Farm News - May 17

The farmer is taking some time out of running around the fields, moving chickens, seeding trays and other interesting things to write a farm report for your perusal.  We hope you enjoy it.

2015 Farm Share CSA
We hate to keep harping on this.  But, our CSA's capacity is 120 shares.  (about 100 standard size and 20 large).  At present, we are sitting just below 100 shares sold.

We certainly understand that everyone's life goes through changes and that CSA farm shares don't always fit into that life.  But, if you have been procrastinating joining this year - the time to act is now.

Help with Using Your Shares in 2015
Here's a motivator for all of you!  Our intern for 2015 has just come from culinary school and she wants to help ALL of us to use our veggies.  CSA share holders, you are in for a treat this year.  And, for those of you who were on the fence prior to this - you should jump off that fence and join, this has the makings to be something special.

Plant Sales
Our next Cedar Falls plant sale is at Hansen's Outlet from 4pm to 6pm on Friday, May 22.  Come visit us.  We follow that up with the Waverly Farmer's Market on Saturday, May 23 from 8:30-11:30am.

This year, we are featuring Black Cherry and Wapsipinicon Peach for smaller tomatoes.  We still have plenty of Silvery Fir Tree tomatoes for pots and lovers of the big tomatoes (German Pink, Gold Medal, Hungarian Heart, Italian Heirloom) can still come and pick them up.  You want sauce tomatoes? We've got alot of Amish Paste, Opalka, Speckled Roman and Powers Heirloom plants available.

We hope to have pepper and eggplant next week.  There should be some lettuce, some onions and some other plants as well - all depending on the time we have to prep them.

Iris Fest
Our first festival is Memorial Day!  Mark it on your calendar.  A blog post is upcoming that will feature this event, so we won't put too many details here.  But, plan on attending, it should be fun.

High Tunnel
So, why is the 25th Edition of the CRC Standard Mathematical Tables above this title?  It is there because of this:

I needed to determine how big the plastic needed to be for the old high tunnel since we will need to replace it this year.  I still remember my formulae for the perimeter of things like circles... But, the top is not exactly a circle.  So, I went to the trusty CRC to remind myself of the formula required to determine the distance of the arc given the distances I could easily measure. 

Parents!  Tell your kids that you know a farmer who used math in a practical application!  Kids!  Tell your parents you want your own copy of the CRC!

Crop Report
The potatoes are in.  All of them.  We've never accomplished this by mid-May since we scaled up (about 2008).  Part of that is a function of the weather and soil conditions.  There are several years (such as 2012) that nothing we could have done would have changed it.  But, this year, we've had decent weather AND we have better tools to help us accomplish these tasks more efficiently.

The peas, carrots, turnips, radish, spinach and mustard greens have all germinated for us.  The production tomatoes are all selected and potted.  The peppers are potted.  The first succession of brassica are in trays and ready to plant into the field once it dries.  This is also true for cucumbers, summer squash, zucchini and melons.

Oh, and we have 3 beds of onions in.  Each bed is about 200 feet long and each bed has three rows of onions.  So, we estimate that we've put in about 4500 plants.

Communicating with GFF
If you wish to communicate with us, you should use our email address (gff@genuinefauxfarm.com).  If you are interested in getting onto our egg email list, you should use this email address (eggs@genuinefauxfarm.com).  Please note that we try to respond quickly, but usually we aren't reading the day's email until after 10pm at night this time of year.  The energy level isn't always there to respond to complex queries.  We still intend to reply and will do our best to do so.  But, if you have inquired and not received a response, please be patient AND send us a reminder.  We're not ignoring you, we're just trying to pack too much into our days right now.

I won't post our phone number on the blog.  But, if you are CSA members, customers, etc, you likely have the number or can get it from us.  Remember to leave a message if you call.  During most of the daylight hours, Rob is not in a position to easily answer the phone.  Yes, he does have a cell phone. Yes, it does have decent reception on the farm.  But, he's not able to hear it if he's running the tiller, or the tractor.  He won't answer it if he's carrying buckets of water and he likely won't answer it if his hands are too muddy to handle the phone in the first place!  Give me an idea of what is needed in your message so we can efficiently get back to you.  And, of course, if you don't hear back, give us another call.  I've been known to fat finger and delete, rather than save, a message.  There is grumbling to be heard at the farm when that happens - so accept apologies in advance and help us out. Thanks!


Poultry
We just moved the nuggets (meat chickens) to the pasture area and we let them out of the horse trailer every day so they can run around.  The young hens (henlets) have been placed in a flair box and are out on pasture as well.  they are checking out pasture for the first time this weekend.  The turklets and ducklings arrive in June.  The adult ducks have been enjoying the rain, but stopped laying eggs several weeks back.  The Appleyard ducks like to stand in a line in front of Rob and tell him what he's doing wrong.  The hens appear to be doing well and loving the nice weather.