Spinach, weird weather, pink slime, Easter this week

Happy Easter Week,

 

The market this Saturday is again in Springville, 9:00 until 11:00, at the Community Center downtown.  I'll be there with eggs, spinach, lettuce, stir fry kits, radishes, and green garlic, plus the first asparagus from Local Harvest CSA near Solon.  I'll be able to bring more spinach and lettuce because the plants are getting bigger, and hope to stay in business longer than 30 minutes this week!  Please don't make me regret harvesting more!

 

Picking spinach this spring, one leaf at a time, has helped me remember why we don't grow it for the regular CSA.  Last week, it took me 60 minutes to pick 6 lbs.  At that rate, we'd have to harvest for 12 hours to get enough to give everybody 12 ounces of the stuff.  And that's just on Monday!  We'd do it again on Thursday.  Plus, I'm usually faster than my workers.  So it might take longer!!!  I know how much you all love spinach, and I wish I could figure out how to grow and harvest it efficiently, but I'm afraid we likely have to leave the spinach business to the farmers in California with the laser-flat fields and the 30-foot greens cutting heads on their harvesters.  We've got lots of other wonderful and flavorful greens that we can use instead, like lettuces, chard, beet greens, kale, collards, yukina, bok chois, cabbages, and mustards.  And most of them aren't available in the grocery store.  So actually, you get to eat better since I can't grow spinach!!!  Who knew!!!

 

Everybody keeps asking me how we are doing with the strange/wonderful/dramatic weather this spring.  What I've figured out is that I don't really have time to do all the things I was going to do now plus all the things I was going to do four weeks from now, so I'm just staying on my normal schedule.  I planted snap peas in the field before the nice rain last week; as of last night, they still haven't emerged, which means the soil is still a little too cold for most other crops.  We've got a huge amount of stuff going in the germination house and are starting to bring it home to grow for the next 10-14 days in the hoophouse.  Most of the potatoes will get planted this weekend.  Here is a link to an interesting website describing the Great Warm Wave we've experienced. 

 

And I can't let you stop reading this week without saying something about pink slime.  It's SOOOOO interesting to see how this story unfolds.  We shouldn't be surprised to find out that something that virtually EVERYONE agrees is yucky is being done by food processors (and damaging the reputations of beef farmers in the process) in order to make a few more pennies.  What a great opportunity for consumers to demand more, more, more, more transparency from our food system!!!  And another good reason to get your food from farmers and processors you can know.   And another good reason to support policies that give small, regional food producers and processors the chance to succeed in the land of giants.  Here is a good analysis. 

 

The registration form for the 2012 CSA season is attached.  I'd be honored to grow vegetables for you this year (but probably no spinach!).

 

Have a wonderful weekend.

Laura