Hearts of the Moon- Week Two of Our CSA

The CSA Box for Our First Week of the 2014 Season

Hello Moon Bears,

Our Moon Box Contents (For Full Share) for Delivery #2 on Thursday June 16th:

• Spinach
• Onions
• Gold and Green Zuchs
• Purple, Red and Yukon Potatoes
• Spun and Cut Salad
• Tender Rainbow and Rhubarb Chard
• Baby Broccoli
• Siberian Kale
• Fresh Dried Oregano and Catnip (Thanks Heather)

All Cut the morning of delivery, except potatoes and onions. they come out the night before.

Week number one was a big success. Thirteen Moon CSA Members received our first cooler delivery. A few hiccups, like forgetting box number thirteen in the cooler. And the same amazing process of harvest, which always seems to surprise me. The idea that there is limited resources in the garden. then I go out and begin the cut and the digging. I find that there is abundance I'd not recognized. And all the veggies were so beautiful.

Morning Glory Climbing  Inside the Greenhouse

A few challenges in the garden this week. Mostly of the furry kind. Voles and Moles are diving in and around the garden soil as if it were water. Lots of tender green eaten by slugs too. I trap both voles and slugs by making inviting houses for them. The voles enter the house with the one way door. The next morning they are exiled across the creek. And the slugs love to hide out under scrap plywood squares in dark recesses in the rows. I pick the slugs off the wood and they ejected into the field. The main struggle is to Not see the critters as enemy or nemesis. Just to see them as part of the environment. I can treat them with respect And Protect y/our crop.

We'll see you on the road. Check out the photos below, including our new fire circle.

Rick

Ever Eaten a Potato Fresh from the Living Earth?

Onions Deluxe

First Fire in the Hearts of  the Moon Circle

Sign for Our New Fire Circle

First 2014 CSA Delivery Heralded By Gandalf's Messenger

The Art Farm

 Hello Moon Bears,

May brought in a verdance from luxurious weather. Mild and Sunny! We are set for our first CSA deliveries this week.  

Our first full share box will include:

• Tennis Ball Lettuce
• Romaine Head Lettuce
• Small Turnips (Great mashed with carrots)
• Golden Zucchini (Roasted is good)
• Onions
• Potatoes (Purple and Red and Gold)
• Siberian Kale (Super tender and sweet)
• Young Garlic

Next Week we'll have broccoli and maybe baby carrots.

Every year I spend May fretting over the possibility that there will not be enough variety or quantity coming from the garden. Then in June the abundance begins to spill over. Even with the inevitable losses from bugs and fungi, there is enough and More than enough. It's a good lesson about gratitude and the giving nature of the Earth.

This week we had a special visitor in the onion patch: a Polyphemus (IO) Moth. See the photo below. A large male with antennae that work as pheromone detectors... i.e. his nose. I have to admit he was a little intimidating at first with a six inch wingspan.  But he was only interested in one thing: finding a female. He was a magical creature. The same such moth was the messenger animal between Gandalf and Gwaihir in the Lord of the Rings.

A few other photos from the garden:

 See You Soon,
Rick