Welcome to our 2nd Harvest Week, our 24th Season as a Biodynamic CSA Farm!
For those of you receiving a half share this week, we hope that you enjoy your first box of the season.

Farmer John Writes Why You Have a Farm.

Why You Have a Farm
You have a farm supplying your vegetable and herbs today because of my mom, Anna Peterson Porter. She loved the farm and she supported it in any way she could.
She passed away in 1998. Some of you knew her.

I saw a worker hoeing a thistle on Saturday. I said to her, “if my mom saw a thistle patch, she ran and got her hoe, and started hacking away at them until they were all gone.”

A plumber came out a while back to do some repairs. He’s my age, 65. We were walking past the farmhouse and he said, “I had your mom for a teacher in grade school. I still carry her in my heart.” He said it in those exact words.

I went to a friend’s high school graduation party last weekend. Several of her aunts were there. One after another, they talked about my mom, who had been their grade school teacher in the 50’s. One of them said, “I was very lucky. She changed my whole relationship to reading.”

On Saturday, I went to a visitation at a funeral home for a neighbor. His daughter was there. I had not seen her in maybe 60 years. She said, “We used to come to your farm a lot when we were little. You had a big tire swing in your yard. I remember your mom vividly. She was most special. I can still hear exactly what her voice sounded like.”

My wife Haidy and I live in the renovated Bamlett Schoolhouse across from the farm. My mom taught there in the 30’s, when it was a one room school. A student of hers told me, “after school, she ran down that quarter-mile driveway to the farm lickety-split, so she could harvest a load of ear corn by hand before dark.”

If you ever met Anna, you probably still remember her. There would be no farm today, if not for her.

The Weather

Heavy Rains
Rains pounded our fields early this week, splashing mud on the lettuce, and to a lesser degree, other leafy greens. We don’t wash the head lettuce, because it’s a tremendous job to wash it and then have it drip-dry to the right moisture level over the next many hours. Also, many of the lettuce varieties we grow are delicate, and the extra handling from washing can mangle the outer leaves. So, please take extra care washing the lovely soil from your farm off of your lettuce leaves.

Sometimes we Bag the Lettuce
If the delivery day is going to be hot, say over 82 degrees or so, we bag your lettuce to help it retain it’s coolness and moisture. We don’t love using the extra plastic bag for your lettuce, but we want your lettuce to arrive as fresh and cool as possible.

We’ve enjoyed perfect growing conditions for the early crops: lettuce, broccoli, pea shoots, spinach,
radishes, and turnips.

The Work
We always have you, the shareholder, in mind, when approaching the work–how to make sure you receive a full box of nutritious vegetables week after week. There is a possibility of heavy thunderstorms this week. If we get to the necessary fieldwork before the storms, we’re fine. If the storms come first, and we are not current in weeding, seeding, trellising, transplanting, and hilling, by the time we can get back into the fields, we have a messy backlog of work on our hands. At Angelic Organics, we strive to always be a little bit early with our work, to outfox the weather. This past week, we ramped up our field activity, because of the threat of storms. We weeded winter squash, melons, cucumbers, Brussels sprouts, and carrots, transplanted lettuce, seeded cover crops, trellised tomatoes, prepared fields for transplanting fall broccoli and cabbage, mowed established cover crops and driveways, and hilled potatoes, all the while harvesting for and packing hundreds of CSA boxes.

The Crops
Everywhere we look on the farm, the crops are flourishing!

Sign up for the Free Recipe Service!

Make sure you sign up for the Local Thyme recipe service we offer with this year’s share. It received many great reviews from our shareholders last season. Sign up at http://www.localthyme.net/register. Enter the farm code (found in the newsletter in your box) under “I belong to a CSA.”

Let us Know
Let Shelly know anything you’d like to share about this week’s box email hidden; JavaScript is required . Please note the week and day of delivery, your site, when you picked up your box, and any comments about your box.

Want to Contribute to Farm News?
If you’d like to submit a story (600 to 800 words) about your shareholder experience, farm volunteering, a Learning Center program you loved, or your hosting of a delivery site, send it to email hidden; JavaScript is required with the subject: My Submission to Farm News. Photos are also welcome.

Please Fold Your Boxes Properly and Return Them to Your Site
The farm re-uses the vegetable boxes. Flaps are easily torn when the boxes are dismantled improperly, and then the box bottom might later burst open with fresh, organic local produce heading towards the floor. Please return your empty, flattened vegetable boxes to your delivery site.

Open House, Saturday, July 19 & Saturday, Sept 20
Keep your calendar open for our farm open house on Saturday, July 19 and Saturday, Sept 20 . Kids love seeing their farm, and so do their parents. More details soon.

More from Shareholders
Visit us often at www.facebook.com/angelicorganics , where we post exciting farm developments regularly, and shareholders post recipes, tips, and photos.

Warmly,
Farmer John