Owosso Organics

  Summer has really arrived: the heat, the rains and the weeds! We are still accessing the damage from last weeks rain. We got a total of 5″ for the week and with our heavy clay soil that is just too much for the ground to handle. As of today we know we lost a few hundred tomato plants and the second planting of beans. Luckily there is no rain in the forecast for the week so hopefully we can dry out.

   In the boxes this week:

Growers Choice Salad mix: a lovely blend of salad greens including lettuce, baby beet greens, baby Swiss chard, and spinach. We wash and spin the mix but as always suggest that you wash the mix before you eat it.

Red and or green leaf lettuce: The lettuce is wonderful this time of the year, great on sandwiches, burgers ….

Cilantro: Fresh from the greenhouse.

Turnip greens:  This is a first for us. Use them as you would Swiss chard or spinach. They have a slightly spicy/sweet flavor. Think Gone with the Wind. Cook them is a little olive oil with your garlic scape. Steam lightly.

Garlic Scapes: This is the funny looking twirly things. They are the flower of the garlic plant. We remove this part and it encourages the bulbs to grow. Use the scap as you would a green onion. It had a lovely slight garlic flavor.

 Thanks everyone for bringing your boxes back. I’ll try to do a recipe for the turnip greens later this week. I think we have ironed out the pick-up bugs.

We are here. It is finally time for the 2009 CSA season to begin. Pick-up starts today, June 8 for the Owosso/farm. Pick-up is from 5:00 to 7:00pm.  And Wednesday, June 10 from5:00 to 6:00 pm for the East Lansing/Okemos pick-up at 4919 Van Atta Rd.

   See you all there!!!!!!

richard in greenhouse, owosso organics

    Things are slowly drying out on the farm and we have been able to get some planting done. All of the brassicas are in the ground, leeks went in last week, peas are up, onions are finally in and one of the early greenhouses is planted wall to wall. Now if things could just warm up. The last two nights it went below 32. We are wary of planting the warm crops remembering the frost we got last year on May 28.

   The CSA is now full and we are putting folks on a waiting list or asking them to contct us early next year. Thanks to everyone!  We will contact everyone if we  decide we need to push back the first pick up date.

   It has been quite a few years since we have seen this much rainfall in Shiawassee County in the month of April. I think there has been almost 5″ this month. We have tons of standing  water here at the farm and haven’t been able to even get in the greenhouses. Whereas usually this time of the year we would have most of the early greenhouses planted, we have only about 30% of one of the drier houses planted We are kind of freaking out, well really I am freaking out. Richard is walking around cool as a cucumber as usual talking to me about patience. It’s like the last couple weeks of pregnancy when you are really, really ready for this baby to come out of the cooker but you just have to wait because you have no choice. We have transplants, huge, healthy, beautiful transplants ready to go into the greenhouse and the fields but we just have to wait.  I follow Richard around the farm complaining. Then I remember Doris Day. My mom was a huge Doris Day fan and that is some of the first music I remember as a child. You remember it too (song written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evens) “Que Sera Sera, What ever will be will be.” I calms be down….slightly.

    On the good side our CSA is pretty much full. I will have to put any new inquires on a waiting list. But, we will more than likely have to delay the first pick up until later in June when we actually have food to distribute. I will contact all CSA members on this decision.

I’ll post some pictures of the wet soggy farm this evening after my camera charges.

Owosso Organics Grafting Chamber

     One of the things we are trying this year on the farm is grafting tomatoes. Lots of research, especially out of Cornell University shows that grafted tomatoes are much higher yielding and grafting helps control the foliage growth which is especially important in the greenhouse. We will plant some in the greenhouse but we thought we may trial some in the field and see how they do. We started about 200 rootstock plants in February and we are doing the grafting today. It’s really important to provide a very warm, very humid healing chamber for four or five days after grafting, so Richard built this out of scrap materials from the cooler project.

   The nursery greenhouse is almost full! We will move into the Quonset greenhouse (30′x45′) in a couple weeks. It is amazing how fast things move along once the earth warms up.

   Thanks for all the shareholders who have signed up already.

inside nursery greenhouse

Here are some things growing in the nursery greenhouse. Spring is here!

Little tomato plants

owosso organics nursery greenhouse

    We are planting seeds everyday and have loads of activity happening in the nursery greenhouse. I wanted to post some pictures so you can see what the nursery greenhouse looks like, some baby plants etc. It is our smallest house at 9′x45′, so is the easiest to heat which we do with a simple propane heater.

   We have begun to take CSA shareholders commitments for the 2009 season. All previous shareholders should have gotten a brochure in the mail last week. If for some reason you didn’t receive a brochure from the farm, e-mail me and I will get one out to you ASAP. More than likely we will take approximately the same amount of shareholders as last year so if you know you want to do CSA again this year, don’t delay. Good to hear from all of you. I’ll add pictures later.

     We are up and running! Most of the seeds have arrivedfrom our favorite seed companies and we have started planting. Yesterday we seeded in some leeks, snapdragons, early greenhouse tomatoes and the first lettuce of the season. I plan to send out the 2009 CSA brochures on March 1 so you should be getting them in the mail next week. If you did not get a brochure and  would like to join our CSA or just find out more info, e-mail me your adress and I will get one off to you. We are very excited about this season with some new veggies varities to try and some refined planting schudules to keep those veggies coming all season long.I hope to do some regular blogs to keep everyone updated on our season.

The thermometer reads -4 degrees this morning! Wow, about makes your snot freeze when you go outside.  My good buddie, CSA member and fabulous musician Doug Berch continues to teach me more about managing this website so hopefully I will be able to add some pictures and have a continuing communication via this blog part of Owosso Organics. I’m working on getting the 2009 CSA  brochure up on the website so folks can download a copy, fill it out and mail with payment to the farm.  I’ll be mailing all former CSAers a copy in February.  For now, here are some pictures from last year so we all still remember what the weather was like when it was warm.  Stay warm everybody.

Bitter cold winter day.  Sadly,our big winter greenhouse collapsed on December 19 due to heavy snowfall followed quickly by 25+ mile per hour winds.  We are waiting to hear from our insurance company to see what will happen for rebuilding. It is very sad to look at each day right out the front door of the farmhouse. Also a ton of cleanup work once the weather warms. Other than that we are ordering seeds, working on the website and planning for this spring. Keep in touch. I’m hoping to be adding some pictures soon also the 2009 brochure should be on the website soon. I will be mailing everyone a brochure via snail-mail in February. Stay warm everyone…