County Press Article
Following is a link to the great followup article that Krystal Johns did on us back at the end of April
http://thecountypress.mihomepaper.com/news/2016-04-27/News/Fresh_from_the_FARM.html
CSA updates
3.5" of rain so far today has me trying to get caught up on "inside" work :)
Hopefully everyone has enjoyed the strawberries, following is the finalized CSA share pickup schedule for the rest of the season:
- Week of June 20th (next week) - No pickups
- Week of June 27 - 1st week of shares, including the first batch of chickens
- Week of July 4 - No pickups. We have found over the last couple of seasons that many of our shareholders head out of town for the week, so we going to try and fit in a couple of vacation days this week as well and will not have any distributions
- Week of July 11 - Until hard freeze (hopefully late October) - normal pickups each week
Following are some photos I took in between rain showers this morning to help give you a feel for crop progress
Hoop house #1 with Leaf Lettuce, Cucumbers, and Tomatoes
The hoop house tomatoes have a significant head start on their outside counterparts!
Super excited about the heavy blossoms on the blackberries in hoop house #2
Potatoes were just recently hilled and weeded.
Outside tomatoes are starting to make progress and just about up to the first level of string
Planting Progress Report
Our primary round of planting is now complete! We will still have our weekly succession plantings of carrots, lettuce and other greens, but the bulk of the work related to putting in transplants and seeding corn, beans, squash, cucumbers, etc is now behind us :) We are experimenting with a number of weed reduction techniques this season, one of which is the use of a weed block paper that is approved for organic production, it has added a fair amount of time to the planting process, but will hopefully payoff with a significant reduction in weeding hours over the next several months.
Cabbage and broccoli on the new weed block paper
First planting of sweet corn has emerged
The apple trees at our leased orchard had heavy blossoms this spring on the Macintosh and Red Delicious and moderate levels on the Golden Delicious. Unfortunately we had a couple of clear, cold nights after bloom - we were actually sub-freezing on May 16th, and 18th - with a heavy frost the morning of the 23rd. As a result, fruit set was not nearly what we had hoped for, but fortunately not all of the blossoms were damaged and we should still have some apples this fall. The picture below is of one of the Red Delicious trees that does have some fruit started. (You can still see some of the brown blossom ends that were the result of the freeze)
Some of our Red Delicious just getting started
Strawberries in the hoop house are starting to ripen up! Distributions of the strawberries will begin this week and go through the next couple. Watch you email for notification as to when your pickup time will be.
Sunday's berry harvest
The chickens will be entering their 8th week and are growing quickly. They do seem to be better foragers than our previous Cornish Cross varieties. I'm very interested to see how the final weights come out
The chickens are "sizing up" nicely.
It looks like the first week of regular of share distribution will be either the 3rd or 4th week of June, depending on how well the weather cooperates. We finally got some rain last evening and have had a couple additional storms move through today. Before the 1.7 inches we received last night, we had only received 0.3 inches over the prior 20 days!
One of the Killdeer nesting in our fields (all three eggs hatched and are now little fuzzballs running around)
Updates will be coming more frequently now as we are getting closer to season kick off!
Awesome Eggs
I've shared the details around our source for eggs with several of you individually, but wanted to give some additional insight and background around the the cool chicken activities over at the Roehrer family farm. I met the Roehrers back in 2014, we share many similar interests and ideas related to farming and food production, and several of their older children work with us on the farm during the season. Knowing their commitment to sustainable, healthy production, made them a natural partner that allowed us to be able to offer delicious, organic eggs as an option to our shareholders each week. Following is a brief history of their farm and flock:
Our small farm in Ortonville was established in 2000, with our chicken flock
beginning in 2010 when our eldest daughter expressed her new-found love for
chickens after “chicken sitting” for a friend. And so it was, our very first flock
was established.
After our family of ten experienced the sheer joy of raising baby chicks, we
then began to reap the benefits of farm-fresh pastured eggs, and the rest, as
they say, is history! There was no going back to store-bought eggs ever
again.
We currently grind and mix our own feed, as we found it difficult to find
organic, soy-free feed. Now we are able to be in complete control of the
ingredients in their diets without any surprises. We only procure organic, non-
GMO, soy-free ingredients from regional farmers. Food scraps are limited to
organically raised fruits and vegetables. In keeping with natural practices, we
gently wash our eggs with only cool, clean water.
Due to the large population of fox and hawks in our area, our chickens reside
in a “gated community” for their safety. They have an abundance of room to
run, sunbathe, dust bathe, eat bugs, scratch, forage, and play “worm football”.
Our birds enjoy the great outdoors year round yet have access to large,
roomy coops at their desire.
We take pride in raising healthy, happy chickens for our family, and we are
pleased to be able to share their eggs with you as well.
