Greetings Country Valley Farm Community,
CSA shares begin on May 8th! If you haven’t signed up for this year, there is still time and we have room for you.
Once we start we will number the newsletters based on what week in the season we are in, to help create a simple timeline of the progression through the weeks.
There is always something exciting happening on the farm. We find that sharing updates and details each week is a good way to connect with the changing of the seasons, and raise awareness to some of the wonders of nature. We haven’t included many photos in our newsletters in the past but are looking at how to best do that. We encourage folks to view our farm page on Instagram @ CountryValleyFarm for photos and additional updates. If there is info you’d like to receive about the farm or other details, we love to talk about and are happy to share.
What’s going on at the farm?
We received about 2 inches of rain over the last 4 days. The weekend brought 2 days in a row with temperatures above 80. This is great growing weather!
The hyacinths were suddenly blooming this morning after not even showing a leaf above ground as of a few days ago. We expect to see asparagus spears emerging in a week or so. We are hearing from neighboring farms that many early blooming plants are about 2 weeks behind last year – anything is possible and crops in Michigan have a way of “catching up” quickly once the nights stop going below freezing. While our last frost date is typically mid-May, it could be earlier or later and we will have plenty of nice produce in the boxes when the season begins.
The radishes, turnips, and tat soi have germinated and are showing little tiny baby leaves growing up at soil level. These crops are okay with the fluctuations in weather that Michigan springs bring, and they will start to grow quickly soon enough.
The cilantro seed has not yet germinated, but we expect to see it any day now.
The garlic crop is shining and progressing at a good rate – there will be green garlic in the first shares of the season.
We got all of the onions planted this weekend. We planted over 12,000 onion sets total, between the red, yellow and white onions. Many of these will be harvested as green onions and scallions, then we will have spring onions with small bulbs and nice green tops, and then eventually bulb onions to carry us through the season and into fall storage.
This week we will be preparing beds for the potatoes, greens, lettuces, and early herbs – our plan is to get all of the beds ready and get those crops planted next week.
We are still actively signing up CSA members!
If you haven’t signed up or know of someone who is interested, please reach out with any questions. You can simply sign up at our website www.countryvalleyfarm.com or you can send us an email at countryvalleyinfo@gmail.com or you can text or call Adam at (831)706-1237. We are here to help! If you’d like to be removed from our newsletter list, just reply to Adam and let us know – we understand folks are busy and it is all good.
That’s all for now.
Warm regards,
Adam Mitchel
Country Valley Farm