CSA Newsletter for September 26, 2015

Farm Update

Hello everyone!  This week it still feels a lot like summer (except for the chilly, foggy mornings) but there is definitely a feeling that fall is coming soon.  The winter squash have cured in the greenhouse and we have been enjoying them at home.  The first sweet potatoes still need a little time, and we have been able to let most of the planting grow a little longer outside since we have not had a frost yet.  The tomatoes are now on the downhill trend as the vines are starting to look a little worse for wear after producing a lot of tomatoes over the last few weeks.  The carrot plantings look really nice and we should have a lot of really nice carrots for this fall.  The weed issues have mostly subsided and only the white aphids are giving us any trouble at this point.  Our first fall spinach planting came up a little sporadically, but the second has come up better and spinach should make an appearance in the shares in mid-late October.  This week we also tried a new green we had never eaten before, and it was awesome!  (Sweet potato leaves!  Who knew?)  The idea was given to us by CSA member Kelvin Grant who saw them at a farmers’ market while travelling, and we are so glad he did, because now we’re hooked!  We’re going to include a small amount of the sweet potato greens in the shares this week if you’re interested in trying them, and we’ll include the recipe we used too.  The weather is starting to turn, and the calendar says it’s fall, but we still have about a month of great veggies in store!

What to Expect in Your Share This Week

At the regular drop-offs:

We'll have a small amount of the sweet potato
greens in the share this week, so if you're feeling
adventurous or love greens, try them out!

• Choice of cherry tomatoes or beets
• Choice of 4 tomatoes or snap beans
• Choice of carrots or young head lettuce
• Choice of sweet potato greens, cabbage, or kale
• Choice of winter squash or potatoes
• Choice of broccoli or lettuce
• Choice fennel, onion, or shallot

For home/workplace delivery:

A Share:                    B Share:
Cherry tomatoes        Beets
Snap beans                4 Tomatoes
Young head lettuce   Carrots
Cabbage                    Kale
Winter squash           Potatoes
Broccoli                    Lettuce
Shallot                      Onion

Irrigation on the Farm

If you ask any old farmer, he can probably tell you what the weather was like in any given year during his farming career.  My grandpa has a weather-related memory bank that goes all the way back to the mid-1950’s, and every year is a little bit different from every other year.  I’ve only been at this farming thing for five years, but I’m already building up my own weather memory bank, because so much of our routines and workload (not to mention our livelihood) is contingent upon what the weather happens to be doing at the moment.  This year has been rainier than most, so it seems strange to do an article about irrigation in such a wet year, but even though it has been wet we have irrigated at least one of our crops almost every week since April.  Each crop’s needs are different, but the methods we use to irrigate are mostly the same.  The biggest water users on our farm are the blueberries and potatoes, which both have to be constantly watered during certain times in their life cycle.

On the farm we use a drip tape irrigation system to water our crops. This is a 1- inch(ish) wide perforated black plastic tube that comes on huge rolls and can be cut to any length we need.  The drip lines are then laid right up next to the base of the plants they’re watering, which allows us to water the plants themselves very thoroughly without watering the weeds that always want to grow up around them.  These tubes are fed by larger, stronger main lines that are hooked to our well.  The well we use is 110 feet deep into the ground and actually has some ground pressure that lets water into our system even without the pump (like an artesian well).  However, most of the time we use the pump to give enough pressure to the system so we can irrigate larger areas of ground at the same time. 

The advantages of the drip tape system are that we can just irrigate the row where we need the water, and water it very deeply in a short amount of time.  Because we are able to just put it in the row we need watered (and because the line drips very gently), this allows us to get around having as many weeds since we are only watering the row.  The main reason we had so many weeds this year is because the plentiful rain watered all of our ground all the time, instead of our more controlled method of watering when we don’t get such abundant rainfall. While plants need enough water to grow up healthy, there are times when more water is not beneficial, like when we withhold water on certain crops at certain times to improve flavor.  For instance, this time of year we hold back the water on all our tomatoes so that the stronger tomato flavor and concentrated sugars yield a superior tasting tomato. (That’s why tomatoes you buy in the store are often really bland; most of them are raised in systems where they are overwatered, and it dilutes the flavor.)  Irrigating with the drip tape is also way more efficient (it uses less than 50% of the water of overhead systems) and also allows us to grow things like lettuce in mid-summer because of how thoroughly it waters the row.  Compared with overhead irrigation systems, it also allows us to keep more water off the plants’ foliage, which really helps keep a lot of plant diseases under control. 

Though not one of the most riveting farm topics, irrigation is definitely crucial not only to growing healthy plants, but also to getting top-notch flavor and quality. With most veggies being more than 90% water, the water that is used is very important to the quality and safety of the final product.  For most of the world’s farmers, access to clean, abundant water is a real struggle.  Fortunately, that is not as much of an issue here in the Michigan, where we are almost entirely surrounded by fresh water and have high groundwater levels.  Just one more thing to appreciate about the Great Lakes Sate: even in dry years (of which I’m sure there will be many in my weather memory bank after a few more decades), we’re able to get each crop the water it needs to have the best possible plant health, taste, and quality.

Recipes

If you're one of the adventurous types who will be trying the sweet potato greens this week (seriously do!  They're so good!), you'll probably want a recipe for them.  This is the one we used, and the sauce was phenomenal!  (We just skipped the sugar it called for, because we found it really didn't need it.)  So enjoy this recipe for Sweet and Savory Sweet Potato Leaves!