Blue Gate Farm News – Volume VI,  Number 4  –  May 17, 2008

 

What’s up on the farm?

What an exciting and busy month this has been.  The past month has brought the return of the birds and the butterflies in profusion.  We’ve seen rose-breasted grosbeaks, orchard and eastern oriels, purple martins, indigo buntings and just yesterday saw our first hummingbird of the season.  Blue is very excited by the return of the butterflies and goes to great lengths and leaps to try to catch them, so far she has been unsuccessful but it is sure fun to watch!  One of our spring activities this month was planting 25 new fruit trees, including apples, asian pears, apricots, cherries and paw paws.  We will have to wait several years to see the “fruits” of those labors, but we have had beautiful blooms on the more established fruit trees this spring, so we are hopeful for good fruit crops this year.  As we’ve been walking the woods searching for morels the past couple of weeks we’ve also been admiring the budding gooseberries and black raspberries, they are looking promising too.

 

The work in the gardens has finally accelerated in the past two weeks, since the rains have slowed a bit. Radishes, turnips, beets, spinach, peas, kohlrabi, chard, carrots, beans and salad are all sown and just today we got all the tomatoes and basil transplanted.  The peppers and eggplant are also on the schedule for this week. The squashes and cukes will start going in next week.  Suddenly all that tilled earth is starting to look like gardens.

 

Now the subject that everyone is waiting for…right now it is looking like we will start deliveries on Tuesday, June 3.  The weather has really put us behind schedule, so it is possible we may even have to push it back one more week, but unless you hear differently from us, plan on June 3.  Again for our Des Moines area members pick up is at Ritual Café on 13^th Street between Locust and Grand.  Chariton/Russell members can pick up your boxes on the farm anytime after 3:00 on Tuesdays.  Centerville members, it is looking like Peggy will be picking up your boxes on Thursdays - please make arrangements to pick up your box from her.

 

Orientation Dates:

If you are a new member, please make arrangements to join us for one of the following meetings:

Des Moines: Tues., May 27^th  5:30 pm at Ritual Cafe

Blue Gate Farm: Wed., May 28^th  7:00 pm at 749 Wyoming St, Chariton (half way between Chariton & Knoxville).

We recommend that all new members attend one of these meetings as it will include lots of helpful information.  Of course, all “veteran” members are also welcome at these meetings and, as in the past, we will bring along samples of cheese and honey for everyone to enjoy.

 

Other important dates:

June 29^th   CSA Member Ice Cream Social at the farm 2:00pm-5:00. Come out for a relaxing farm visit and enjoy tasty ice cream treats, too.

October 5^th     Farm Crawl 2008, more info to follow

October 12^th   Annual Harvest Party, more info to follow

 

 

More next month…

 

Best from the farm,

Jill & Sean