Farm Message for Saturday, February 27, 2010

Star Hollow Farm News
For the week preceding Saturday, February 27th, 2010
Hi folks,
Is it Spring yet? I haven't talked to one person yet that hadn't had enough of winter already. That snow that blanketed DC two weeks ago (and our farm as well) is still on the ground, but it has been melting here for a day or two, and while everything is still white, it is now only six inches or so deep in most places. The piles of snow – where I piled it while cleaning the roads – will probably be here until April though. One part of our house roof – over our bed, unfortunately – did spring a leak where the 24 inches of snow has just sat continuously, trapped there by a valley and the snow-birds on the roof, and I am not going up there to try to free it up, as it is sloping, wet metal on the second floor, so we're just hoping the snow melts off soon. Hope you all made it through without any serious problems.
Winter storage crops: We occasionally are asked – in the middle of the winter – if our storage crops are fresh. I usually take a deep breath and ask the person what they mean, since they certainly realize that we're not digging down through two feet of snow to harvest our potatoes. Most of the roots that we are offering were harvested sometime between September and December. Occasionally, if there is a warm spell without snow and, if the ground isn't frozen, some things left in the ground can still be dug, but not most. So you realize if you order rutabagas or carrots or potatoes that they have been sitting in our cooler for months, and while we try to keep them as best we can, their quality certainly is not improving over time.
Some storage crops are starting to show their age. We hope that your “tolerance quotient” will increase over the next month or so, realizing that it's lower quality or nothing! Thank you in advance. We don't mean that we're intending to start sending you junk and you have to take it; just that hopefully you won't mind trimming a little more than usual. If you get something that requires trimming more than say, a third of the total, please let us know and we'll give you credit.
Winter Schedule (NOTE: deliveries are every other week):
Delivery dates remaining: Feb. 27, Mar. 13 & 27. Orders are placed on the Wednesdays prior to delivery. Mark your calendars, and remember to order for two weeks instead of just one.
Star Hollow produce: Last time we delivered our own farm's storage crops from last Fall they were CERTIFIED ORGANIC; now, two weeks later, they aren't. I don't really know how they determined the Feb. 15 deadline, but that was it, so now our crops are magically different!
I thought I should re-state or clarify that we still think of ourselves as organic farmers; it's just that now that we're not certified, the USDA says we can't even use the word “O word” in conjunction with our produce. That seems not quite fair, but we certainly realize and appreciate the problems of mis-representation.
Our commitment to raising tasty, healthy, safe produce has not changed, nor has our commitment to produce it in a way that is safe – even beneficial – for the environment. One particular area that we hope to move even further forward with is our use of cover crops and new cover cropping methods to build fertility and improve soil structure, eliminating any need for store-bought fertilizers. FYI, in 18 years farming we've probably used 5 truckloads of imported manure and maybe five 50-lb. bags of organic fertilizers for our crops. So if you know about the problems of fertilizer runoff, the cost of converting petroleum to nitrogen-based fertilizers, and other such concerns, I believe that supporting a farm like ours eliminates all those negatives. And we're trying to take it even further, improving what we have by what and how we grow. (Sorry if that sounds like bragging, I didn't mean to, just wanted you to know what we're about here, in case you thought that us dropping organic status meant that somehow we didn't care any more!)
CSA-Specific Information
Planned CSA produce for this week:
This week: Two-week box includes Romaine and bibb lettuce, carrots, onions, garlic, 2# gold potatoes, a salsify / scorzonera mix, rutabagas, white sweet potatoes, fruit jam and a mix of apples.


Thanks for your support!
Randy, Chris and all at Star Hollow Farm
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