December 7, 2020

Dear Friends and Customers of Many Hands Organic Farm,

Sign up for the 2021 CSA
Expenses stay swift on the farm. Our hardworking staff members are scurrying each week to put the farm to bed, and plan for next year, including organizing our barns and sheds, bringing in wood, processing lard and soup stocks and developing more supplies of soaps and salves. Seeds and tubers and supplies need to be bought, fertility materials, pork, chicken and turkey deposits to suppliers – the list goes on. Your early commitment to the CSA with money up front helps us keep our income more consistent with our outgo. Thanks!
https://mhof.net/community-supported-agriculture/

Products available now

• Spinach- $10/1 lb. bag
• Lettuce Mix- $10/1 lb. bag
• Arugula- $10/1 lb. bag
• Mustard greens- $10/1 lb. bag
• Ground pork in 1 lb. packages – $10/lb.
• Lard – $20/quart
• Pork stock – $7.50/quart
• Eggs at the farm – $8/dozen
• Comfrey salve – $8/2 oz.
• Hemp salve – $10/2 oz.
• Garlic powder – $10/2 oz.
• Lavender soap – $6/5 oz. bar
• Peppermint soap – $6/5 oz. bar
• Dandelion tincture – $6/2 oz. bottle
• Yellow dock tincture – $6/2 oz. bottle
• Frozen applesauce – $6/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

Accomplishments on the farm last week
One of the most common questions I get this time of year is, “What do you do in the winter, anyway?” Our attempt here will be to give you a blow by blow of what we are up to so you can really enjoy the farm experience with us.
Last week with the help of Clare, Anthony, Ari, Maya, Lindsy, Dustin, Logan, Kaden and Stu we finished up hoeing, and mulching two large beds at the back of the south field where we will continue to build our perennial herb collection next spring. We also spread carefully calculated minerals for next year’s crops on about 5 acres of land – carbonatite – https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=carbonatite, greensand, manganese sulfate, elemental sulfur, sodium borate, and zinc sulfate. We also cleaned up the hose area on the chicken house, cleaned out the brooder house and garage and the back cubby behind the barn along with the north side of the barn. Just in time for the snow!

Looking Ahead
This week we will make progress on weeding our hoop houses – the chickweed has moved in – and will start the spreading of the basalt rock dust on all of our fields. These 22 tons of material will significantly improve our trace mineral stores on the farm, which should be available for the microbes to digest all winter as they have the time and motivation. Maybe we will get to reorganizing the inside of the barn too.

What we can use here
We are especially looking for clean brown cardboard right now, to put under our trees before mulching them with wood chips.

What I learned this week
I paid for son Dan’s Principles of Biological Systems two day course that he ran in October and found it inspirational and educational. His talks are available here – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI99ERb9iBmwgrJPbv3iKdA

Today’s Health Tip
I recently was introduced to this great website that sells a number of great herb blends for human ingestion. http://cherokeevalley.com/medicinalherbalteas.html. I ordered some of their tea blends and also got some great ideas for what to add to our perennial herb section next year.

– Julie

This week brought a run of fantastic weather. The crew wore shorts, short sleeves and no shoes as they went about their work – as Julie said, “life is beautiful”.

A highlight of the week’s work was gathering in a large harvest of dry leaves to use for next year’s mulch. All in all, the crew rounded up 16 totes worth of leaves from the farm fields and the road between, working together in satisfying synchrony, an experience made sweeter by the fine weather. Aric got his leaf blower in on the action, blowing leaves from the edges of West field onto the beds and mulching the rhubarb. Julie was exceedingly grateful that Aric thought to bring the leaf blower in, and says watching Aric work was “the most fun of the week”.

The cold weather returned on Friday. Ann, Maya Clare and Stu hung in there to help get ahead of the harvest for this week, bringing in a nice crop of carrots (among other things). Managing the supply for the CSA is tricky this time of year, with the weather swinging between cold, warmth (which gives the crops a little kick), and cold once more. This week, your produce will be assembled from what’s in the field, walk-in cooler and root cellar. At the end of the week, Julie plans to bring in a last harvest from the fields to store in the walk-in for our final share. The greens from the hoophouse will also make a strong showing in our final week.

Tis’ the season to stock up on lard – we have a bunch! Lard is a versatile, good-for-you cooking fat which contains less saturated fat than butter and a good amount of heart-healthy monounsaturated fat (1). It’s also one of the best dietary sources of Vitamin D, a nutrient in which about 42% of US adults are deficient (2). It also makes things taste delicious, whether you’re cooking beans, making a pie crust, frying chicken, sauteing up some veggies or popping some popcorn. Our lard is made with the fat back and leaf lard from our Certified Organic pigs, rendered on Jack and Julie’s wood cook stove and can be purchased for $20/qt.