Main Season Harvest #2 (Week B) should include salad radishes, salad turnips (hakurei), kale, green garlic (whole plant is edible at this stage), head lettuce, lettuce mix, bok choy, swiss chard, cilantro, dill, and a bonus assortment of storage roots (potatoes, maybe daikons, rutabaga, and beets). Some items will be a choice. U-pick should include a small handful of herbs (please bring scissors) and strawberries.

Meteorological summer begins this week. It feels like just yesterday we were planting spring crops and worrying about frosts and freezes. Most of the traditional summer crops like zucchini, cucumber, watermelon, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant are now in the ground and are probably appreciating these warm and long days

Field space is quickly being consumed by crop production. Probably about 75% of the farm has been planted or will be by the end of June. In order to get crops in the ground we begin preparing about a month in advance. We take our time with soil/ground preparations, enlisting the help of mother nature along the way. Before each crop gets planted we make 4 or 5 passes with the tractor. If there is plant residue, either in the form of a cover crop or a previous cash crop, we shred it up with the flail mower. We then chisel plow to open up and aerate the soil (vertical shanks spaced about 12" apart, no inverting of soil, structure left largely intact). We wait a week, use our disk bedder - which is equipped with two sets of two disks, a few s-tines to loosen soil, and a rolling basket to break up clumps and level the bed - to hill or mound the soil and rough in raised beds. Another week passes, weeds hopefully germinate after a rain event, soil microbes digest some organic matter and convert it into food for the following crops, and we then come through with our cultivating bed shaper which is equipped with s-tines, side knives, and a shaper pan, to put the almost-finishing touches on the raised bed. Ideally another week goes by and we have another rain even to stimulate weed seed germination and we hit the beds one final time before planting. With each pass of the tractor and tillage tool we deposit a small amount of organic fertilizer right onto the bed where it gets mixed into the soil. These are techniques 14 years in the making and are continually updated and evaluated.

Please consider joining us this week. With the wet and hot weather the weeds are growing like mad! We'll attempt to weed the carrots and onions.

This week's workshift schedule:

Bring gloves, water, a hat, sturdy shoes, and a pad for kneeling (if necessary for you)!

We meet under the large red maple at the end of the barn by the pick up room.

Strawberries and herbs will be available this week, with snow peas following closely behind.

Some U-pick guidelines:

- Check the u-pick board in the hallway for u-pick crops and amounts before picking. Only crops listed on the board are available for u-pick.

- U-pick crops and weekly allotments can be harvested any day of the week, 8am–8pm Monday through Sunday of your pick up week. So if you can’t do your u-pick on your scheduled pick up day, feel free to come back any other day that week.

- BYO scissors for herbs and flowers.

- We provide half-pint, pint, and quart u-pick baskets for members to measure and harvest into. Please save these and reuse them as much as possible. If you have some that are still in good shape at the end of the season we'll gladly accept them back.

- There will be signs in the field directing you where to go and pick.

- BYO baskets/bags/boxes, to bring your harvest home. Sometimes we have donated shopping bags on hand to pack your shares in, but sometimes we don’t! (Also, our produce is not packaged in any way, so bringing your own bags is important if you want produce kept separate within a larger container. This is a big part of how we play a part in reducing plastic use. One lovely member last year let us know that their plastic waste is reduced by half when they are picking up shares from the farm - great news!)

- Check off your name on the sign-in sheet before collecting your share from the barn. Organized by share size and alphabetically by last name.- Follow harvest amounts written on the chalk boards labeled with your share size (full, half, medium).

- If you need help with anything please feel free to ask a Farm Staffer in the barn for help at anytime!

- Parking is available in the large stone lot at the end of the driveway. Parking next to the barn is available for people with physical challenges and for cars with sleeping kids.