Farmer Kurt’s Field Notes August 31, 2024

August 31, 2024

Two rain storms surprised us this past week, leading to 5 tenths of an inch of rain! That took the pressure off of running irrigation for a few days, and allowed me to catch up on my sleep. You see, when I run irrigation at night, I have to get up every 3 hours to check and make sure the heads are still working properly. So I like it when it rains!

The crew packed two big wholesale orders this week: 25 boxes of fennel, as well as a huge pallet of habanero and bell peppers. These are heading to a Whole Foods distributor on the East Coast. We’ll do this every week here for a few weeks. Thanks to my buddy Adam from Wayward Seed, I was able to borrow a sorting table. This sits right next to our line washer, and the peppers roll off onto the spinning table. My crew can then pick out bad fruits and pack the good ones into boxes. It has really streamlined things. 

Here’s a video that shows our wholesale packing process. Notice how seamless it runs.

We trialed our new red carts for holding our CSA bins. They worked pretty well! I’ll need to make a few tweaks to the wheels, and we’ll need to adjust the height on some of them, but they work great! I’ve now got more room in our walk-in coolers, AND I’ve freed up some U-boat carts for my other jobs.

The crew finally got caught up on weeding the fennel. (Purslane was taking over the beds real bad). See picture below. My boys and I took a stab at it early this week, and Corinna even worked on it every night for an hour. I finally sent the production crew out on Friday and they finished it up. It looks great again.

Speaking of fennel, I want to make sure you get a chance to try some fennel. Of all the crops we grow, this is probably the least popular one. Last year, I chose not to put it in the box at all, and boy did I hear about it on our end-of-year survey! So this year, I will be making it OPTIONAL. You will have to “opt-in” to get it. Next week, Corinna will send out a Google form to you via email. You will have to TELL ME that you want the fennel by filling out that form by next Sunday, September 8th. We will then pass it out to specific customers who said “YES!” at your pickup site on Sept 10 and 12, as a kind of “bonus.” This way, I only harvest enough for the people who will actually eat it. And I don’t waste it. I can always sell it wholesale. So look for that form this week.

This is a paw paw tree. You can see the fruits lying on the ground.

Paw paws are falling off the tree. That big wind storm on Tuesday night blew them down hard. Corinna harvested those for me, but there are still more on the trees. I can’t believe how many of them there are! We’ve decided to put 1-2 in each fruit share this week — as much as we are able. You won’t be able to cook much of anything with it, but it’s enough to give you a taste! It has a very interesting creamy texture. And the taste is hard to describe. Corinna made some paw-paw bread that was really good.

We met up with Brian and Stacie Anderson from Anderson Farms this week, to talk about next year’s CSA. They will continue to be our egg suppliers, and have promised to switch their practices to non-GMO feed. We are excited to see this! We’re also discussing some other projects for future collaboration. I can’t say too much yet, but there are some exciting ideas in the works!

The Bakers make pesto at their station.

Pesto Fest happened this morning! We had about 20 people show up to the farm, set up their food processors and cutting boards in the pack shed, and for the next two hours it smelled amazing. I always like giving customers a chance to walk the fields and harvest their own food. It somehow makes it taste better. Lisa was sharing some of her food concoctions — a jalapeno pesto and a sun-dried tomato version. It was delicious!

CSA members harvest basil for Pesto Fest.

I’m taking a break from the sweet corn this week in the box. With it being Labor Day weekend, I’m trying to lighten the harvest load a bit for my guys so they can get some time off. We’ve probably got two more weeks of sweet corn for the box. Melons are coming to a close soon. My crew has been harvesting tomatoes and peppers like crazy! Did you put your canning tomato order in yet? Make sure you get on that! Before you know it, tomatoes will be over. Everything seems to be running about 2 weeks early this year. It’ll be interesting to see what’s left for our final 4 weeks of CSA.

Josiah started school last Monday. He’s in 8th grade now, and he’s almost as tall as me. His first period is honors geometry, which is held at the high school. So he actually has a short bus ride to Woodmore High –about a mile from our house — for his first class. Makes it real nice when we miss the bus. LOL. I’m taking my boys to S.C.R.A.P. this weekend in Gibsonburg. If you are an “antique power” enthusiast, or you have little kids who like old tractors and machines, this is not to be missed!