Dear Friends and Customers of Many Hands Organic Farm,

Yes, indeed. Friday had to be perfect. At lunch under the flowering crab apple (full of Cathleen’s bees) sported perfect weather.

Dandelions in pond field (top), flowering crab apple (bottom)

I must talk about perennials today, especially the small fruits and tree fruits. They are all moving in or out of bloom right now and look to be in resplendent health. If you grow fruit trees or berries/grapes I encourage you to move into phase two of bringing these amazing plants into fruition. Noted at the bottom of this letter are a handful of sprays and drenches that we are using right now. Truly, I don’t work for Advancing EcoAgriculture, but we did spend some decades with poor to non-existent fruit before we starting making these fertility enhancements.

Expect many apples this year!

Education from the outside world

Don’t miss this podcast from Graeme Sait – The Mycorrhizal Marvel – The Gains From Reclaiming AMF

I also learned more about autophagy – intermittent fasting, and other fine tidbits about health, wellness, a great joke, and more reasons why not to till. Graeme’s podcasts are always packed with highly referenced material from scientific studies.

CSA Update – Last chance to subscribe for the entire season – Deadline May 18 at midnight

On Tuesday May 18th at Midnight, we will be closing orders for the first week of the CSA (May 24th). If you are dropping an order in the mail, call me at 978-257-1192 or email me at Julie@mhof.net by the end of Tuesday to let me know it is on its way. I will need all of your stats so that we can get your bag labels made.

We are not closing the CSA down yet. You can still order to pick up the second week (June 1st) and weeks later along as long as we have openings.

If you are a CSA customer, check your email this Wednesday for all details for your CSA pick-up! Bonus points if you read it twice 🙂

Next MHSC Workshop July 10th – Layer Management with Chicken Tractors 
Interested in raising healthy chickens? Why not consider pasturing them by building a range house that can be moved to fresh grass every day and let them gorge on the soil critters they love to eat. We will talk about how to use such a house, and present designs for several styles – ones which can be moved by one person and ones which accommodate more birds but requires two people to move. Egg collection, feeding and watering, and security from roaming dogs and wildlife will be discussed. The second half of the workshop will be a hands-on experience helping build such a house.The workshop will be on Saturday, July 10th from 10:00 to 12:00, at the farm. We will be both outside and inside, rain or shine. Come with or without a mask, whichever is most comfortable for you. Stick around for a potluck lunch if you like right at the end of the workshop. Register below.

We offer this workshop for a sliding scale donation. We truly appreciate it if you can donate to help cover costs and allow others who do not have the means to pay to attend. After registration donations can be made via PayPal at https://mhof.net/many-hands-sustainability-center/ or in cash/check the day of the workshop. MHSC is a 501(c)3 and any donation is tax deductible.

Register here

Farm doins
We finished those onions and then went to the thousands of leeks, finished Tuesday. After more bed prep and tarp removal, we planted parsley and kohlrabi. The end of the week found us preparing for another large planting of the broccoli, cabbage, kale, collard family. We made steady progress with our blueberries, now all pruned and mulched (until we ran out of cardboard). Heinrich and his weed whacker are doing great damage to the bindweed and bishops weed. And we dried nettles, burdock and comfrey this week. Our first batch of young layers did not do well after their too long in transit arrival last Friday. Murray McMurray graciously sent us replacements and I ordered 25 more. I hope to have some juvenile layers available for sale in 2 months or so. I end each day right now elated at how great our progress is every week at and how much fun we had again.

Baby chicks and comfrey (top), what is under the tarps – the green stuff is rock dust (middle left), planting the thousands of leeks (middle right), drying comfrey (bottom left), Anthony with cart in progress (bottom right)

Click the image of burdock to watch the process of harvesting and drying burdock on our Instagram.

Think of Jack on Thursday
He is going in for a long awaited knee replacement on the 20th. Your positive thoughts for his swift recovery will be very much appreciated!

Cat update
There are now 21 cats in residence in our bedroom. Stripes threw in the towel and brought her four babies up to join the others. Quite a menagerie. And yes, we will have cats for adoption by the third week in June. They will cost $50 each. Email to place your order.

Products available now at the farm

  • Eggs – $8/dozen
  • Comfrey salve – $8/2 oz.
  • Hemp salve – $10/2 oz.
  • Lavender soap – $6/5 oz. bar
  • Peppermint soap – $6/5 oz. bar
  • Frozen applesauce – $6/quart
  • Canned (jarred) tomatoes) – $7/1 quart

Make arrangements to pick up at the farm or we can ship some things to you. Call at 978-355-3853 or email Julie@mhof.net

Staff Update
Stetson rejoined us on Monday – Dustin, Candido and Logan. Also, Alicia and Shantel are joining us on Saturday mornings to help with animal chores.

Shantel, Alexandria, and Alicia helping out on Saturday
Julie

Community Listings

  • Builders of Color Coalition – We increase access and diversity across Boston’s real estate sector, to close the wealth gap
    • Executive Director (full-time) – grow programming and industry partnerships, create/lead organizational committees, fundraise, communicate our work – $90-100K annually, plus bonus potential
    • Program Administrator (full-time) – event planning/coordination, communications/promotions, bookkeeping, admin support – $60-75K annually

All recipes based on per acre with 25 gallons of water
Fruit Trees Organic
Seasonal Soil Drench peaches, pawpaw, plums, cherries, hazelnuts, etc. (not pears nor apples)
Number of Apps: 4 Price per App: 46.61 Start Date: 5/15/2021 Interval: 1 month
1 Gallon SeaShield
2 Quart Rejuvenate
1 Quart HoloCal
1 Quart SeaCrop
1 tsp spectrum per batch

Bud Break and Blossoming foliar
Number of Apps: 3 Price per App: 57.49 Start Date: 6/1/2021 Interval: 1 week
1.5 Gallon Accelerate
2 Quart HoloCal
1 Quart PhotoMag
1 Pint ReBound Manganese
1 Pint ReBound Iron
15 Gram Micro 5000

Weekly Fruit-Set Foliar
Number of Apps: 3 Price per App: 36.18 Start Date: 6/22/2021 Interval: 1 week
2 Quart HoloCal Double for apples/ pears
2 Quart SeaShield
2 Quart PhotoMag
1 Pint ReBound Manganese
1 Pint ReBound Copper
1 Pint ReBound Iron
15 Gram Micro 5000 Organic

Weekly Fruit-Fill Foliar
Number of Apps: 6 Price per App: 33.04 Start Date: 7/13/2021 Interval: 1 week
1 Quart HoloK As needed according to sap analysis.
1 Quart SeaCrop
1 Quart Accelerate
1 Quart PhotoMag
1 Pint ReBound Copper
1 Pint ReBound Iron
15 Gram Micro 5000 Organic

Post Harvest Foliar
Number of Apps: 3 Price per App: 45.19 Start Date: 8/24/2021 Interval: 1 week
1.5 Gallon Accelerate
2 Quart HoloCal
1 Quart PhotoMag

apple and pear trees
Seasonal Soil Drench apples and pears
Number of Apps: 4 Price per App: 50.43 Start Date: 5/11/2021 Interval: 1 week
1 Gallon SeaShield
2 Quart Rejuvenate
1 Quart HoloCal
1 Quart SeaCrop
1 Pint ReBound Cobalt
1 tsp Spectrum per tank
Use 1 quart of mix per batch – accomplish in 3 batches

Bud Break and Blossoming foliar
Number of Apps: 3 Price per App: 56.18 Start Date: 5/25/2021 Interval: 1 week
1.5 Gallon Accelerate
2 Quart HoloCal
1 Quart PhotoMag
1 Pint ReBound Manganese
1 Pint ReBound Iron
25 Gram Micro 5000 Organic
0.5 Pint ReBound Cobalt

Weekly Fruit-Set Foliar
Number of Apps: 3 Price per App: 60.44 Start Date: 6/15/2021 Interval: 1 week
4 Quart HoloCal
2 Quart Accelerate
2 Quart PhotoMag
1 Quart ReBound Iron
1 Pint ReBound Manganese
1 Pint ReBound Copper
1 Pint ReBound Cobalt
50 Gram Micro 5000 Organic

Post Harvest Foliar
Number of Apps: 2 Price per App: 45.19 Start Date: 8/31/2021 Interval: 1 week
1.5 Gallon Accelerate
2 Quart HoloCal
1 Quart PhotoMag

Some of these recipes are roughly noted. Give me a call if you need more interpretation.

Herb Spotlight: