Dear Friends and Customers of Many hands Organic Farm,

Let’s take Thursday. Anthony, Clare and Maya and I were just off of a delightful morning of planting – lettuces and cabbage and broccoli, after a brief weeding adventure with our leeks, our project for the week. Doodle (7) and Raphi (4) showed up and wanted to help on the farm. What ensued was an hour of very focused hoeing, rock dusting, raking, and planting. Maya commented on Raphi’s question, “where can’t we step?” wishing that some adults were as astute. The boys and I then turned to chores, and I watched as Doodle carefully kept the peace by making sure that they each got to harvest eggs from 2 houses and that they each filled the waters in two meat bird houses. We had a short flight practice with the baby turkeys, sampled some blueberries, mulberries and black raspberries (Doodle, “I think I am starting to like blueberries now!”) and then were on to the afternoon’s pesto extravaganza. Armed with our knives and harvesting basket, we each collected in turn, 4 garlic scapes (Doodle commented as an aside to me, “Aren’t little kids just the cutest” as Raphi went for his 5th scape), 5 lamb’s quarters, 1 onion, 2 sprigs of peppermint, then 3 parsley plants amidst, “wow this smells so good”, and finally some basil. Later we cut and chopped and food processed all these herbs with help from Dan and Jack, enjoyed our fantastic supper, filled the wood box to the ceiling, watched the ding dong game (where Dan hung each boy by the feet and swung him back and forth) and finished the evening with two games of Go Fish. Now if that wasn’t a miraculous day, I don’t know what is.

Dan and Raphi playing Ding Dong (left), a new generation of farmers keeping the line unbroken (right)

CSA Update
Week eight best guess at what you will get

  • Lettuce
  • Sugar snap peas – eat the whole thing
  • Or shell peas – don’t eat the whole thing, but pop them out of the pod
  • Chard
  • Kale or collards
  • Green Onions – the tops are starting to get a little ratty as the bulbs start to do some serious forming
  • Beets
  • Peppermint
  • Basil – yippee!
  • Parsley
  • Fennel is back

We have had bean troubles in recent years, but this crop is ready to burst and might show up in Friday shares
CSA still open.
If you want to join the CSA but haven’t yet gotten around to it, it is not too late. Check the website for the weekly downwardly changing prices. https://mhof.net/csa-order-form/
Week 7 share
Community Fridge shares –
3 people paid for full $270 shares and another donated $75. Friday we delivered said food to Worcester. Thanks to Ari for this amazing idea. It is not too late to donate to this cause which helps the farm and also some folks who might not otherwise have some excellent food. Thank you Jim, Cindy, Mary and Nikki. Donate today at https://mhof.net/community-fridge-farmshare/ .
Maya outside the Community Fridges with our donation this week
Swiss Chard for Sale – Food Preservation Season!
We have a plethora of Swiss chard right now and you can put it away in YOUR freezer! Julie walks us through preserving chard for the winter to add delicious soups and stews in our latest video on YouTube below. Chard is also of course delicious for fresh eating.

You can purchase chard from us at $3.50/lb. with a 10lb. minimum. Contact Julie at julie@mhof.net.

Still Looking for Working Shareholders
As the picking gets more intense, we can use extra hands on M, W, or F. Or if you prefer the Tuesday or Thursday gig where we do lots of bed prep, weeding, mulching and planting. 8-12. We are looking for highly motivated and hard working folks who enjoy the workout, the peanut butter balls and the lunch. And a large share in exchange for your work. Contact me at Julie@mhof.net or 978-257-1192.

Farm Doins
Leeks almost all weeded
Planted 1 bed of lettuce, 3 beds of cabbage, 3 beds of broccoli, 1 of carrots and beets each and more green beans.
Another onion bed emptied and readied for fennel
Corn – harvested lambs quarters and purslane and weeded and cover cropped
Tomatoes – posts up and basket weaved – Cathleen pruned some of the plants for us to do a side by side with pruned and not pruned
Cucumbers, weeded, transplanted around and clovered (undersow with crimson clover to pump nitrogen into the mix
3 older beds of strawberries mowed down and sprayed with kelp to enhance new regrowth
2 younger beds of strawberries weeded and undersown with crimson clover
Summer and winter squash also undersown with crimson clover
3 more kale and collard beds mulched and all the cut hay picked up from the field
Broccoli bed weeded, Brussels sprouts gussied up, 2 lettuce beds, 2 carrot beds weeded
Another bird house partially reconstructed, clamps back on the hoop houses to keep the plastic up and supplies bought for a second pig house – pigs coming end of month
20 gallons Shell peas processed and put into the freezer
Lawns and green areas mowed and tended
Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and lettuce started in the greenhouse
Baby layers moved over with the meat birds into the pond field
Lots of foliar action – potatoes out of distress and growing fantastically, fire blight in apples looking much better, spring onions sizing up into full bulbs, blueberries, mulberries and black raspberries coming in
Bindweed out of blueberries again
Welcomed Emily, Nikki’s friend, this week

Clare, Emily and Nikki picking collards (top left),  I love the turkeys (top right), planting cabbages for the fall – Clare, Anthony, Maya (middle left), leeks almost done (middle right), click bottom video to view on Instagram: undersowing cucumbers with crimson clover & Cathleen and Chris trellising the tomatoes with a basket weave
Highlight of Friday’s tropical storm was when Clare, Stu and I were racing along in our rows on our hands and knees in the corn patch yanking weeds and thinning corn. Kudos to Stu, our top performing working shareholder who soldiers through even the most inclement weather – whether 10 degrees in January and snowing or 65 degrees and bucketing rain in July.
Not sure we have seen the last of these weeds, but we had a great time uprooting them on Friday
Julie