Farm photos!

Things have been going so wonderfully at the farm. I thought I'd share some photos that have been taken recently out at Mud Creek.

Tat Soi in the morning light-- Bill came out at 6am to help us harvest!

Thursday morning harvest crew brings in the haul.

Aiden with a cabbage bigger than his head:

The shares were HUGE!

Beets are the latest crop to come out of the field.

We harvest even on gloomy, rainy, thunderstormy days.

Swiss Chard looks amazing, its bright colors shining in the field-- it is my favorite thing to harvest.

Chinese Cabbage is super sweet, delicious cooked or even raw.

A few of these weird asian greens have made themselves staple in our salads lately. The Tat Soi looked pretty luscious this week.

In order to give you super clean vegetables, we wash everything really well before boxing it up and storing it in the cooler at 40 degrees for the ultimate freshness. The extra time it takes us to dunk, sort, spray, scrub, and rinse, is worth it when you see the final product!

Turnips: Hakurei (or Tokyo) are the white ones; Scarlet Turnips are the red ones.

A new planting of tomatoes gets watered in with our drip irrigation line:

You know that summer is here when the zucchini start growing like mad.

Pick-your-own sugar snap peas are just about over, but boy has it been a bountiful harvest!

Hope you can make it out for one last picking before the season's over until next year!

Speaking of the season being over, we tilled in the Bok Choi bed, as well as the earliest spring greens. These cool-season plants will quickly make flowers instead of leaves when hot weather's here.

Sadly, the Kohlrabi is almost gone too. Who knew that such a crazy UFO-looking vegetable could be so sweet & crunchy?

Planting continues... we will keep planting for the next month or two, successions of squash, cucumbers, beans, herbs, beets, carrots, scallions, etc. If you want to be involved in any of this, please come out sometime! Evenings are a nice time to work, I am usually out there until around 8:30.

Thanks to farmer/neighbor Jack for fixing the old Farmall Cub so we could hill the potatoes & cultivate!

The grass keeps growing, so I keep mowing.

Everything has just exploded in green since all this rain.

U-Pick flowers are beginning! Hope you have your vases ready for a freshly-picked farm bouquet!

Enjoy the greens (and reds & purples & yellows & blues).

lettuce heads and cabbage heads

While you may have noticed that the heads of cabbage have been rolling in lately, you may also have noticed that our supply of lettuce seems to be dwindling. Do not despair-- there is more on it's way! The problem, though, is that small furry creatures that reside in our field do prefer the tender leaves of the lettuce plants. Over anything they could get in the wild, so it seems. Woodchucks, rabbits, and their young. And hopefully not deer, but the danger is looming of these munchers too. Every day I look for hoof prints. So far, the fence seems to be working.

But we will have slightly less lettuce in our shares for a while, until I figure out the best way to "deal" with the midnight munching problem. There are many holes inside the fence, leading to passageways that a small furry creature might possibly ignore any attempts at "fencing them out"... but we could try. I will probably start trapping them, although it kind of breaks my heart. I suppose it's all part of the food chain, and we, being traditionally "predators" and mostly omnivores, maybe have a duty to fulfill (rabbit stew anyone?). But sometimes I just want to eat salad. I guess we'll have to share this place...

Finally rain!

After a very dry spring, this heavy rain is very welcome. It makes for a muddy harvest...


... but the plants are loving it! Everything glows in shades of green. Tonight a thick fog settled over the fields as I closed up for the night, after a full day planting winter squash, eggplants, zucchinis, carrots, beets, and tomatoes. Another good rain is coming tomorrow to water them all in. No irrigation needed these days-- one chore lifted from my workload. I am trying not to look at the weeds that are growing 10x as fast now. Apparently weeds don't take days off.

Quick yummy stir-fry sauce

Just thought I'd pass along a secret recipe that makes just about any vegetable stir-fry delicious in minutes:

Mix up the following, in proportions to taste:
-Peanut Butter
-Soy Sauce or Tamari
-Maple Syrup or Honey
-Optional "Dash of" but highly recommended: Lemon Juice, Apple Cider Vinegar, Cayenne Pepper

Sometimes you need to water it down a bit, depending on the amount of peanut butter. Mix into a bunch of steamed or stir-fried veggies & enjoy over brown rice.

Farm Potluck Picnic: June 28th

Come out to Mud Creek Farm on Sunday, June 28th from 6-8pm for the first big event of the season.

Bring a dish to pass, lawn chairs, & friends. If you pick up your veggies regularly on Sundays, you are welcome to stash your shopping bags in our cooler for a few extra hours until you leave. A great chance to meet other CSA members & swap recipes!

See you there.

Pick-Your-Own Sugar Snap Peas!

One of the exciting bonuses of being a member of Mud Creek Farm means that you can get up-close & personal with the field where your food is growing.

For the next few weeks, there will be sweet crunchy sugar snap peas available to pick for yourself! Although you can cook this vegetable, you might find that the peas don't make it past the car ride home. Bring the kids!

Leave a little extra time when you pick up your veggies this week, and wear shoes appropriate for the field. Enjoy.

Bountiful harvest! Thanks to all involved!

Mud Creek Farm has been producing some pretty amazing vegetables in the past few weeks, but it couldn't have happened without some pretty amazing people helping out.

Thanks to my family for helping out at distribution:
Thanks to the devoted work-trade members for picking & washing all the produce:

And smiling while doing it...Thanks to Luke for putting in some serious farm-hand hours, and his family for coming all the way from Vermont to build the walk-in cooler for us!Also we have to thank the sun for shining a whole lot, the rain for trying its best, Bob for lending us the land, and all the hardworking earthworms.

What a bounty we are all blessed to share.