Hello Farm Family. I hope this newsletter finds all of you well despite the fact that we are in the middle of a heatwave. The Summer temps coupled with the humidity are brutal.I shared on our social page yesterday that when I was finished with work yesterday at 6 pm, it was 91 degrees! Like why?

Enjoying the Summer is going to be difficult at best with temperatures like these. Now of course we had to go out in it to tend to the animals and check on the plants. Doing these things have become a must to ensure that everyone and everything stays alive. I was only out for a short while, but I was a sweaty mess. The morale of this story is to stay hydrated.

We just closed out the 8th final week of our Spring CSA session for Kith & Kin and as always we are thankful for our members. Eggs were the star of the season for Spring. The hens began laying in late Winter and they’ve been popping them out like crazy. We’ve had a couple of egg sales to keep up with them all. If you missed them, then you must not be connected to our social pages. You can find us on both Facebook and Instagram under our farm name.

We just harvested the biggest haul of potatoes ever on our farm from our in ground bed shown below. The good news is that we had about 85 pounds total this year and for a small family farm like ours, that’s huge!

I do have to mention that these were planted in the beginning of April which is extremely late for our area. Normally we plant potatoes in February and as a result of the late planting many were waterlogged due to the excessive rain we had over the past few months. So the lesson is to plant on time! We are looking forward to next Spring when we can do just that,

Remember those free seeds I mentioned in our last Newsletter? Well they turned out to produce a lot of food! The tomato variety was simply called “Beefsteak” and the cucumbers were I think the “Straight Eight” Both were from the organic line by Ferry Morse. It was my first time working with these seeds, but I was pleasantly surprised. The only thing I would mention is that we are so used to a genuine heirloom tomato so the taste of these ones were a little bland to me straight off the vine. If that doesn’t bother you then go for it.

We grew the “Homestead” variety from Ferry Morse as well which had better flavor, but the texture was on the more mealy side for me. This is why we run trials. It helps us to see what other varieties are out there and we get to experiment to see what we like and we think all of you would like as well. If you are a home gardener and just aren’t sure what varieties would work for your family, these are a few options that were very prolific. Since our growing season lasts most of the year, it’s not too late to start from seed.

In the picture below you will see all three varieties(along with some freshly pulled carrots) The cucumbers got aways from us so they are way bigger than usual.

I started out the newsletter mentioning the temperatures because the weather has been extremely hot lately. Yesterday we lost 9 baby birds who would have hit the two week mark today. Losing animals is like taking money and burning it to farmers because you’ve also lost what feed, water, and supplies, you’ve purchased for that animal as well. So when animals die it is such a burden.

If you have outdoor animals of any kind, this weather is so hard for them so do what you can to protect them. Also keep yourself hydrated by drinking water to prevent overheating. Currently as I type this, it is before 9 am and already 85 degrees, so please take care. We also use electrolyte packets in our water because it’s important to replenish all that we’ve sweated out. I encourage you to try it if you have to be outdoors for any extended period of time.

Over the weekend I was harvesting some vegetables for my our family and decided to pack my parents a box as well. What you see below is their personal box, but I packaged it just like I would for our Seasonal Farm Boxes.

For those of you looking for Turkey Day birds, they are now listed! In the past these birds have sold out quick so if you’re interested, please don’t wait. We usually do not have extra and we especially will not have any birds to sell come November.

This month we will be cleaning up the garden, pulling out plants that were damaged by bugs, not producing, etc. Clean up also includes fighting with weeds which is always a huge struggle. After this, well really during the clean up we will be succession planting zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, okra, and more. All of this is really an ongoing cycle as we try to get it done around the hottest times of the day.

We will also be getting the Winter squash set out into the garden and preparing schedules for the Fall season of Kith & Kin CSA which starts in October. As always we are accepting members both old and new and would love to have you join.

We appreciate you all and thank you for being a part of our farm family. We will try our very best to update you again next month. Until then…..