2015 Pekarek’s Produce CSA – Week 8

Alfalfa-Photo

Hey Folks!

I am happy to say that this week you will all be receiving sweet corn!  Unfortunately, here is where we apologize in advance.  After this week, it looks like the sweet corn will be a little spotty for a bit.  This means that half of you may receive sweet corn one week, while the other half of you receive a different item.  We will track this closely and make sure that it all comes out evenly, so please be patient.IMG_0168

Last week’s heat was hard on everything on the farm – including humans.  The crew has been starting at 6 am for a while, trying to beat the heat and water is everybody’s and every-plant’s best friend.  We are continuing to move pipe this week to set up more irrigation.  For those of you familiar with the movie, Finding Nemo, irrigating follows a motto from Dori: “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming…”  From this point until fall, we basically run irrigation all day, every day – from every hydrant and pump we have.  We think about what we can irrigate overnight, how far we can push water, and we live by alarms that we set on our phones to tell us when to turn off irrigation and move pipes and hoses to a new home.

Alfalfa-Photo

If you didn’t know it, Ryan thinks growing hay is fun.  Honestly, the alfalfa is very pretty – especially the pretty purple flowers!  We’ve baled two times so far and been rained on each time, but it looks like third cutting hay is going to be short, so as usual, as soon as the rain stopped, we need more rain.

This week, we set cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. We put out 110 trays (72 plants per tray) and filled up 2/3 of an acre, or so.  If you are looking for a fun activity, you can come hoe purslane with us (ha ha!) as this is an ongoing challenge.  The pumpkins are late due to a late start and funky weather, but they are gorgeous.  The pepper crop doesn’t look so good.  The weather has been pretty much backwards for what they need.

transplants

Finally, you can come visit us at the Dwight Czech festival this weekend.  There is a road rally Friday night, Sand Volleyball tournament on Saturday, a car show Sunday morning, Bohemian food at Dwight Assumption from 10:30 am – 2pm, kids games outside, a train ride for children and kids at heart, a parade at 5 pm with copious amounts of candy ANNND a surprise treat being thrown from the Pekarek’s Produce float.

Your Farmers,

Ryan, Katie, and Crew


What’s in this week’s bag?

Corn

Broccoli

Carrots

Cucumbers

Zucchini

Tomato*

Eggplant*

Onion*

*indicates items only in the full bag

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