A day in the life of harvesting

We spent this morning harvesting, which we do throughout the week. It’s a great way to jump start our mornings and awaken our sense of farming. Being out in the fields while the sun is starting to peak and the dew is glistening on the plants is just beautiful. These are the days I love farm life!
This morning we all jumped in the back of Andy’s truck and recapped on what’s going on in everyone’s life. We all live very different lives, but as soon as we step onto the farm, we come together. Between jokes and helping hands, we are our own crazy little Sol Flower Family.
Andy drove us down Wiltsie Bridge Road on the back of his truck, letting the wind act as a caffeine boost. We arrived in the fields and unpacked the truck of our harvesting tools. There is usually one person we designate in charge of numbers prior to harvesting. They let us know how many of each vegetable and variety we need to harvest and tell us when we have cut or picked enough. This morning that person was Andy; he seemed the most awake. He yelled out the numbers and we all started picking, first starting with kale and working our way to rainbow chard. We picked leaf after luscious leaf until we each had gorgeous edible bouquets of veggies in our hands.

We filled our buckets and set them aside in the shade, diligently working toward the next variety. We were done in less than an hour. Once we finished, we packed up the truck, said goodbye to the rest of the crops and tried to find room to sit or squat as we drove back to the farm.
It seems a Sol Flower tradition to sing absurd songs loudly and out of tune while washing and packing our freshly harvested yield. Smiles across every face, our morning of harvesting is coming to an end… until tomorrow.
We harvest almost every day of the week. Mondays for the Berkshire Co-op, Tuesday for the midweek CSA, Wednesday for our restaurant orders and Thursday/Friday for the weekend at the store, CSA and farmer’s markets. As the summer rolls on, harvesting will continue to play a priority role and consume more time in our days. Makes sense, right? More crops and varieties, more harvesting. Literally from farm to table! We try to harvest the same day or only one day prior to when our produce is needed to ensure quality control. We’ve been told how vast our veggies are and how long they last. It’s great to hear that since that’s our goal.

So go enjoy that yield!! You know where we’ll be…

The CSA Bounty for this Week

Hello to all of you wonderful CSA members,

This week we have some exciting new additions to the amazing bounty of food that we will be sharing with all our CSA members. In addition to the luscious greens and succulent roots we have been providing in your shares in the couple weeks prior, we will introduce:

Mustard Greens

Scallions

Tatsoi

Baby Bok Choy

Summer Squash (If the weather warms and pushes the squash to harvest size)

As the season presses on and the nights get warmer expect us to introduce new items into your shares almost weekly. When you come to our farm to pick up your share of the bounty this week we have the potential to add FIVE new items for you all to choose from! We are working hard to produce and provide our members with the healthiest and freshest vegetables, fruits and flowers every week, so stay tuned and expect many more exciting items to pop up in your shares and at our markets.

Your Farmers at Sol Flower Farm

CSA Share Information for This Week

Hello All CSA Members!

This week we are diligently planning and preparing all of your excellent CSA Shares for Saturday pick-up. This week we have some delightful new items from last week that we're sure you will enjoy. As the heat rolls through and the sun keeps shining expect to see even more new and exciting items popping up in your CSA shares every week! This week you can expect to find:

Bright Lights Swiss Chard

Red Russian Kale

Green Curly Kale

Boston Lettuce

Romaine Lettuce

Red Leaf Lettuce

Salad Mix

Spinach

Arugula

Turnip

Radish

Have a great rest of your week and we will see you all on Saturday.

Sol Flower Crew

The sun is shining, the weather is sweet

We are in full swing here at Sol Flower Farm. We survived the copious amounts of rain and are ecstatic to be back in the fields. The crew is actually out in the fields on this glorious day harvesting our first bounty of 2011!! Lettuces, kale, chard, broccoli raab… yum! We will have our first bounty available today at the Amenia Farmer’s Market between 3 and 7pm. Hopefully you can stop by and say hello to the friendly Sol Flower face of Tracey! She will be our Friday market woman and is looking forward to selling and chatting about our first harvest of the year. We will also be at the Millbrook Farmer's Market on Saturdays throughout the season.

CALLING ALL CSA MEMBERS!!!!

CSA Members and CSA member wanna be’s…. our first pickup will be next Saturday, June 4^th. Tuesday pickup people will start their shares on June 7^th. Anyone who hasn’t paid his or her remaining balance, please do so as soon as possible in order to receive your share. I bet you can’t wait!!! The fields look amazing and plentiful! I know my mouth is watering.

Thanks to all who came out and enjoyed our kick-off season
Plant Sale and BBQ!

The weather cooperated with us right until the last minutes of the day. We did get a little wet cleaning up… well maybe more like drenched, but I think the plants and ourselves needed it! It was great to see some familiar faces again and definitely got our crew excited for this season to begin. And of course a big thanks to Herondale! The burgers and hot dogs from Herondale were delicious, especially when washed down with an iced cold beer and accompanied with a fresh pasta salad with our very own broccoli raab. It was a fabulous, successful day.

We are continuing to sell some plant starts, but they are going fast! If you weren’t able to make it to our kick-ass season opening last Saturday, make sure to stop by this weekend and check out what’s available. Maybe you’ll even want to sign up for a CSA share?! Everybody’s doing it!

Oh Weather, How Mysterious You Are

Hello Farm Friends,

This spring at Sol Flower Farm has certainly been interesting. Battling with wet fields one week and having to irrigate the next made this spring full of surprises and forced the flexible farmer to bend even further. We started off the spring with rain, rain and more rain. As with many farmers across North America we had issues entering our fields to plow, disc and plant. If you weren't aware, working the fields when the soil is to saturated can cause major soil compaction and disturbances in the natural biomechanics of the earth. With that in mind, the moisture in the earth at the beginning of the season caused some issues with timing of plow dates, bed preparation and planting. However, as all farmers must, we overcame these issues with some cooperation from Old Man Weather by taking advantage of every possible opportunity to get into the fields and get down and dirty.

Last week we were graced with sun and dry weather for 7 days in a row. Taking advantage of this glorious weather and the break in the spring dampness we got to planting, and in a hurry! Zinnias, sunflowers, status, asters, salvia and millet all went into our flower field by our lovely greenhouse so we can offer the earliest summer color to brighten up the days and your homes. We were able to plant four beds of onions of all different varieties, as well as, a bed of three varieties of lettuce and beds of fennel, chard, radicchio, beets and carrots.

In addition to planting during the much needed break in rain we had an opportunity to fire up our new plastic mulch layer. Trevor, Jay and Andy were hard at work for a full day inspecting and figuring out the dynamics behind the layer and formatting it perfectly for our specific needs here at Sol Flower. Laying the plastic was a challenge at first but after a few attempts we got it down to a science and laid out 15 rows of plastic! The advantages of planting in plastic are countless but to mention a few are: a reduction in cultivation due to a decreased exposure in growing area and therefore a decrease in the amount of weeds, the ability to trap moisture underneath the plastic to decrease the need for irrigation, and lastly the increase in heat at the root level so that plants can put on a bigger fruit set. Some of the crops that we'll be planting in the plastic layer are cucumbers, watermelon, peppers and eggplants. So be prepared for some big, luscious, healthy vegetables.

This week the weather has turned back to its spring ways and has graced us with a whole lot more rain. Decreasing our need for irrigation (good) but postponing access to our land (bad) we have busied ourselves with greenhouse work and preparation for the busy weekend ahead. Our first market is on Friday in Amenia (3pm-7pm) so we are actively gathering the necessary market supplies and preparing to reacquaint ourselves with our wonderful customers. In addition to our first market of the year we will be holding our annual plant sale on Saturday (May 21st) from 9am-4pm. Andy, Hayley, and Jay are busy creating inventory lists of all the available plants for sale, creating labels and designing and putting up signs all over the area. Stop by and say hello.

The Sol Flower Farm Crew

Season Opening

What would the season be like without a kick-off BBQ and Plant Sale?? I can't even imagine! Come join us this Saturday, May 21st and see what's going on at Sol Flower and Herondale Farms!

We will have plenty of starter plants for your gardens at home. Tomatoes, Peppers, Kale, Lettuces, Herbs, Eggplant, Cosmos, Zinnias, and more! No time to dig in the dirt? Sign up for our CSA! Reap the delicious benefits of our fields with weekly shares of vegetables and herbs. Sign up now! We will start harvesting in the next couple of weeks and won't stop until late fall.

Check out our website for more information www.solflowerfarm.com We will be happy to answer any questions you may have this Saturday! Did we mention we're excited for our opening Saturday? Hope to see you this Saturday!

SATURDAY!!!

Friday (the day before Saturday) marks the date of our first Amenia Farmer's Market! We will be there May 20th from 3-7pm. Come help support your favorite, local farmers!

These two events are both great opportunities to meet the new crew at Sol Flower. Please be sure to stop and introduce yourselves.

Be sure to check back for more updates... coming soon!

Gearing up for Spring!

Well it's been awhile! I certainly have enjoyed a winters nap but I am now feeling a little over it. I have been spending this month getting geared up for our 2011 bounty. We are adding some new varieties to our fields this year and much needed equipment to help us grow more efficiently. Its hard to imagine that we will ever see the brown earth again but I know it will be here soon enough. In fact we will fire up the greenhouse in a couple weeks for our onions.
We are very excited to increase our CSA membership this season so tell any all your friends if you enjoyed your share last year and point them to our website.
So lets just hang tight and enjoy our last cozy nights by the fire, sipping red wine and dreaming of sugar snap peas.... or at least I will.