Monday, June 15, 2009

New Blog!

Hey everyone - we've moved to a new site.

Check it out here: http://redplanetvegetables.wordpress.com/

Friday, June 12, 2009

Change of plans for Saturday

Tomorrow I wanted to start a new routine; taking care of our gardens in Providence, because they're both in need of attention. But because of all the rain we got, and my week that was so heavy with harvesting, Mathewson Farm needs us more. So if anyone wants to join me, I will be there by 10 (I might try and do a little housework when I get up). I'll leave Johnston by 2, hopefully, because New Rivers should be nutty with mayors. Let me know if you can join me!

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Farm Work Schedule This Week: Come put in your hours!

Hey everyone,
Sorry I've been at MIA the last few weeks, but I'm back on track and going to encourage all of you to head out to Johnston and join Catherine and Matt in the field.
Christie and I joined the two out at Matthewson site on Monday for an afternoon of transplanting tomatoes, spicy hot peppers, and great discussion about local and global agriculture under the shade of the trees.
One cool thing I learned yesterday was the spicy and sweet peppers have to be planted far apart, otherwise the spicy pepper will spread their spicyness to the sweet peppers. So we planted a row of hot peppers, to be followed by mild, then eventually sweet, alternating colors as we went to help Catherine and Matt tell the difference between the dozens of varieties they plant each year.

But now its your turn to head out the farm, get your hands dirty and make a dent on your sweat equity hours.

Here's the schedule for the rest of the week:

Wednesday: Harvest and Pick Up Day - Johnston
Catherine could use about two people for some harvest help after 9.
She could also use someone around 3 to help with CSA set-up.

Thursday: Farmers Market and Transplanting Day
They will be harvesting in the morning for the afternoon farmers market and could use a hand or two.
If the afternoon hours, join Matt for prepping beds and transplanting

Friday: Maintenance Day
We need some people to do some mowing, weeding and mulching.
Ideally catherine wants to regular help with this, especially mowing.

Saturday: Catch Up Day at the City Gardens
More info to come...

We'll have a sign up sheet at the farm for the pick up this wednesday - try to find some time to put in an hour or two in the next week. Catherine, Mat, and the fields would greatly appreciate it!

For a few of you who have already gone out (thanks for updating the spreadsheet!) - what are your stories? Post your stories to the comment section or email me and I can post them for you.

If you can come out tomorrow (wednesday) to help with the harvest or CSA set-up, please email me: hannah@farmfreshri.org, or catherine at marsfarmer@yahoo.com.

Thanks!
Hannah

Pick up Tomorrow

Just a reminder that we will have a pick up tomorrow, June 10. I will start picking in Johnston around 9:30, before that I will be at the city gardens picking herbs. Let me know if you'd like to pitch in! As I've said before, I could use some help with the set up, starting around 3. Hopefully it will be a dry day. See you then!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Because Mercury is retrograde....


I didn't realize we weren't picking up yesterday, so the girls and I got to the farm plenty early to do some work before our pickup. We had a great time. We planted four rows of corn, which will hopefully be heavy with organic corn deliciousness in about 65 days, despite 3 pairs of little feet that couldn't remember to walk on the grass paths instead of in the lovely loose tilled dirt. I dug my first (uneven) furrow, and thoroughly appreciated Matt's patience with three active little ones. We also made friends with the chickens and dreamed about goats and cows. And we learned that the field is low in potassium, which can be easily remedied when we get together soon (say June 27 or 28?) for a potluck/grill work party--the ashes from burning wood can be applied to the field to raise its potassium levels. (Right?)

Thank you guys for sponsoring such a great, natural farm!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

No Pickup next week!

Just about everybody heard this from me yesterday, but I want to remind everyone that next week is a no pickup week. Opal is finishing school, and there's a lot to take care of; plus the FARMERS MARKET starts up, which always feels like a huge thing. I hope to have some time to work on our organization. Like posting a schedule. But also to look back at the first meetings and emails and figure out who wanted to do what in the CSA.
Party Planner? We need you! Weeders? Come on out! And we are going to need harvest help on a regular basis. It hasn't been too important so far because I've been harvesting more from our two city gardens than at Mathewson farm, and I didn't want to make anyone else run all around like a crazy person (like me) But yesterday it was great to have Donald and Jason picking all that arugula. Now we just need someone to commit to joining us around 3:00 to set up the distribution table. It would help so much!
I hope to hear from the members how they want to get involved. And I can't wait for our first garden party.