Before sitting down to write this week my first that was that I couldn’t think of a single thing we accomplished this week. This is of course far from true, but in the thick of it, it is easier to remember all the things we didn’t get done than all that we did. But this is one way that writing weekly updates is a helpful personal time for reflection as well as a way to share what is going on at the farm. Something about reading last week’s update helps me remember that we did in fact accomplish a lot last week.
New stuff this week:
Cherry tomatoes have been slowly making their appearance over the past few weeks, so not entirely new, but if you aren’t the type of person to show up at market right at opening you might be excused for thinking they are. In a few weeks they should be quite abundant, but for now we will enjoy the first few. Same for cucumbers. We are starting to get a more noticeable in still small quantity of them.
Chicken is back in stock. We have a range of parts and chicken sausage back in stock after a few weeks without.
We are finally done with the lettuce mix from the greenhouse after an incredible run, but we have full sized heads now coming from the field so we still have you covered for lettuce. Cilantro and Dill are now abundant for the next few weeks at least so enjoy them while they last.
CSA this week we have Head Lettuce, Swiss chard, Strawberries, Cherry Tomatoes, Carrots, Asparagus, and Cilantro
Early last week we got all caught up on transplanting with the next planting of lettuce going out as well as the summer cabbages, kale, and parsley finally heading for the field. We also got some Swiss chard and Rutabaga direct seeded in the field as a trial. But as things go, no sooner are you caught up but you are behind again. The fall cabbages are nearly ready to go to the field so maybe later in the week we can get the transplanter back on the tractor and hit the field again.
We’ve had a bit of rain again late in the week, but hardly enough to do much. But we’ll take what we can get to keep the pastures green for the sheep. Partially because the grass isn’t growing fast enough, and partially because we had problems with the fence the sheep were out of their fence a few times this week. We’ve been working on improving fences in strategic areas that seem to be problems while also working to determine why the electric fencer isn’t keeping enough shock on the fence for the sheep to care. We have made progress on both, but there is still progress to be made. We also just finished clipping the long grass stems and weeds on the low side of the pasture so it all looks really nice right now. The new batch of chickens are out on pasture now as well and looking great.
Well I think that is all the news this week.
Until next week
Happy ordering!
Nathan and Aleta Klassen
https://www.localline.ca/nith-valley-organics
