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