Rare treat -- Sweet Cherries!

Hello Friends!

It’s been a troubling week for vegetables in the national press. First, food prices continue to rise at a significant pace. Then the rains wreak havoc on the industrial farmers with the expected outcome of more price increases. And then we hear that we have to throw out those store-bought tomatoes because they could make you sick. (As if a hard, pink, out-of-season “tomato” couldn’t already make you mildly ill.) What are we to do?? Of course, come to the farmers market!

We will have some delightful vegetables for you this week; however, we will also have an unexpected treat. SWEET CHERRIES! When we bought our house six years ago, we got some fruit trees in the deal, two of which were 6-foot tall sweet cherry trees. Bill has been pruning them every year for six years but we have yet to get more than a few cherries from these trees because they usually get moldy in rainy weather or the birds eat all of them in the course of one day. The trees are now 20 feet tall. For some unknown reason, we actually get to eat them this year. We don’t have many (15+ pints), so you’ll have to be very early to get some. I’m including a picture of me up in a tree picking them. I never climbed trees as a kid, although I did read books about kids climbing trees! I just love it. Especially when you’re near the top and the wind blows the branches around. It makes me feel like I’ve just had a big pint of beer … kind of swooshy!

And this weekend we promise … the sun will shine. Bill said that last Saturday the rain came down the instant the market bell rang. We still sold a lot of food, but we also had to compost a boatload of it. So sad! (Of course, the neighbor’s horse was in heaven with all of the head lettuce. He eats it out of our compost.) Our best quote from last week's market came from a 4-year-old girl, whose mom is a major supporter of local food and local farmers. The mom was telling Bill about the barbecue she was having that night. Bill asked her if she'd still have it rain-or-shine. She said, "Yes." Then her daughter said, in a flight of ideas, "You're local farmers so you'll come to the market rain or shine because you don't matter." We're not sure what she meant, but it was darn funny.

Here’s what we’re bringing …

Sweet Cherries!
Salad Mix
Spinach
Arugula
Head Lettuce
Beets
Radish
Green Onion
Green Garlic
Kale
Kohlrabi
Broccoli
Japanese Turnips
Collard Greens
Carrots
Parsley
Swiss Chard

Bill had his first significant setback – he had to till under his first planting of watermelons. Most were dying due to cold weather. Fortunately, he has more in the ground, but it is touch and go with them as well. The cucumber beetles are attacking the seedlings and many of them are starting to die back. Could this be a year without watermelons? Perish the thought!

How do you like this week’s photographs? Bill wanted you to see the new “bottom field” that he’s renting across the road. It’s loaded with soy beans and sorghum sudan grass, both of which Bill planted as a cover crop. Unlike our current 7 acres, which are totally exposed to wind, the bottom field is down by the creek. It’s sheltered from the wind by the row of trees lining Walnut Creek, which makes a nice, creek-y noise next to the field. The soil in the bottom is totally black and crumbly, another major difference from the field we’ve been using. But with all things, there is a down side that many farmers with bottom fields are experiencing this year … flooding AND disease. That’s right. When you’re down in the bottom, there’s no wind to blow away the fungi, etc. that thrive in this sort of wet, soggy weather. So we plan to keep both the upper and the bottom fields in the future as something of an insurance policy – with organic farming, you can’t put all of your eggs into one basket. Disease or pests in one field can be offset by a fine year in the other field.

Bill also wanted to include a close-up photo of his cover crop. (He just bought a new digital camera while I was out of town – I just about killed him.) The land owner, Gail Fisher, let Bill use his vintage (1940s?) John Deere/Van Brunt seed drill. Bill felt like a real farmer doing that!! In the photo you can see the alfalfa, red clover, and oats coming up amidst the dried corn stalks from last year. The bottom field has been conventionally farmed for many years, so we will let it rest and recover this year. What you see in the picture is succession in action. Nature abhors a vacuum, so it’s filling the space with not only our cover crop but also weeds like ragweed and foxtail. The race is on … cover crop versus weeds. This cover crop will be mown as many times as necessary to minimize weed seeds propagated from mature weed plants. It’s an awesome responsibility to tend to 9 acres of new farm land, and Bill just loves it!

We still have Bill’s brother Aaron at the farm. What a bonus! The poor guy decides to spend his “break” from work hanging out at our farm, and it turns out to be two weeks of hard labor. It’s back to his wind turbine job tomorrow!

We’re all working really hard on the farm right now. Today I called home at lunch to see how things were going, and Bill said, “I’m totally behind! All of this harvesting is keeping me from the doing 6 other things that really need to get done!” (He’s harvesting on Tuesdays for the market + Common Ground + Garlic Press, on Wednesdays for the CSA, and on Fridays for the market.) I had to just cut the conversation short and get back to my work. I’ve told him before that I have enough anxiety issues without taking on vegetable anxiety. I mean really. So he called me later to reassure me that everything is actually going OK and that I shouldn’t worry. What a guy (and what a liar!).

Noah got himself a big ol’ black eye over the weekend. My mom’s neighbor girls (ages 14 and 11) were watching Noah and Ben while I attended a wedding, and the boys were extra-squirrely. You know how kids get when they’re A) at grandma’s house B) eating total junk food loaded with who-knows-what C) with babysitters they’ve never met. Recipe for disaster, right? Right. So at some point they were running around like chickens chasing a mouse (have you ever witnessed that? Too funny!) when they crashed into each other … Ben’s noggin into Noah’s eye. The noggin won, of course. The poor babysitters felt so bad. They even called my mom’s cell phone to leave a black eye voicemail. (I didn’t have my cell phone with me. After all, it was a wedding reception in St. Louis . I told them that if something that serious happened to call 9-1-1, not me!) I’m sure they’ll never babysit for us again. Oh well. But back to serious business …

Don’t forget that we’re delivering fresh veggies to Common Ground and the Garlic Press on Tuesday evenings …

On Tuesday evenings Bill delivers produce to Common Ground in downtown Bloomington and to the Garlic Press in Uptown Normal. So if you miss a market or just run out of veggies mid-week, head to Common Ground! And if you need the veggies prepared into a fabulous meal, Garlic Press is right down the road.

We’ll see you at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers Market on Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. – noon. NOTE THE TIME CHANGE!! We’ll also be at the Trailside Market in Uptown Normal, every Tuesday night from 3:30 – 6:00 p.m.

Please pass along these emails to any friends that you may think would be interested. We plan to put out the email sign-up sheet during the market season again. Call us at 467-9228 if you have questions.

Thanks!
Mercy Davison