The Best Week of the Year

May 5, 2025

The Best Week of the Year

What didn’t bloom this week? A few plants that set flowers here this week include violets (taking over the lawn in purple), dandelions (taking over the fields in yellow), pears, peaches, plums (already started last week), Juneberries, grapes, and a couple of early apples. And because the layers are living in the orchard right now, I get to visit these glorious trees and bushes at least twice per day. It seemed that each day brought forth a new miracle. For some reason, our home orchard has always been one of those enchanted places (when I walk into it, I always feel like I am in a magic land), and this week of the year is the most wondrous. All of our work from January – March has borne out. Now we just need to keep stewarding those flowers through the fruit set, fruit fill, and maturity phases. I am starting to feel like a bona fide orchardist!

Beautiful plum in bloom

Expressing Gratitude This Week 

As wild as the weather has been with wind ripping tarps off the fields, nighttime thunder storms bringing us suddenly into wakefulness, and sometimes almost oppressively hot weather a little too soon compared to my memory of the last week of April- first week of May, it has brought with it a deep wakening of the plant world. I am grateful for the opportunity to ride this wild pony and take part in the unfolding of the production of food, made special, of course, because of the motley collection of farmer compatriots that I hang out with on a daily basis. Our conversation reached almost bawdy levels on Friday as we weeded bishop’s weed and bugle out of the peppermint, brought on, I am sure, by the urgency of spring and its drive into profusion. We were in agreement that it was yet one more outstandingly fun day on the farm. I am not sure you can beat that. Although I miss the fact that the peepers are growing up now and not giving their nightly pond concerts with such fervor.

Paula is definitely one of the trouble-makers. Look at that face

Many Hands Sustainability Center – Supporting Food Sovereignty

We are working toward a $2000 account to provide food to the Barre Food Pantry twice per week. Thanks to Elizabeth this week.

I have heard from an anonymous donor that $1200 is already committed. That brings our total need to $800. Should you want to support this new venture, you can donate here.

2025 MHOF CSA

Wow, we will be providing 20 small shares for veterans donated by an organization named Tri-Valley in Dudley. And the wonderful folks at Tip Top Country Store in Brookfield Center will distribute them there. We’ll also have a new pickup site for individuals at Tip Top. The shares will be picked on Mondays and available at Tip Top 10-7 on Tuesdays. You can sign up for that on the website.

And by the way, check out buying from Tip Top, a resilient health-oriented food coop that is invested in sourcing produce locally and supporting small businesses.

Now it is only 4 more weeks until the CSA starts – week of June 2. Here is the link.

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Vegetable Foci for This Week – What was in your CSA bag?

Carrots and Cauliflower are the stars this week.

Carrots are one of those crops that are seen as essential in the American diet. Yet, I have to say that many of the carrots out there on the market are almost tasteless. And did you know that “baby” carrots are actually just big ones that have been shaved?

My dirty laundry on the carrot topic is a bad track record with the early ones – poor germination and then inability to keep them weeded, though almost every year we end the season with top-notch super super-tasty specimens. So, this year, in our highly organized state, my big goal for the carrots in 2025 is to have a great early crop (should be ready in July). We will focus on good, strong early germination (to beat the weeds to the punch) and then quick weeding and mulching care.

Last year we gave out carrots 6 weeks during the summer CSA and all our weeks of the fall. Let’s see if we can bring that up to 10 weeks in the summer.

Cauliflower can be super touchy, so all bets are off on any promises, but we had a pretty good showing last year, and I will be happy if we can do that or maybe better it by a week or two. 2024 saw cauliflower twice in the summer and twice in the fall. And it was tasty, a brassica snob crop (as opposed to the lowly radish, which is more of a “working class” member of the same family).

Sign Up Here

Circle of Song

Our concert, on Saturday, May 17, will be held at 7:00 PM at the Barre Town Hall, 2 Exchange Street (corner of Exchange and Mechanic Streets).

The program includes Earth Song by Frank Tichelli, Fair Phyllis by John Farmer, For the Beauty of the Earth arranged by John Rutter, Go Down Moses, a traditional spiritual, Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, and arranged by the Pentatonix, June Is Bustin’ Out All Over from Carousel and the amazing team of Rogers and Hammerstein, The Lion Sleeps Tonight by Weiss and Peretti (complete with jungle animals in the COS rendition}, the always-popular American folk song Shenandoah,  Old Man River from Showboat, written by Jerome Kern, Sing Gently by Eric Whiteacre, and The 23rd Psalm, arranged by Bobby McFerrin.

Okay, who besides crack-proofreader Frank Phelan noticed that Carousel was the right show for “June is Bustin’ Out All Over?”

We are delighted that Jeff Williams has joined COS, a retired choral director. He is directing “Oh, Shenandoah”.

Come and celebrate mid-spring with Circle of Song. The concert is free, and refreshments will be served. Donations graciously accepted. Interested in joining? Contact me at julie@mhof.net or 978-257-1192.

Quabbin Community Band

Rehearsals start tonight and run from 6:30 – 8:30 pm. They are every Monday (except Memorial Day) through August 4, at the Barre Town Hall, 2 Exchanges St., and we have concerts on nine Sunday evenings starting on Sunday, June 15, and ending on Sunday, August 10. Concerts are at 6 pm and start in South Barre at Nornay Park. Concerts in July move to the center of town and are played on the bandstand on the Common. Membership is free. It being a summer band, it is fine not to come to every rehearsal or every concert. You can reach out to me if you are interested, but tentative. Margaret Reidy, a lifelong musician and music educator, is our excellent conductor. I can’t wait for the season to start.

We also march on Memorial Day in Barre Center and would be glad for you to join us. 

Volunteering at MHOF

We would love to have you as a regular for a large produce share, or when you can make it for a share that day: M, T, W, F from 8-12 with lunch and/or breakfast at 7:30, or Saturday starting with breakfast at 7 and working until 9:30 am.

Saturdays, we are a bit thin on help right now. Sophie will soon be out on maternity leave, and Shantel and Alexandria can only come every other week. Reach out if you would like to spend your Saturday mornings on the farm, away from the usual bustle.

Sophie pours off the latest batch of hemp salve

Jennifer’s Recipe for the Week: Saffron Morning Glow Oats

Saffron Morning Glow Oats is a sattvic, heart-opening breakfast designed to harmonize the mind and body at the start of your day. The oats provide stable grounding energy and are especially balancing for Vata, while the warming spices like ginger and cardamom gently stimulate digestion, helpful for sluggish Kapha or cold Vata digestion. Saffron, a revered Ayurvedic rasayana (rejuvenative), enhances emotional well-being and promotes subtle energy (ojas). Blueberries add a sweet-astringent touch, cooling Pitta, and walnuts offer nourishing, unctuous qualities. The use of ghee deepens the digestive support and brings a comforting richness, while a final touch of cream or warm milk enhances sattva and satisfaction.

Get the Recipe at Jen Zen Living

Farming, Fishing, and the Art of Balance – AEA Article

Farming, Fishing, and the Art of Balance

This is actually about calcium needs in apples right now. A good read as always. Here is our organic foliar recipe that we are using on all of our fruit trees last week and this week

Bud Break and Blossoming Foliar – trees and small fruits
April 30, May 7

3 quarts Accelerate
1 ½ quarts SeaStim
1 ½ quart HoloCal
¾ cup Rebound Zinc
¾ quart Rebound Boron
¾ quart Rebound Copper
¾ quart Rebound Manganese
¾ quart Rebound Iron

Use 1 T of Micro 5000 per tank
Use 1 quart of mix per tank – about 4-gallon tank

Gut Health

Sorry folks, I ran out of time this week…

Farm Doin’s

Stu and Danny and Jack are making great progress on the barn entry stairs. And welcome back to Danny and Paula, by the way, gone the month of April.

Jim did an amazing job of mowing the edges of the pond field and getting the woods cut back to the stone walls. He is in the midst of a signage project too, and soon when you come to the farm you can find your way around even if someone isn’t here to guide you.

We moved a lot of tarps around in the west field, taking them off of the potato field, successfully planting 10-100 foot rows of spuds: Carola, Keuka Gold, Yukon Gold, Magic Molly, and Soraya. And then we moved the tarps up the hill to cover the rest of the field for a month prior to putting out our June 1sh tomatoes, squash, cukes, eggplant, peppers, basil, tulsi and melons.

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We burned our last two pruning piles this week also.

In the south field we planted a bed of kohlrabi, one of hakurei turnips and radishes, and one of cilantro and arugula. Embarrassed by the lack of cabbage last year, I had us plant a few more of our left over starts in the cabbage bed from the previous week.

Kohlrabi going in

In the attached greenhouse we started all of those west field crops listed above, plus celery and celeriac, and some summer savory and marjoram.

How many people can you fit into a 10’ x 14’ greenhouse?

Jack and I planted 13 new fruit trees to better fill out our two orchards (we presently only have 3 spots available for future trees), 12 new blueberry bushes, and some perennial herb plants. I have to give Fedco Trees a real shout-out here – great planting stock!

Matt and friends finished the hardy kiwi trellis and Matt got started on moving the new piles of gravel around where needed.

The progress work that I was most excited about this week was taking the time to deeply weed the chives (they share space with that pushy pernicious Bishop’s weed), and almost finishing the peppermint patch. We also tidied up the red raspberry patch. I figure we have until May 31 to get all of our small fruits and perennials weeded and mulched before the CSA tsunami hits, and we still have 26 days!

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Sales of our side products has been swift this year. Here is Leslie, the queen of the bitters, carefully measuring out the vodka for a tincture.

Michele came with all four kids on Friday. She will return as a working shareholder again this year. Yippee! Justin complained of being a babysitter all morning, but it seemed he was actually having a great time with Eskil (who was here cleaning out the chicken house a couple weeks back) as his co-pilot.

Julie