracurricular Activity: On Saturday morning, Chris presented a talk about the role of CSA’s in revitalizing local agriculture and communities to the Northeastern Iowa Synod, which was holding its annual meeting at Decorah’s Luther College.