Author: Grand Street CSA

I’m quoting in full from Woodbridge Farm’s Facebook page, because there have been a lot of questions about how they weathered last week’s storm:

Hope everyone has made it through last week’s storm okay… We are receiving emails and notes from fellow farmers who have lost almost everything, and the stories and pictures of the devastation to crops and livestock in some areas are shocking. We are thankful here that we sustained no serious damage, and that all animals and people are safe.

We have been out of power for almost a week, and are just getting back online. Luckily, here at the farm, we have a generator that enables us to keep our meat frozen and cheese properly stored so that a storm like this doesn’t take out an entire season’s worth of work. It does, of course, put a large and unexpected dent in our budget, but we are thankful that the year’s work of hay stacking, milking, pasture set-up, cheese making, and especially, the sacred lives of our valuable animals have not gone to waste.

Our entire farm staff has been working incredibly hard, coming to work for harvests, especially last Tuesday, from dark homes, without showers, flushing toilets, hot meals, or laundry. Despite living in powerless homes all week, our apprentices, harvest helpers, and staff have showed up every morning, still ready to go.

Here at the farm, most damage has been relatively minimal. We have many large trees down on the pastures, knocking down fences and making areas unsafe for cattle, but all of our animals survived unscathed, and buildings and infrastructure sustained relatively little damage. Despite being so close to local rivers and streams, we had no flood damage in the fields and most of our crops just looked a little wind-worn.

The crop sustaining the most damage in the field were the tomatoes, so expect that their season will be ending very soon. We were already seeing blight on the plants, although they looked as if some healthy new growth might have continued for a few more weeks. But the already weakened plants did not survive the harsh winds very well and seem to be loosing their steam.

Luckily, we also managed to get many other fruit crops out of the field in an early harvest to prevent more serious damage, including a great-looking winter squash crop. Judging by the looks of the winter squash field after the storm, we are lucky we did.

We were glad to hear that NYC also survived relatively unscathed, and hope the same is true for all of you.

Thanks for your patience and well-wishes as we weathered the power and internet loss and started to clean up the farm.

A nice, long answer from Heather::

Hi CSA Members!

It seems that there are some grumbles and frustrations going around about some of these delicious tempting first fruits only going full share members so I wanted to send out some communication to help the whole community understand what’s going on with this.

As a technical ‘half share’ member myself I can say that my eyes too have been longingly following the red globes gracing the baskets of full share members as they collect their vegetables here at the farm. That wonderful season of color and diversity and juicy fruit is almost upon us and we are all wishing we had more and more!

Right now, we are just starting to see fruit ripen on our zucchini plants in the field and on our tomatoes in the greenhouse. There are two reasons why there is not very much right now.

The first reason is that when the plants first start to develop, there is never much fruit. The first fruiting is oh-so-exciting, but is usually just 1-2 at at time from each plant. Once they get their juices flowing and the sun starts heating up, things start to progress much more rapidly and we hope to see much more ripening together at the same time. They’re just practicing right now, gearing up for the height of the season.

Secondly, we plant these things in succession. So only half of our zucchinis are actually producing ripe fruit now. The other half are flowering and tiny fruits are just starting to fill in. Also, some varieties come in faster than others. So of the half that are actually producing ripe fruit, two of those varieties (out of six) are still not quite there yet. Soon they will catch up, and by the time they do, the other half of plants will be fruiting as well. This is when we start to have enough for everyone to have some (and hopefully plenty!).

Similarly, we are just getting tomatoes now from the greenhouse. We have about 200 plants in there now that are producing fruit, while we have over 500 tomato plants in the field. These too are beginning to flower, and shape fruit, but it hasn’t quite ripened yet. Once we are able to harvest from these plants (over 12 varieties all together!) the harvest will be much more substantial.

When we just have a very little amount, like the last two weeks, there is sometimes not even enough to give one tomato or zucchini to each half share, especially since there are so many more half shares than full. We have also heard from you in the past that 1 tomato or 1 zucchini is not too helpful in making a meal. So we’re trying to give what we do have to the CSA somehow, and right now that means just sending to full shares. We always try to make up for that extra vegetable by sending an even amount of something else (note that this week for example everyone got the same amount of lettuce…. last week, peas).

I know it hurts! I am jealous of those full shares too! But please be patient, as we are working with the inflexible mysteries of nature and they are just gearing up to give us all some love.

Thanks,
Heather

Lettuce (or possibly salad greens)
Swiss Chard
Cabbage
Peas
Fresh Garlic
Herbs (dill or basil)
and probably some extras for full shares from our fruiting crops that are just starting to produce: zucchinis or tomatoes.
Don’t worry, there will be much fruit to come for all shares soon, farm blessings willing!

Heather notes on Facebook that the tomatoes are from the greenhouse, just a small prelude to what should be coming later this month from the field. She also writes about the nutrient density course that she and Julia have been following this summer and what that means for our kale, and about the importance of a living soil cover, like rye and clover, in keeping the crops healthy.