WE DID IT!

The first harvest pickup day is always hard. It's like the first day of school. But, now it's done and by next week, the bugs will be worked out! I'll harvest and pack a little better, hopefully I won't get lost in Richmond trying to find Ellwood Thompson's, and though I've been to La Taza many times, I STILL have trouble driving right to it.

And, those of you who missed my emails or didn't make my mass email list (sorry y'all!), I think you're all taken care of now & I'll make it up to you ;)

Now, what are those vegetables in your box?? The purple leaves are Red Russian Kale. We like to saute it in olive oil with garlic, salt and pepper. Or, chop it up and saute, then mix it with some excellent fresh pasta from Mona Lisa www.monalisapasta.com . Mona Lisa is a great place - Jim, Jerry and Lou (and the other folks - haven't learned your names yet!) are great guys, always having a good time working and have been welcoming to me as I steal a little bit of their store for our CSA boxes.

The Cabbage-looking vegetable (with little holes in it, darn the flea beetles!) is called Pac Choi, a smaller kind of Asian cabbage. Stir fry with tofu or meats and other vegetables (onions are good), or if you're more ambitious, make some kim chi (fermented spicy cabbage). I LOVE kim chi. My Dad was in Korea for a time with the US Army (I joined the (F)ARMY instead ;) and he introduced me to kim chi when I was little. Loved it ever since. There are lots of recipes for it online, just google search "kim chi recipe". By the way, the little pinholes from the beetles won't affect the flavor at all - we should have had row cover over those Pac Choi plants to keep the beetles off, but missed our window. We'll get em next time.

I'll be drinking coffee at La Taza www.latazacoffeehouse.com when you see me there - it's a great place to relax. Nice patio, good food, good coffee in a vibrant little corner of Belmont. The Cubano sandwiches are my favorite! I like this dropoff, it's my last one of the day, the coffee is a sigh of relief for me.

NEXT WEEK, YOUR PICKUPS START!

This is our official notification, our season is beginning! Everything has been delayed by the weather this year, but we're striving to provide you all with 20 great weeks of our home grown veggies!

NOW, who knew that picking up a box of vegetables could be so complicated??

Here is all of the information you will need:

START DATES:

MAY 26 (TUESDAY) - RICHMOND CUSTOMERS BEGIN PICKUPS AT ELLWOOD THOMPSONS MARKET (3:00-6:00PM)

MAY 26 (TUESDAY) - ON FARM PICKUP CUSTOMERS BEGIN PICKUPS AT

QUAIL SPRING FARM (3:00-6:00PM)

MAY 28 (THURSDAY) - CHARLOTTESVILLE CUSTOMERS BEGIN PICKUPS

AT LA TAZA (3:00-6:00pm) & MONA LISA PASTA (3:00-6:00pm)

This will be the delivery schedule that we will be using all season. If there are any changes, we will advise.


!Full Share boxes will be labled as such in large, visible writing! If you have purchased a half share, please be sure not to accidentally pick up a full share box!

If your share is not picked up by 6:00pm, your share will be forfeited for the week - of course you may have a friend pick up for you, but please be sure they understand when and how to do so!

If you have questions, please email me or call us at (540) 967-5196, Adrianna or I would be glad to talk with you.

Let's do it!!

Eze's photographic genius!

Eze's beautiful black and white images of farm action!
Here I am smiling near a broken down Farmall Cub.

My Dad fixing the Cub.

Dad's hands.

Eze is my brother in law, recently moved here from Ibadan, Nigeria. Among his many talents, he is a brilliant photographer! In these shots, his camera was like a time machine that made our farm go back to 1950!

All photos are copyrighted material, owned solely by Eze Amos.

Eze is also a dynamite transplanter of tomatoes.

Almost Ready

This is the current state of the lettuce/kale/kohlrabi/turnip bed. Looking good!

The onion bed (small onion hopping creature at far left of picture ;)

1952 Farmall Cub - McCormick/International Harvester company is a descendant of Cyrus McCormick's company that manufactured the 'reaper' that began the mechanization of agriculture! You can go to his farm near Steele's Tavern, Virginia!

Another shot of the lettuce, etc. bed. Nicely weeded too...

Elsa. You better not be a groundhog in this garden.

Things have really been making some nice progress lately due to the intermittent hot sunny weather and sustained rains. There is still plenty of transplanting and seeding to be done, but the early Spring crops look really good. CSA customers, I'll be contacting you all soon about our first dropoffs/pickups.

FOR ANYONE INTERESTED, CSA SHARES ARE STILL AVAILABLE. PLEASE EMAIL sbvargo@verizon.net for information.

State of the Onion

The state of the onion is good.



Spring so far has been unusually cold and wet - we certainly need the precipitation, but plant growth and germination has been slow. We even had light frosts the past couple nights! But, I think that we are finally there. There were Gray Treefrogs, Spring Peepers and Whipoorwills singing tonight, and much to my (and my four year old's) delight, we saw a big old blacksnake today.



The first deliveries are likely to be somewhere between middle May/early June. We'll just have to see how quickly things grow with this little warm spell we're having. Things have a way of catching up.

Pac Choi in the greenhouse.

Rows of various spring crops, just peeping out of the soil.


"Sweetie Pie" our farm truck.

Nice big bucket load of compost! Meet your fertilizer!

GETTING A CSA SHARE

Here are some details on getting a CSA share.

VEGETABLES:

Spring: fava beans, lettuce mix, spinach, cilantro, arugula, Chinese cabbage, radishes, beets, various herbs

Summer: carrots, swiss chard, summer squash, tomatoes, basil, sweet corn, eggplant, sweet peppers, hot peppers, cucumbers, snap beans, cantaloupe, watermelon, various herbs, potatoes, sweet potatoes

Fall: winter squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, beets, lettuce mix, arugula, spinach, kale, mustard greens, leeks, cilantro, swiss chard, various herbs

Also, the 2009 seed order is available for viewing on a previous post on this blog.

DROPOFF/PICKUP POINTS:

Charlottesville (at Mona Lisa Pasta, La Taza on Thursdays) and Richmond (at Ellwood Thompson's market on Tuesdays, West End Farmers Market on Saturdays), but you are of course welcome to pick up on our farm. For on farm pickup customers, our farm is located about 10 miles due north of the town of Louisa.

COST:

Half shares are $325/ Full shares $600.

QUANTITIES:

Half shares will provided significant supplemental vegetables to your weekly meals, and full shares are basically double the amount in a half share, suitable for two vegetarians or a family of 3-4. Both share sizes will contain 5-8 different items, and really, it is simply the 'weight' that will vary between the two. Also, as seasonal farming goes, we are always generous with our portions when yields permit.

Average half share weight 4+- pounds, average full share weight 6-10+- pounds. This is just an estimation - boxes always get much heavier at peak season when potatoes, melons, squash, tomatoes are in.

PAYMENT:

An advance payment for your share is needed, as we have to purchase seeds, potting soil and fuel now.

Checks may be mailed to the address below:

Steve Vargo
2356 Vawter Corner Road
Louisa, VA 23093

IF YOU HAVE FURTHER QUESTIONS, PLEASE CALL OR EMAIL US.

sbvargo@verizon.net
(540) 967-5196


o.k., now that's out of the way, so check out these links to articles that Adrianna has written:

http://www.finegardening.com/plants/articles/10-unusual-annuals.aspx
http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/ten-seed-starting-tips.aspx?nterms=74878
http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/4-ways-to-use-cold-frame.aspx

and one from the William and Mary Alumni Gazette written by Callan Bentley, also featuring our good friends Forrest and Nancy Pritchard of Smithfield Farm:

https://alumni.wm.edu/magazine/spgsum_2004/pdf/healthy_harvest.pdf

Ah, Spring!

We did manage to plant 40 (!) rows of lettuces, arugula, spinach, kohlrabi, broccoli raab and kale, as well as three 200' rows of potatoes before the rains. Should be sprouting soon. Let's get some warmer temperatures though! It was cold today. And wet. And Greasy! We flipped the wheels on the Farmall Cub today to widen the wheel base for our cultivation tools - this will allow me to drive the tractor through the gardens without running over our precious plants.



Mice ate up all the seed of our second sowing of tomatoes and eggplants in the greenhouse. So, be it known - if you are a mouse on this farm, you are in TROUBLE! I'm coming to get you!! When it gets a little warmer and the snakes start coming out, I will most certainly transplant a friendly blacksnake or two to a new home in the greenhouse. Plus, a lot of mouse traps....



check out some recent pictures on my friend's Flickr site:




http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliefrick/3377032244/