News and Views from Circle A Garden
WHAT’S HAPPENING
March has blown in; literally. Anything that wasn’t nailed down during the last week in February and the first week of March is now somewhere in Delta!!! We woke up a week ago Tuesday to about six inches of snow. We were expecting maybe an inch so it was rather a shock!! The moisture was nice though; we were getting a bit dry after all the wind. It was all pretty much melted by Friday when we had our pruning day with our good friends from Buckhorn Gardens. Last week the weather was glorious!! We had lots of sunshine and just enough of a light breeze to cool us off while we are working. This week so far the weather has been cold and wet with a bit of rain, a bit of snow, and a lot of wind. Welcome to springtime in Colorado!! Now that spring is officially, here we can almost see the plants in the tunnel and the greenhouses grow as we watch. It is so wonderful to look down the tunnel and see all that green. It seemed like it was just a couple weeks ago that the beds were mostly brown {dirt colored}.
In the high tunnel, we have chard, kale, spinach, salad greens, turnips, radishes, green garlic, scallions, leeks, bok choi, mizuna, endive, arugula, mustard greens, lettuce, Chinese cabbage, radicchio, peas, carrots and more all up and growing rapidly. In the big greenhouse we have beets {we ran out of room for them in the high tunnel!!} growing on one side and trays of transplants {onions, leeks, parsley, broccoli, cabbage, artichokes, pansies, chard, kale, collards, and kohlrabi all just about ready to transplant out into the garden}. In the propagation house we have trays of cauliflower, celery, celeriac, lettuce, heirloom tomatoes and sweet peppers for the high tunnel, hot peppers, eggplant, and more. In Della’s greenhouse, she has a multitude of herbs, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and more. In another couple of weeks they are all going to be bursting at the seams!! Outdoors, the garlic is starting to come up, the apricot trees are blooming {looks like they are going to get frozen again this year!!}, and many of our perennial plants are waking up. This last week we worked on getting the peas planted and the rest of the pruning done. We planted English peas, sugar snaps, and snow peas. If all goes well we should be harvesting peas toward the later part of May. Our thanks to Jill, Shane, Gillian, Keegan, and Lindsay for helping get them in!! Della and Linda have been working on getting the raspberries and blackberries pruned and trellised.
Eric, our first intern of the season, arrived the evening before the snow. In the two weeks he has been here, he has transplanted lettuce and greens, picked spinach, and fertilized plants the high tunnel; potted up celery, celeriac, cauliflower, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and lettuce, and started seeds for more lettuce and summer squash in the propagation house; watered transplants, trimmed leeks and onions, and thinned beets in the big greenhouse; turned compost piles; prepared beds and planted peas, pruned trees, learned how to graft apple trees, and more outdoors. His ultimate goal is to be able to have his own small farm. He is planning to be here until the end of the season. Please help us in welcoming him to Circle A and Western Colorado!! He is doing a blog of his experiences here {http://www.greenplanetweb.com/blog} if you would like to check it out.
VEGGIE PICKUP!!!
The first veggie pickup of the 2009 season will be Saturday, April 4th . Pickup time is from 9:00 am – 12:00 noon. Some of the goodies that we will have include: chard, kale, bok choi, arugula, mizuna, {and a few other greens} spinach, salad greens, green garlic, leeks, radishes, salad turnips, horseradish, sunchokes, and a few early herbs. We may also have beets and carrots, but they still look pretty small, I’m not sure if they will be ready the first week. Once again our first veggie pickup is in the middle of spring break. Several folks have already let me know that they will be out of town and someone else will be picking up for them. Please let me know if you aren’t going to be able to pick up this first week or if someone else will be picking up for you. We can also bag your veggies for you and hold them until Mon or Tues; but we need to know ahead of time.
We still have a few openings in our CSA. If you know anyone who is interested in fresh local produce, please have them get in touch with us.
A few things to keep in mind as we start the new season;
- Making arrangements to pick up your veggies on Saturday mornings is your responsibility. Pick up time is 9:00 am – 12 noon. Until the time changes again in the fall. Many of you are sharing a membership; please help each other to remember that veggies need to be picked up Saturday morning unless you have made prior arrangements with us. If you do not pick up your veggies on Saturday and haven’t made prior arrangements; your veggies will be eaten by our interns or donated to Christ’s Kitchen {local soup kitchen here in Montrose}
- We can bag your produce for you {up to 6 times during the season for no charge} if you are not able to pick up. We need to know ahead of time if we need to do this {Thursday or Friday would be great, but we will bag your veggies for you if you let us know before noon on Saturday} Please remember that choices will be ours. All veggies need to be picked up before Monday so we can clean out the cooler for a new week. Any veggies left in the cooler Tuesday morning will be greatly appreciated by our interns or donated to Christ’s Kitchen!!
- Please remember to check off your name off the list so we know who has picked up. {if someone else is picking up for you, please remind them as well}
- We encourage all our members to bring their own bags, boxes, etc for their veggies. We do have bags available if needed {we recycle clean plastic grocery bags from our members} Also, many choices are in fiber boxes. Please return them so we can use them again. {if they are dirty, falling apart, etc, please compost them!!} We can also recycle clean plastic clamshells!!
- If you are coming to the farm on a day other than Saturday morning, please let us know in advance. We love to have our members visit!! But we have a dog {Oreo}who likes to be outdoors much of the season. For your safety and her comfort, we would like to have her in when we have visitors. {we also want to make sure we are here to show you around!!}
- Please be kind to your fellow members. We grow a wide variety of produce and some things we don’t grow enough of for everyone to have every week.{some are things that not everyone is familiar with that we grow in limited amounts and some just don’t produce as well as we anticipated} We want all our members to be able to try everything at least once during the season. We will try to mark those things that we have in limited quantity. Please be adventurous and try new things!!
- We do have a work requirement. {12 hours per season} We want to re-connect folks with their food sources; show you a bit of what goes into producing the food you eat. We are very flexable and can work around your schedules. We can set up times from early morning into the evenings Monday-Saturday. We are also able to customize your time here on the farm; if you have children, we have a special program where we scale down what we do to their age and abilities; if you have a physical problem {bad back, etc} we can find less strenuous things for you to do.
- If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know!!
FARM TOURS
We would love to show you all around!! Let us know if you would like a tour and we’ll set up a time for you to come out and see what we are up to.
I also plan on doing a tour on April 4th. We’ll start about 10:30. A tour takes about 1-11/2 hours, depending on how many questions there are. We encourage all our members to periodically tour the gardens; they are changing on a weekly basis now.
FEATURED VEGGIE
Spinach {spinacea oleracea} is a member of the goosefoot family {Amaranthacae}. It is native to central and southwestern Asia. It was first cultivated in southwestern Asia {possibly Persia} In 647 the Chinese referred to it as the “herb of Persia”. It arrived in North Africa through Syria and Arabia and in 1100 the Moors introduced it to Spain. Over the next century, prickly seeded spinach spread throughout Europe and was primarily grown in monastery gardens. A cookbook dating from 1390{belonging to King Richard II} contains spanach recipes. Smooth seeded spinach{the type most commonly grown in the US} seems to have spread through Europe slightly later. Uses for it in England are first documented in 1551. Early English settlers brought it to America and by 1806 had become a popular vegetable and was listed in American seed catalogues. In 1920 the US started pushing spinach commercially, with Popeye the Sailorman cartoon being a great advocate in spinach consumption.The word spinach is derived from the Persian word “ispania” meaning green hand which later became Spanachia{late Latin} to spinach and spinage{English}There are 1,400 species of spinach in the world today.Other related species using spinach in their name include chard {beta vulgaris; spinach beet, perpetual spinach}; Orach {Atriplex species, mountain spinach or French spinach}; and Good King Henry {Chenopodium bonus henricus, linconshire spinach}. It is also related to beets and lambsquarter.Spinach is a rich source of vitamins A, C, E, and K,manganese, magnesium,folate and antioxidents. The best ways to eat spinach are raw and lightly cooked or steamed. Some of our favorite uses for spinach are spinach salad, quiche, and lasagna.I have added 2 new recipes to the website {www.circleagarden.com}; Garlic spinach and Curry spinach. Both are very tasty using spinach, but you can use other greens as well.
Looking forward to seeing you all on the 4th of April!
All of us at Circle A Garden