How Many Beets is Too Many Beets?

Sometimes I wonder if we grow too many beets.  I mean, I love beets.  And sometimes I wonder if you all love beets.  Or maybe you tolerate them.  Or maybe you wish there were more.  Or you wish they were bigger, or you wish they were smaller, or you want more yellow ones, or red ones or striped ones or blue ones. Blue beets?  These are the things I wonder when I wake up in the morning thinking about planting beets.  And today was one of those mornings.

I walked out my door a little before 7am, pulling my dog Henry out of bed so that she could chase the geese out of the field before we started the days work.  I met up with Deb, our summer crew captain, in the dark of the little farm office.  She was holding a bowl of warm strawberry muffins; I was holding a bottle of sunscreen.  We talked about delicious strawberries and the week ahead and about the beets we were about to plant.

Deb pulled the truck up to the greenhouse and loaded tray after tray of ‘merlin’ and ‘touchstone gold’ beet seedlings onto the long bed of the truck.  I hopped onto my favorite orange tractor (the one with the canopy) and went to prepare the beet field.  I carved the ‘perfecta,’ (our amazing tool that loosens and smoothes the soil just before we plant), through the sandy part of the farm, where garlic used to grow last season.  I marked the rows with our transplanter; 3 rows per bed, beets every six inches.  Then, I quieted the tractors and Deb and I silently began filling the beets into the warm, soft, sandy, soil.  The roots of the beets glowed red and yellow--filling out the square plug where they had been growing since early May. 

The rest of the summer crew marched out in matching rain pants, ready for the day and jumped in with us.  We picked up speed and danced around each other, some of us planting, some dropping plants every 6 inches along the bed.  We played a sort of leap frog, pushing through bed after bed of tiny beet seedlings.  By the end of the eight beds we planted, four red, four yellow, the sun was beating down on us and I wondered out loud, once again, if sometimes we grow too many beets.

Hours later, after a burst of storm and rain, I walked out to check on the newly planted beets—now thoroughly watered in.  The sun was piercing through the trees, the mist creeping in from the trees surrounding the fields, the crops looked like they had been through a tornado, slanted and wet.  Henry barked and I looked up to see the double rainbow arching over the entire farm.  So big I couldn’t take a picture of it all at once.  I ran with the dog down the length of the farm to capture the view and forgot all about whether or not we grow too many beets.  

See you in the fields,

Meryl & the Powisset Farm Crew

Rainbow at the Farm!

 

Light at Powisset after a rain storm

What's in the Share:

Up at the barn: lettuce, broccoli, beets, carrots, choice of greens: spinach & swiss chard, choice: kale & cabbage, turnips or radishes, scallions, garlic scapes

Out in the fields: strawberries, sugar snap peas

What's New at the Farm Stand!:

Pie, Pottery, Seafood, Cheese!

This week begins our Pie Share partnership with Bushel & Crumb!  If you have signed up for a pie share, you are in for a treat! Your first sweet pie is on it's way!  If you have not signed up for a pie share and you love pies, fear not!  We will have small and large pies up at the stand and this week will highlight the delicious strawberry!

We also have newly stocked the fridge with Appleton Farm yogurt and cheese, Nola's fresh salsa, Moose Hill Farm eggs and beef from High Ridge Meadows Farm!

This Saturday, our amazing potter, Sue will be back with bowls and mugs and vases and berry bowls and more!  She will be on  the farm from 10am-5pm! Stop by!

And as usual, Jordan Brothers Seafood will be at our farm three days a week: Tuesday 1:30-6:30, Thursday 1:30-6:30 and Saturday 10am-2pm!  This fish is awesome!

A Sea of Peppers

Powisset Peppers!

We grow eighteen different varieties of peppers.  We grow green bell peppers, red, orange and yellow bell peppers, frying peppers, and sweet bite-size peppers that I like to pull from the plants by the handfuls and snack on while I walk the fields at the end of a long day.  There are new varieties that promise to glow like a sunrise or taste like sweet chocolate.  There are old favorites that have filled thousands of bins over many seasons of picking. And there is the variety whose name I can never remember, but whose taste reminds me of late summer and I know when I pull it from the plant and toss it into the harvest bin that it will stand out from the rest up in the barn.

Today we crawled up and down row upon row of our soon-to-be pepper field.  Carefully we organized our pepper varieties, labeled each row and began planting our eighteen different kinds of peppers.  A few farmers walked ahead of the rest of us, laying the plants in their proper space, while the rest of us followed behind, settling the peppers in their new home in the soft soil.  With my left hand I held the pepper like a flower, gently resting it across my palm.  My right hand plunged into the soil, moving a soft scoop of earth aside to make room for the roots of the pepper. Then my two hands worked together to press the pepper into the ground firmly, encouraging it's roots to begin growing here.

our sea of peppers

We grow eighteen varieties of peppers, and twenty varieties of lettuce and nine varieties of cucumber and six types of beets and fifteen varieties of potatoes and they all blend together over a season.  So many peppers, shining in bins, and beets tumbling in a root washer, and cucumbers hiding in a sea of vines, will make it out of the field and onto your tables.  Which pepper will become your favorite this year?

From a field now filled with peppers,

Meryl & the Powisset Crew

our farm

What’s in the share this week:

At the barn: Lettuce, spinach, arugula, scallions, broccoli, kale or kohlrabi, beets, hakurei turnips 

Pick-your-own: maybe strawberries!

CSA Begins! June 4th!

Powisset Farm harvests begin!

Today was one of those rare days where I get to spend the entire day on the farm, alone.  I woke up to the sound of my dog barking at the birds and the sight of the sun electrifying the orange curtain in my room.  With coffee in hand, I wove through the tractor barn; the growing fleet of machines surrounded me and I felt like Goldilocks, trying to find just the right one to drive out into the fields.  I settled on the yellow International Cub and puttered out to begin a solo cultivation expedition.  Up and down beds of swiss chard, lettuce, leeks; I showed no mercy for the weeds and looked back at each clean row with pride.  With ear protection on and the steady hum of the motor, I am lulled into a focused rhythm and my mind quiets of all the to-do lists that normally, endlessly, scroll through my brain.  I enter into a section of tiny beets that have only been in the ground for a couple weeks.  I lower the eight baskets on the cultivation tool, slowly until the baskets make contact with the soil, then a little lower.  I ease my foot off of the clutch and away I go for what may have been the fiftieth bed of the day.  

scallions, fennel, escarole!

I get about ten feet into the bed when a killdeer throws herself in front of my path--faking an injury to draw me away from something else; her nest.  I depress the clutch; look all around me, fearing I may have already gone too far.  But, there, about three feet ahead of me, between two beets, is a small nest with a single egg in it.  I lift the baskets, drive forward, pass the nest, then resume my work.  I finish the bed, turn the tractor around, and begin the adjacent bed of beets.  As I near the end of the bed, the bird becomes disturbed and tries to distract me from her nest once again.  I turn my head to the left as I drive by and I see two eggs in the nest.  Two eggs!  The bird was mid-egg-laying!  I smile a wide smile and call out to the sky some exclamation like, ‘incredible!’  This farm, each row is growing so much life.  Hundreds of beets, and now four killdeer eggs, share the same row, the same time, the same place on this farm to flourish!

I think about how we all: Powisset farmers, CSA members, Powisset Farm visitors and volunteers, have chosen this place, and this time, to flourish here!  We will come together this week to begin a new season of growing and eating vegetables together.  We will come together in the barn to select our lettuce, kale and tomatoes, which will be the ingredients to feed ourselves, our families and our friends.  We will make our way out to the fields to pick strawberries together and hear the snap of the pea when we pull the first one from the plant and pop it into our mouth.  We will figure out if we love fennel or if we hate it!  We will get creative with kale and cry as we cut into the fresh white onions in the summer time. 

The beginning of the farm season is always so full of hope with the promise of so many joys and challenges to come.  Sometimes, I feel like the mama killdeer, laying her eggs in a row of beets, willing to hurl herself in front of the tractor to protect and nurture what she is growing.  I drive off, away from the beets towards some beautiful baby lettuce, lower the baskets into the soil, ease my foot of the clutch, and go!  A new season begins! 

See you in the fields,

Meryl & the Powisset Farm Crew

June 2013

When are Pick-ups?

 Pick-ups start this week! Distribution hours:

Tuesday, June 4th 1:30-6:30 - Thursday, June 6th 1:30-6:30 -  Saturday, June 8th 10am-5pm

The Farm Stand open all three days a week

What's in the share this week:

Green leaf lettuce, spinach, bok choi, radishes, hakurei turnips, green garlic, kale

choice of green: escarole/arugula/broccoli raab, 

favas flowering!

Vendors at Farm:

Jordan Brothers Seafood: Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday

Lightening Ridge Farm (local lamb): Thursday

New at the Farm Stand: 

cheese from Appleton Farm (cheddar and triple cream)

Yogurt, 16oz and 32oz containers

eggs from Moose Hill Farm in Sharon

CSA Starts Next Week! ...and...What's a Pie Share?

A week from today our first CSA distribution and farm stand of 2013 will be over!  A week from today, I will be relaxing in my home thinking about all the crops we harvested and who came to pick up their share and how the lettuce was glowing and what kind of kale you all decided to take home with you.  A week from today there will be no more wondering about what we will distribute on our first day or what it will look like or how fun it will be.  A week from today we will cut and bunch and wash and share and begin another season of our CSA at Powisset Farm.  A week from today....wait...that's only a week away!

 Powisset fields are buzzing with the sounds of growing vegetables!

There's a lot to do before we open those barn doors for the new and wonderful season.  There are tomatoes to plant and carrots to weed and potatoes to hill.  There are new summer crew members to train and volunteers to lead visitors to greet! There are barns to clean and bins to stack and trucks to fill with fuel to get ready for shuttling veggies from field to barn. 

The lettuce and spinach are growing and the kale is tender and ready to be bunched!  I hope you will be there next week when we welcome you to a new season at Powisset Farm!


CSA starts: Week of June 4th! 
Come Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday of that week for your first week of veggies!  

Tuesdays & Thursdays: Open 1:30-6:30 Saturdays: Open 10am-5pm

New Member Orientation: Thursday, May 30th. Starts at 5:30pm


 
See you in the fields!

Meryl & the Powisset Farm Crew

Community Supported Pie

Bushel + Crumb, a new community supported pie business, is excited to offer Powisset CSA members a monthly subscription of savory and sweet pies that feature the highest quality, locally grown fruits, vegetables, dairy, and grains. Our pies are an opportunity to deepen your commitment to local food in a delicious and convenient way.

A share provides 1 pie every other week for 18 weeks during Powisset's summer share season and will alternate between sweet and savory pies (9 pies total). Shares come in two sizes to fit your needs: Large pies (9”) are perfect for families, with 6-8 slices each, while small pies (6”) are just right for singles or smaller families, with 2-3 generous slices. Large shares are $190 for the season, small shares are $110. Pies will be delivered to the farm for pick up with your CSA share.

We are looking forward to participating in Powisset's Spring Farm Fest on May 18th where we will be offering free pie tastings.  Come meet the bakers, sample our seasonal pies and sign up for a summer pie share!

More information about the pie share and sign-up instructions are available on our website:  www.bushelandcrumb.com

Spring Festival Saturday, May 18th! This Saturday!

Hello wonderful supporters of Powisset Farm!

Today Tessa (our fierce and fearless assistant farm manager) and I walked around our 14 acres of fields, amazed at how much our fields have changed over the last five weeks since we broke ground in this 2013 season!  We are planting at a rate of a little more than an acre per week and are now having to keep up with weeding about that much as well.  Our farm crew is gaining speed on the transplanter, cruising through beds of broccoli in minutes.  And all of our farm clothes most definitely smell like the fish fertilizer that we water our plants with.

In the midst of all this work, our heads looking down at plants for hours, we are certainly ready to look up and celebrate the beginning of yet another beautiful farm season!  So, we invite you to come share this farm with us at the Powisset Farm Spring Festival!! This Saturday we will be welcoming you all back to the farm for another year of vegetables, community and sharing this beautiful piece of land, called, Powisset Farm!
 
With your help, I think we might have the best Spring Festival ever!  We have our wonderful string band back for another year of beautiful bluegrassy tones that make you feel like humming along.  We have more than 15 vendors with us:

Food: Batch ice cream, Flour Bakery, Powisset Popcorn

Fresh things: Jordan Brothers Seafood, Lightening Ridge Farm (local lamb) 

Seedlings: The Neighborhood Farm

Pottery by CSA member, Lisa Walker

Children's books, sustainable services, Landssake Farm bicycle powered blender, 

Powisset Produce for sale, an herbalist, beekeeper and MORE!

Also, as a special treat this year, there is a guided edible wild plant walk around the farm, with wild plant expert; John Root.  The walk starts at 2pm and is free and suitable for all ages.

Bring your friends and family and enjoy the day with us!

Festival: This Saturday, May 18th, 10am-3pm Admission is Free.  

Music will probably begin around 11am.

I hope to see you there or in the fields soon!

With great joy,

Meryl and the Powisset Farm Crew

Glimpses from last year's festival: So Much Fun!!

Fence Day and Farmers in Need of Housing!

Today was a day of transformation at Powisset Farm!  This morning when I drove down the farm road, coffee in my right hand, spilling onto my wrist as I bounced over the bumpy terrain, I looked over the open fields--free of fence!  By 5 o'clock tonight, the landscape had become wrapped in white tape and i could here the clicking of the electric pulses running the 11-acre perimeter!  The fence went up! And now: we plant.

Today ended day three of our 2013 farm season with our new crew of apprentices! And it was fence day.  I love fence day.  I enjoy a day when such a large physical transition occurs.  I love the feeling of coming together with a new crew to take on our first sizable task as a team.  The act of explaining a task reminds me that I love sharing this work.  We talk through why we have a fence, describe the ritual of fence care and that the fence going up means that we can begin to put our beautiful seedlings in their rows with (hopefully) a feeling of confidence that they will be safe and thrive!

With the fence up, a new crew full of energy and some rain to get the peas off to a good start, I think we are ready for this stunning 2013 season to begin!

See you in the fields!

meryl & the Powisset Farm crew
 

the butler barn in the fog

The new crew! Jason, Tessa, Jon and Kasey (left to right)

Help us find Housing for a Powisset Farmer!

As our farm grows we are attracting amazing apprentices from as far away as....California!  Kasey has joined us this season from the mountains of Santa Cruz and is looking for a place near the farm to live for the farm season!  We have exceeded our housing capacity here at the farm and are wondering if you can help!  Do you have an in-law apartment/rental space/yurt/room in your home?  Do you know anyone in our area who does?  Please let us know! 

Get in touch with me at : mlatronica@ttor.org and I'll connect you with Kasey!  Thanks for your support!

me (meryl) and Powisset Farm's first apple tree!

The other new additions to Powisset Farm!  (yes, those are two-day-old piggies--their backsides, at least)

CSA Sign ups!

There are still shares available, but they are going fast!  Please sign up today!  If you have not received your registration form or have misplaced it--please get in touch with meryl!

2013 CSA Sign ups!

the future of our onion seeds....

Reasons we know it's March at Powisset Farm:

1.  Today we cleaned out the greenhouse and started seeding onions.  
2.  The snow is melting and we can see the cover cops and the kale from last fall, peaking out though the spotted white fields.
3. Every day more and more packets of seeds are being delivered to the farm office.
4. We finished hiring our apprentice crew for the season.
5. We are about to begin CSA share sign ups!

Welcome to our 2013 farm season!  Next week we will be sending out our winter newsletter and registration forms for this season's CSA program.  We are excited to be offering you a chance to sign up for the summer share as well as the winter share.  The price of our summer CSA share will remain the same, but our winter CSA share will be increasing in both price and frequency.  We will be doing a five pick-up winter share that will start in November and extend through February.  The cost of this share will be $300.  After a fun and successful extended winter share this year, we are committed, more than ever, about growing the length of our farm season!

Our excitement for this upcoming season grows with every onion seed we plant, every tray we water, and with every field that finds its way out from under the snow!

Please let us know if you have any questions about the season by contacting me at: mlatronica@ttor.org.  And check the mail next week for your registration!

Happy March!

Meryl and Tessa (on behalf of our new 2013 Powisset Farm Crew)