Sundog CSA August 2, 2021
Spring just began or so it seems and here it is August! The coming week’s weather forecast sounds like a very pleasant dream after the last week or very warm/hot temperatures. We heard the sounds of cloud rumblings and there were a few stray drops that fell Saturday evening when the wind picked up but there was no measurable rainfall this week or last week. The cracks in the earth are like artwork that the land is painting while waiting for moisture.
Squash bugs seem to thrive in the hot weather and almost look perky as they play hide and seek with us on the squash and cucumber vines. They climb underneath the leaves as though we won’t be able to see them and then there is a glimpse of their heads as they peek around the side of the leaf or they scoot around the sides of the fragile stem knowing that we can’t pinch them or we will injure the stem beyond repair. We know that they are going to win the war. Our goal is to hold them off as long as we can in order to prolong our harvest. Those are the days that are a struggle as our weapons are water, soap and our fingers as we pinch them and wash them down with hoses.
In our soft worm war, our good friend Sally gave us an exciting new “worm weapon”. She explained that if we go out at nights with a black light and check our tomato plants over, that the worms actually glow in the dark under the black light. And it works! The worms really are so visible under the black light whereas in the daytime they blend in with the tomato foliage so well that it is almost an accident when you find one. Other types of worms give off a small amount of light also.
Our weekend went super-fast - filled with sweat as we cleaned brush out of a fence row while Dan moved our hay bales off the brome field and then picking vegetables and pulling weeds as we went up and down the rows. We managed to get the potato patch tilled up and ready for turnips or other ground cover crops. We had some huge weed piles that we are using to try a method of planting that my sister sent me information about – Hügelkultur mounds. It is a method born in Germany according to everything we have read and it seems worth trying as we search for more ways to use what we have on this hill to grow food. We moved our weed piles to a place where we are attempting this experiment with the mound planting. It is fascinating to see how many different ways people plant and tend their gardens!
Our friend Judy added to the feathered residents on the hill with a delivery Friday evening. She had found bargains in the chicken department on baby pullets and so here we are, courtesy of her making a special trip up with the “box”. Izzy was ready and waiting with the feed and water all set up. Best part of the evening was the visit with Judy and her brother Gary who always have stories to tell because they are goat and chicken farmers as well as diggers in the dirt, like us!
Katy and I did our first canning of tomatoes this past week and also a batch of green beans with the help of Izzy and Seth who did a little of the snapping and “tailing”. It is a much longer task when you have to admire each top and tail that is removed and measure out your “snap”. And sometimes you have to look inside the bean to just see – and so that task turned into a late night gathering! All seven quarts sealed though and I think that they are minus their tops and tails or most of them are anyway! 😊
YOUR BAG THIS WEEK –
- Green Beans
- Cucumbers
- Tomatoes - All Sizes and All colors!!
- Squash and Zucchini
- Swiss Chard
- Basil
- Sweet Pepper
Baby birdhouse Gourds are starting to appear –
Holding a locust is like holding one of those old fashioned “wind-up “ toys! This is one that our farm dog , Tick, was going to eat and then thought better of it once it was inside his mouth!
This worm was eating his way to the chicken pen !
This guy did not want to have his picture taken - no smile for the camera! 😊
Monday morning alarm clock!
Jen sent us a text Thursday evening as we were finishing up milking chores telling us about a sky event that was going to happen a little past ten that evening so Seth, Izzy and I laid dibbs on the picnic table in the back yard and we all managed somehow to find a place that gave us a view of the wide, star-filled sky that stretched to where the trees stood with their black outlines visible somehow in a dark sky. It is interesting how conversations begin and end while you are laying out on a table in the dark – it is like there are spurts of words that are not always connected to the words that were spoken a few minutes before. The words hang longer because you are so caught up in looking. Looking and looking again and again at things you can’t really understand in the ways that we understand the table that we are stretched out on – this immense space with the pinpricks of lights.
If you are a sky watcher or just like laying out on the picnic table at night, remember that August meteor showers are in a few days – https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-perseid-meteor-shower/
Blessings of health from the farm – Seth, Izzy, Katy, Dan, Jen, Zach and Teresa