April showers bring May showers~ (but not enough)

Happy May Everyone!! It is time to dust off the blog account and get it up and running again as we approach our first CSA harvest on June 2nd!! We have been busy, busy farmer's here at Big Lick and until yesterday we were getting anxious about the diminishing moisture levels in the soil (while we were also enjoying the sunny weather!) Finally we decided it was time to put the irrigation pipe out and get the pump in the river to irrigate. Our '48 farmall cub seems to shine as it hums quietly along the edges of the field. Asinete seems to shine too as he carried the pipes off of the trailer and got them set up in the field. Asinete loves irrigating! It is easy to love to watch the sprinklers come alive and throw rainbow arcs of moisture to the thirsty plants. The ground smelled so wonderful when we turned the sprinklers on.. cooling off the hard, dry ground. Even our early Luscious sweet corn (above) seemed to grow a few more inches by the time the sprinklers turned off! We have had to put the scarecrow out near the sprouting corn since it is a famous treat for crows and jays. So far the scarecrow seems to be working well.

We have put a lot of effort this season into perennial plantings as well with 2,000 seascape strawberries in the ground now and 180 raspberries (assorted variety). We know it will be a wonderful year for fresh strawberries for all! The raspberries will be a more delayed treat as they won't produce much until their second year. This year our 42 peach trees are now entering their second year and we counted 6 peaches from all 42 trees a few days ago. But give those trees a few more years and fresh, chemical free peaches will be part of your baskets each week as well.

With the rain we have had it makes our job of having to hand pull weeds much easier. It is time to sign off since tomorrows project involves hand weeding between our 4,000 onion starts that are starting to be swallowed by the creeping grass.


We are looking forward to a wonderful 2010 CSA season!! Thank you for being a part of it! Once the CSA is under way we will be posting weekly newsletters here with recipes and updates of what's growing and going on at your farm!