I woke up Saturday morning at 3 am raring to go. I am pretty sure that it has to do with the seaweed (Shantel’s teacher always called it “sea vegetables”) that Jack and I, Dingo, Skippy, Harriet, Eloise, Sadie and Beba have been ingesting since Thursday. Here is a great article about the immensely long list of benefits that come from eating seaweed – 7 Surprising Health Benefits of eating Seaweed – https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/benefits-of-seaweed Of course too much can be a concern (mostly of excess iodine), but then, consume it in small amounts. We have prepared some of our incredible bounty into chopped seaweed to mix into soups and stir fries and our homemade dog and cat food, and also pureed some for use in smoothies and such.

It is still thawing out at the bottom of our driveway, so if you would like to do some experimenting, either for your own eating, or for use in your garden as a mulch, give me a holler. $5/ box of 30 lbs.

Many asked me if we would feed the seaweed to the chickens, and I said, “nah”, but then faced with these toppling towers of boxes, I realized that would be a really wise thing to do. It seems the chickens think so too.

Special Gratitude this week

First, I want to spotlight Nick. A paying shareholder 2 years ago, I next heard from him this spring when he asked if he could work as a working shareholder. What a delightful person who is an extremely hard worker, one of the strongest people who has worked here, and one of the biggest hearted people too. This past week, after noticing that we had some strange noises coming from under our farm truck, he investigated it on his own, got the part, and fixed it for us this past Monday.

Is that a rainbow I see over Nick’s head?

Second, back to seaweed, son Dan is the one who hooked us up with our 32,000 lbs. of the stuff in the first place, and showed up on Wednesday to unload it all with a rented fork lift, and came back on the 4^th to move it all around the farm so we could have easy access to it for spreading. Thank you, Dan, for this huge investment of your time and expertise to help us with this seaweed blessing.

Dan and Julie conferring on where to drop the pallets

What is in your CSA Share this week?

July 1 share

Lettuce not back yet – between deer and weeds, this particular lettuce crop may or may not be in your share next week, but not this one

• Kale
• Collards
• Swiss chard
• Broccoli for some – Monday larges got this and W and F mediums
• There will be both sugar snap and shell peas in your share this week – peas are now taking about an hour and a half to pick!
• Summer squash is coming on – still variable who received it depending on day last week
• Green onions
• Kohlrabi
• Basil – new item
• Tulsi – new item – now this is an amazing herb, also known as holy basil. It is a super food and can be used in salad and more notably as a tea. Read about it here – https://draxe.com/nutrition/holy-basil-benefits/ I hope you grow to enjoy it as much as I do.
• Beets
• Radishes

 

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We are still taking new shareholders – here is where you can sign up  — https://mhof.net/csa-order-form/

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Hi Julie!!

I wanted to share how much Joy every weeks goody bag is!!
Last year was my 1st introduction to kohlrabi and I Love it!
I just spiralized it (or I call it ‘zoodles’) and added to my salad.
Here’s a pic although you can’t see much deep purple.
It’s soooo good. Thank you for your dedication!!

Smiles this day,
Donnamarie

Volunteering at MHOF

New working shareholders this week – Elias and Giovanna, and John added to our Saturday morning crew. On Saturday morning we were able to spread seaweed on our grape arbor, one of our chard sections, the peppermint, hoop house tomatoes, corn, a bed of cabbage and a bed of lettuce.
Come join us!

Items that you can buy for your own food preservation

Starting now we will have some crops in enough abundance that you can buy them in quantity for preserving for your use in the next year. We now have kale at $3/lb. It is of exceptional quality, and is one of those superfoods.

Watch our kale preservation video on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1VUTjpnwM8&t=37s

Mexico GMO corn update

Readers of this newsletter may recall reading about a lawsuit filed by Monsanto against Mexico for banning GMO corn grown with herbicide glyphosate for tortillas. The US and Canada joined the suit saying Mexico had no right to ban the corn without scientific proof of its danger to the health of Mexican consumers.

You will be happy to note that Monsanto has dropped the suit. We wonder if part of the reason is the many suits against Monsanto for causing cancer in which juries, apparently persuaded by the science presented in the trial, have penalized Monsanto with million dollar awards to plaintiffs.

You can learn more at https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/bf-legal-battle-monsanto-drops-lawsuit-mexico-gm-corn-ban/?utm_source=luminate&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=defender&utm_id=20240701h

Jennifer’s recipe for the week

Collard Wraps

Instead of bread to make a wrap, I made a steak wrap using collard greens.  How to make:

1. Boil a pot of water.
2. De-stem the collards and then threw them in a pot of boiling water for 3 minutes.
3. Transfer greens to cold water and allow them to drain.
4. Use greens as any wrap; steak, chicken, or vegetable with a dressing of your choice.

Other serving suggestions:  cooked for a couple minutes on each side on the grill for a hot wrap.

Farm Doins

We are still running behind on our weeding at this point in time. Some year I hope to get all of our crops mulched in a timely fashion, but we often struggle this time of year. Crops that are in very good shape with respect to weeds and management include the potatoes, tomatoes, early broccoli and 2^nd crops of cabbage and broccoli. Also in good shape are the kale, collards, the kohlrabi (coming to an end after this week), most of the sweet potatoes, half of the squash and cukes, corn, early onions, beets, garlic, Swiss chard, peas, pole beans, flowers, 3^rd crop of lettuce, arugula (now the first crop finished), the strawberries (also over for the season.

Not weeded yet, but in good shape are the basil, tulsi, melons, peppers, soybeans, and late Brussels sprouts.

We are struggling with 2^nd crops of carrots (both first and second crops will have been mowed and tarped over by week’s end, the second beet crop, parsnips, bush beans, the summer onions, most of the leeks, parsley and the 2^nd crop of lettuce. This week we will weed what we can, and probably mow and tarp some of the above.

Meanwhile we need to plant the 4^th lettuce crop, the fall cabbage and cauliflower, a second chard crop, the little bit of celery that we could get to germinate, and then late seedings of carrots, beets, parsnips, more radishes and turnips.

Wish us luck this week as we juggle the weeding, haymaking, mulching, spreading of seaweed, picking, management of pigs, layers and meat birds, spraying (hurray, our sprayer is back on line!, weekly mowing, and now food preservation.

Thankfully, all of our carpentry projects are all caught up and Stu, our best weeder, and Danny, will be hanging out with the veg staff.

We are picking blueberries now (sorry, this is not a CSA crop), and soon the peaches and apples and pears will be coming down the line. Great stuff that takes a huge amount of time to manage.

Do I sound like I am complaining? Not really, just enjoying this opportunity to put all the jumble of thoughts that are in my waking head down on paper!

Julie gleeful over making “knee high by the 4^th of July, and then some

Preserving peas for next year’s meals

Phew, we got all of the flowers weeded on Tuesday

We turned our leftover Chinese cabbage into pet food this week

Nice farm panorama

After building up to a pig move all week, moving the feeding of the pigs into their house so that we could lock them in at the correct moment, Matt and Luke made it happen on Friday. All was smooth and the pigs are in wooded heaven in their new pad.

Sugar snaps always impress me!

Julie

Em loves riding on the back of the truck

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Link to buy J and J’s book – Many Hands Make a Farm-
https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/many-hands-make-a-farm/