Summer CSA Pickup #13

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Transforming a Grenhouse from summer to fall

Colder nights and shorter daylight hours brings on the change in season. We are feeling the fall weather creep in, with greater harvests, pumpkins and soon winter squash coming in, as well as fruiting crops coming to an end. Last week it was the cherry tomatoes in GH4, and this last week it was the cucmbers in GH8. Snacking cucumbers and some of our slicing cucumbers came out and made way for a fall crop of spinach.

We noticed the yield decreasing in GH8 due to a variety of factors and decided to change over the greenhouse.

Jav, Franconia, and Sam took out the cucumber plants first, then removed the trellis, and cleaned up the greenhouse.

Fabric removed

Beds amended and prepped and planted with spinach

Sileage tarp will help heat the soil and encourage even germination.

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You may have heard, however Wendell Berry at the age of 92 passed away this past week. He was a writer, a poet, farmer, advocate for the environment and agriculture, and believed in the power of a local community. His poetry inspires and makes you think. We took a moment on Tuesday at the Oxbow and honored him by reading excerpts from his poems.

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Pickup
Come anytime between 3 pm and 6 pm to choose your share on your pickup day.

As always, please bring your own bags or box to gather your choices.

Remember to contact us in advance if you will be unable to pick up on your day, so that we can store your share in our walk-in refrigerator to keep it fresh. You can email or call us to let us know. Thank you to all of those who have already arranged another time to pickup!

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Here's what you will find in this weeks share:

 Everyone gets to take something chosen by farmers.

Full shares receive an additional 11 choices

Small shares receive an additional 7 choices.

Want some recipe ideas?

CHECK OUT THE CSA RECIPE PAGE!

Your Farmer, Sam (For Tim, Mikaela, Jeannie, Jim, Evrald, Shawn, Jav, Colin, Jaime, Franconia, and Pam)

Summer CSA Pickup #12

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GH4 Tomatoes

After an abundant season we took out the cherry tomatoes in GH4 this past week. Their journey started back in January when they were seeded then grafted potted up and finally planted in the greenhouse.

We not only heat the air in the greenhouse throughout the spring, we also heat the soil using a radiant system as the fruiting plants we grow will not grow, establish themselves, and thrive if soil temperature is below 60 degrees. Once the soil temperature was where we wanted it, we planted.

Harvest began in earnest on May 24th with about 14 pints of tomatoes. Over the course of the season, thousands of pints were harvested.

March 3rd: Soil is warming up. Broad-forking and amending the soil. Then laid down irrigation and fabric.

Salanova head lettuce went in on March 9th. Tomatoes planted March 13th

April 2: Trellising completed and plants are happy!

April 13

May 26: Harvesting has begun. We are pruning and trellising weekly.

June 10th: Evrald did 95% of the cherry tomato harvesting this season.

July 12th: Plants are tall, and dripping with fruit.

August 24: Thatcher removes tomato clips so tomato plants can be removed and pulled out of the greenhouse.

August 24: Evrald unclipped plants from above.

August 30th: Basil now has some space to grow. Hoping for a good late crop of basil before moving these beds over to late season greens.

Cherry Tomatoes still reside in GH9 and GH10. We hope to have them well into the fall!

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Pickup
Come anytime between 3 pm and 6 pm to choose your share on your pickup day.

As always, please bring your own bags or box to gather your choices.

Remember to contact us in advance if you will be unable to pick up on your day, so that we can store your share in our walk-in refrigerator to keep it fresh. You can email or call us to let us know. Thank you to all of those who have already arranged another time to pickup!

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Here's what you will find in this weeks share:

 Everyone gets to take something chosen by farmers.

Full shares receive an additional 11 choices

Small shares receive an additional 7 choices.

Want some recipe ideas?

CHECK OUT THE CSA RECIPE PAGE!

Your Farmer, Sam (For Tim, Mikaela, Jeannie, Jim, Evrald, Shawn, Jav, Colin, Jaime, Wyatt, Ani, Franconia, Riley, Ridge, Thatcher and Pam)

Addison helping us continue to smile!

Summer CSA Pickup #11

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Seeding

Last week Meadowstone hosted two different groups from UNH Cooperative Extension, one Monday evening for a workshop and discussion on how we as a farm incorporate cover crops into our high tunnels and fields -from planning to planting. Discussion focused on how cover crops can be used as a method to manage soil fertility and lessen the impacts of extreme weather on the farm, like drought and flooding. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) was present to educate attendees about financial incentive programs to utilize to start incorporating cover crops on their farms.

The second workshop was Wednesday morning with the UNH cooperative Extension New Farmer School participants. Tim discussed Site and Soil as well as farm infrastructure, equipment, and systems. They visited us in the morning and then stopped in at Tellman Hill Farm in Whitefield for a tour of their orchard. We hope to carry their apples again this season in our farm-stand this fall. They open September 4th for PYO.

Above: Beginner farmers participants discussing equipment, tools, and systems.

You will notice in the picture above the seeder on the back of our John Deere tractor. We utilize this seeder to mainly plant cover crops including the spring mix planted at the Oxbow back in May pictured below. The mix contains Peas, beans, field turnips, sun hemp, sun flowers, and more. As mentioned in previous newsletters cover cropping is an important part of our approach to growing healthy food and healthy soil. Cover crops help build organic matter, protect the soil from erosion, suppress weeds, improve soil structure, and support the diverse soil life that makes our gardens, greenhouses, CAT tunnels, and fields productive. Over time, these practices have helped us build healthier, more resilient soils while reducing our reliance on outside inputs.

Below the Drill seeder in action: Cover Crop Planting Garden 7 last season.

We utilize the Earthway seeder to direct seed greens, cilantro, radishes, turnips, cilantro and cover crop seeds. we can easily navigate shorter beds, plant in greenhouses, and easily decide how close to put the rows. The earthway seed plate can easily be changed to adjust for seed size and space between seeds in a row, we can also adjust for seed depth at planting. Below you can see greens being planted using the earthway.

Over a decade ago, we brought the paper pot planting system to the farm and over the years have used it for Onions, cilantro, scallions, spinach, lettuce mix, turnips, kale, arugula, and greens mix. These days we use it mainly for spinach and other greens, and scallions. We seed the trays in our seed room and then once seeds have germinated and establish a thriving root system, we are able to plant the tray in the ground. We use this system to help extend our season and use bed space as efficiently as possible. We can remove tomatoes from a greenhouse in the morning and have growing spinach planted in the afternoon.

Check out the two videos below to see a much younger Sam seeding in the seed room with this system and then some ready-for-the-ground spinach planted.

We use the water wheel transplanter to plant transplants mainly, however also garlic “seeds” each fall.

……and finally, there are times we resort to the method many of us use in our home gardens: planting seeds by hand.

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Pickup
Come anytime between 3 pm and 6 pm to choose your share on your pickup day.

As always, please bring your own bags or box to gather your choices.

Remember to contact us in advance if you will be unable to pick up on your day, so that we can store your share in our walk-in refrigerator to keep it fresh. You can email or call us to let us know. Thank you to all of those who have already arranged another time to pickup!

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Here's what you will find in this weeks share:

 Everyone gets to take Scallions

Full shares receive an additional 11 choices

Small shares receive an additional 7 choices.

Want some recipe ideas?

CHECK OUT THE CSA RECIPE PAGE!

Your Farmer, Sam (For Tim, Mikaela, Jeannie, Jim, Evrald, Shawn, Jav, Colin, Jaime, Wyatt, Ani, Franconia, Riley, Ridge, Thatcher and Pam)

Summer CSA Pickup #10

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Your Farmers

These hardworking, passionate folks help the farm hum. Harvesting, weeding, connecting with customers, nurturing the soil, caring for animals, rock picking, and so so much more.

Pictured above: Tim, Shawn, Ani, Mikaela, Jeannie, Jaime, Jim, Sam, Addison, Evrald, Riley, and Jav

Pictured Below (Missing from the photo above): Franconia, Ridge, Wyatt, Thatcher, Colin, and Pam (with Mikaela and Addison)

This phenomenal group of folk organize the beautiful chaos of the farm, day after day and week after week. Passionately making it all happen. With 11 greenhouses (4 that move) 2 caterpillar tunnels, Chickens, pigs, cows, donkeys, goats, food waste, compost, seedlings, the farm stand, CSA, PYO flowers, Blueberries, a root cellar, seed room, and more, the task list never ends and these folks make it all happen. Without their thoughtfulness, care, passion, and joy Meadowstone Farm would not be what it is. We are thankful for everyones presence and contributions.

Incredible to get almost everyone together for a photo this past week as we celebrated Ani and Riley on their last day of work for the 2026 season.

These are your farmers!

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Pickup
Come anytime between 3 pm and 6 pm to choose your share on your pickup day.

As always, please bring your own bags or box to gather your choices.

Remember to contact us in advance if you will be unable to pick up on your day, so that we can store your share in our walk-in refrigerator to keep it fresh. You can email or call us to let us know. Thank you to all of those who have already arranged another time to pickup!

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Here's what you will find in this weeks share:

 Everyone gets to take something we will choose.

Full shares receive an additional 11 choices

Small shares receive an additional 7 choices.

Want some recipe ideas?

CHECK OUT THE CSA RECIPE PAGE!

Your Farmer, Sam (For Tim, Mikaela, Jeannie, Jim, Evrald, Shawn, Jav, Colin, Jaime, Wyatt, Ani, Franconia, Riley, Ridge, Thatcher and Pam)

Pickup #9, week of August 9

Summer CSA Pickup #9

August 9, 2026

Everything is exploding

August has arrived in Northern NH and we can barely keep up. Most of our days are spent harvesting, 600 cukes here, 350 pints of cherries tomatoes there. Not to mention zucchini, slicing tomatoes, basil and onions.

In between harvesting we spent some time tending to the carrots. Between the weeds and the deer they are taking a hit this year. We spend dozens of hours prepping the carrot beds to minimize weeds: multiple rounds of stale bed prep, flame weeding, basket weeding and now hand weeding. After all that we had to till in about 3000’ feet of carrots that were inundated with weeds and too far gone. Right the heels of that, our mature beds of carrots have been getting dug up by deer. The fun never ends. Hopefully we’ll have carrots back in the CSA rotation next week

The deer having a good time digging up the carrots.

Although we’ve been harvesting summer crops, fall planning and execution are in full swing. We changed over greenhouse 3 from cucumbers planted in April to fall pole beans and basil.

Ani has been an anchor all over the farm this summer. Switching duties as needed, working the stand, running the packing table, doing deliveries and helping out the CSA. Not to mention all the weeding and planting over the season. All with a great sense of humor and not a little bit of edge to keep us honest. Hard to believe, but this will be her last week this season as she heads off to college next weekend. She’s heading to Colorado-Boulder, go Buffs!

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New to the CSA choices this week are green bell peppers, roma and slicing tomatoes and beans.

Pickup
Come anytime between 3 pm and 6 pm to choose your share on your pickup day.

As always, please bring your own bags or box to gather your choices.

Remember to contact us in advance if you will be unable to pick up on your day, so that we can store your share in our walk-in refrigerator to keep it fresh. You can email or call us to let us know. Thank you to all of those who have already arranged another time to pickup!

Here's what you will find in this weeks share:

 Everyone gets to take something we will choose.

Full shares receive an additional 11 choices

Small shares receive an additional 7 choices.

Want some recipe ideas?

CHECK OUT THE CSA RECIPE PAGE!

Your Farmer, Sam (For Tim, Mikaela, Jeannie, Jim, Evrald, Shawn, Jav, Colin, Jaime, Wyatt, Ani, Franconia, Riley, Ridge, and Thatcher)

Summer CSA Pickup #8

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Garlic Time

Back in October 2025 we all took some time altogether to pop garlic to prepare for planting this years crop. After curing and drying our garlic harvest, we select the bulbs of garlic we would like to save for planting and sell the remaining garlic. We break up the bulbs into cloves and rather than enjoy it in the evenings dinner, we plant each clove typically at the Oxbow. After planting, covering with row cover or mulch, we cross our fingers and wait until the spring. Often garlic is one of the first crops to wake up and start growing come spring time. We have spent the season weeding and maintaining the garlic and this past week harvested, bringing in hundreds and hundreds of bulbs of garlic, which is now curing on tables under our pole barn in the back of the farm.

At 6 inch spacing, 3 rows per bed, over 13,000 heads of garlic were planted on October 24, 2025, yielding a hefty, high quality, harvest which was started last Thursday and finished up on Tuesday. The 3 rows allows us to use the basket weeder to cultivate between the rows. we hand weeded the rows of garlic twice before harvest.

Curing or drying the garlic (onions and winter squash also need curing) enables us to store the garlic so that it will keep into the spring.

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Basil

We are going into this time of the season with more young basil plants than ever before in the hopes that we will continue to have basil into October. We interplanted among the GH4 cherry tomatoes, knowing that if the cherry tomato plants are removed carefully the basil will occupy this greenhouse alone as we move into the fall. The pints of cherry tomatoes continue to come out of GH4, however even Jav needs a ladder to harvest out of here now.

If you would like any bulk basil, we are selling it in 1 pound increments at $20/pound. Let us know by email if you would like some and we can have it waiting for you when you come and pickup your CSA share….just give us a 24 hour heads up at least.

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Pickup
Come anytime between 3 pm and 6 pm to choose your share on your pickup day.

As always, please bring your own bags or box to gather your choices.

Remember to contact us in advance if you will be unable to pick up on your day, so that we can store your share in our walk-in refrigerator to keep it fresh. You can email or call us to let us know. Thank you to all of those who have already arranged another time to pickup!

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Here's what you will find in this weeks share:

 Everyone gets to take something we will choose.

Full shares receive an additional 11 choices

Small shares receive an additional 7 choices.

Want some recipe ideas?

CHECK OUT THE CSA RECIPE PAGE!

Your Farmer, Sam (For Tim, Mikaela, Jeannie, Jim, Evrald, Shawn, Jav, Colin, Jaime, Wyatt, Ani, Franconia, Riley, Ridge, and Thatcher)

Summer CSA Pickup #7

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Blueberries

Blueberries typically have good years, phenomenal years, and then years where the plants rebuild. Without much of a crop this season, for the first time maybe ever, we have not opened for PYO. We have put it down as a PYO pint option for you our CSA members at pickup, however they are not what they have been.

The blueberry bushes here at the farm are about 22 years old, and once upon a time occupied the entire field space out where they are now all the way to the woods. Over the years we consolidated the “patch”, sold bushes and made room for the large garden by the woods, the two greens houses, some animal pasture, and the garden between the greenhouses.

Last fall was the driest summer we have had in over 100 years. Buds on blueberries start to develop in the fall, and with the lack of water our bushes were unable to produce the buds for a vibrant, plentiful crop. That in combination with the late frost in the spring, set us back. Other farms in the area, such as 102 bleu in Guildhall VT are also not opening this season for PYO as the berries aren’t there.

Of course, being harvest season, we have lots of other awesome, fresh, quality Meadowstone farm crops available!

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The washroom was a buzz of activity this past week with crops harvested every single day.

Basil from GH1 is now drying on nails in the CSA area. These nails once held our Garlic Harvest in years past. With the large amount of garlic coming out of the ground, we require way more room. Tables are set up in the back of our pole barn for garlic, squash, and onions to cure and dry as they are harvested. More on that next week!

Jim and the hanging bunches of garlic from 10-ish years ago.

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Pickup
Come anytime between 3 pm and 6 pm to choose your share on your pickup day.

As always, please bring your own bags or box to gather your choices.

Remember to contact us in advance if you will be unable to pick up on your day, so that we can store your share in our walk-in refrigerator to keep it fresh. You can email or call us to let us know. Thank you to all of those who have already arranged another time to pickup!

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Here's what you will find in this weeks share:

 Everyone gets to take something we will choose.

Full shares receive an additional 11 choices

Small shares receive an additional 7 choices.

Want some recipe ideas?

CHECK OUT THE CSA RECIPE PAGE!

Your Farmer, Sam (For Tim, Mikaela, Jeannie, Jim, Evrald, Shawn, Jav, Colin, Jaime, Wyatt, Ani, Franconia, Riley, Ridge, and Thatcher)

Summer CSA Pickup #6

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The harvest season has arrived! Our time has shifted from projects and maintaining to harvesting and attempting to maintain! Every single day tubs are filled and produce makes its way in from the fields or greenhouses where it is washed, boxed and moved into our walk-in refrigerator or in the case of Cherry Tomatoes moved to a shelf ready to be sold (don’t store tomatoes in the fridge!)

Here are the total amounts of a few of the items harvested over the last 3 days:

Cherry Tomatoes: 518 pints

Baby Zucchini: 126.60 pounds

Snacking Cucumbers: 89 pounds

Cucumbers: 382 cucumbers

The team has managed the harvest well, ensuring produce doesn’t remain in the sun and heat too long after harvest, every thing is washed thoroughly and stored for quality and freshness.

In addition to everything here at the main farm, our fields at the Oxbow are doing well. The winter squash looks fantastic, new potatoes are coming along and we plan on harvesting the Garlic in a couple weeks. The first succession of beets and carrots are coming out of the ground. Franconia and Shawn brought back almost 90 pounds of beets and about 60 bunches of carrots on Thursday for the CSA and farm stand.

Above Shawn carefully cleans carrots and Franconia packages up the red beets for the CSA.

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Next week I will be sure to include some recent photos of the Oxbow: the winter squash, Onions, Garlic, Beets, Carrots, and Potatoes, are all thriving. In addition to us farmers, we share the space with wildlife, including Bear, check out the footprints!

You can faintly see where the three way earthway seeder went through the bed dropping carrot seeds 6 days before. In anticipation of them popping up, Sam got over there to flame weed four carrot beds to take care of the fast growing weeds.

To help manage weed pressure at the Oxbow we utilize tractors as the beds in some the gardens are close to 470 feet long. After basket weeding with the cub cadet, Sam caught this video or shawn using the perfecta off the back of the John Deere.

Perfecta in Action: Building a Better Stale Seedbed

The Perfecta field cultivator plays an important role in our stale seedbed system by creating a smooth, level seedbed while making only shallow soil disturbance. After the first flush of weeds has germinated, the Perfecta skims the top layer of soil, uprooting young weeds without bringing a new crop of weed seeds to the surface. This helps reduce weed pressure before planting while preserving soil structure. By combining shallow cultivation, leveling, and seedbed finishing in a single pass, the Perfecta leaves behind an ideal planting surface and helps set the stage for healthier crops with fewer weeds.

Tickle Weeder in Action: Gentle Weed Control for Tiny Seedlings

In the below video Tim can be seen tickle weeding some of our carrots.

The tickle weeder is another tool we use to manage weeds especially in slow-growing crops like carrots. Flexible spring tines lightly comb the soil surface, removing tiny weed seedlings before they become established while leaving the deeply rooted carrot seedlings largely undisturbed. Timing is critical—using the implement when weeds are in the "white thread" stage provides effective weed control, giving the carrots a head start and reducing the need for hand weeding and hoeing later in the season.

It is all about weed management.

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Pickup
Come anytime between 3 pm and 6 pm to choose your share on your pickup day.

As always, please bring your own bags or box to gather your choices.

Remember to contact us in advance if you will be unable to pick up on your day, so that we can store your share in our walk-in refrigerator to keep it fresh. You can email or call us to let us know. Thank you to all of those who have already arranged another time to pickup!

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Here's what you will find in this weeks share:

 Everyone gets to take something we will choose.

Full shares receive an additional 11 choices

Small shares receive an additional 7 choices.

Want some recipe ideas?

CHECK OUT THE CSA RECIPE PAGE!

Your Farmer, Sam (For Tim, Mikaela, Jeannie, Jim, Evrald, Shawn, Jav, Colin, Jaime, Wyatt, Ani, Franconia, Riley, Ridge, and Thatcher)

Summer CSA Pickup #5

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The Littleton Garden Club held their July meeting here at the farm this past week. After a discussion about our philosophy, focus on soil, and all the different things we have going on here, they enjoyed a brief tour, ending at the PYO flower garden out front.

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The flower add-on begins this week! If you are interested in signing up for this, let us know, there is still time!

If you have a PYO flower add-on, make sure to give yourself a little extra time during your pickup for picking a bouquet! For those who have signed up for the farmer made bouquet add-on, your flowers will be waiting for you with Jaime.

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Our Cherry Tomatoes are popping! Lots of Sungolds (orange cherry tomatoes) and Favorita and Super Sweet 100 (both red) coming out the greenhouses. Lots of branches taken off this week in addition to the normal clipping and pruning. Greenhouse crops like airflow and removing some branches helps with that.

GH10 cherry tomatoes

GH4 cherry tomatoes

Wyatt harvesting snacking cucumbers out of GH8. The two beds on the left side of this photo are pruned (like tomatoes) to one stem, whereas the bed Wyatt is harvesting from in the photo is not. Pruning some and not others has helped stagger the harvest.

Updated photo of Garden 8 greens

Jav on the tractor doing animal chores

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Last week you got to the CSA setup, here we have a morning harvest in the washroom.

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Pickup
Come anytime between 3 pm and 6 pm to choose your share on your pickup day.

As always, please bring your own bags or box to gather your choices.

Remember to contact us in advance if you will be unable to pick up on your day, so that we can store your share in our walk-in refrigerator to keep it fresh. You can email or call us to let us know. Thank you to all of those who have already arranged another time to pickup!

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Here's what you will find in this weeks share:

 Everyone gets to take something we will choose.

Full shares receive an additional 11 choices

Small shares receive an additional 7 choices.

Want some recipe ideas?

CHECK OUT THE CSA RECIPE PAGE!

Your Farmer, Sam (For Tim, Mikaela, Jeannie, Jim, Evrald, Shawn, Jav, Colin, Jaime, Wyatt, Ani, Franconia, Riley, Ridge, and Thatcher)

Summer CSA Pickup #4

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The Littleton Garden Club held their July meeting here at the farm this past week. After a discussion about our philosophy, focus on soil, and all the different things we have going on here, they enjoyed a brief tour, ending at the PYO flower garden out front.

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The flower add-on begins this week! If you are interested in signing up for this, let us know, there is still time!

If you have a PYO flower add-on, make sure to give yourself a little extra time during your pickup for picking a bouquet! For those who have signed up for the farmer made bouquet add-on, your flowers will be waiting for you with Jaime.

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Our Cherry Tomatoes are popping! Lots of Sungolds (orange cherry tomatoes) and Favorita and Super Sweet 100 (both red) coming out the greenhouses. Lots of branches taken off this week in addition to the normal clipping and pruning. Greenhouse crops like airflow and removing some branches helps with that.

GH10 cherry tomatoes

GH4 cherry tomatoes

Wyatt harvesting snacking cucumbers out of GH8. The two beds on the left side of this photo are pruned (like tomatoes) to one stem, whereas the bed Wyatt is harvesting from in the photo is not. Pruning some and not others has helped stagger the harvest.

Updated photo of Garden 8 greens

Jav on the tractor doing animal chores

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Last week you got to the CSA setup, here we have a morning harvest in the washroom.

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Pickup
Come anytime between 3 pm and 6 pm to choose your share on your pickup day.

As always, please bring your own bags or box to gather your choices.

Remember to contact us in advance if you will be unable to pick up on your day, so that we can store your share in our walk-in refrigerator to keep it fresh. You can email or call us to let us know. Thank you to all of those who have already arranged another time to pickup!

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Here's what you will find in this weeks share:

 Everyone gets to take something we will choose.

Full shares receive an additional 11 choices

Small shares receive an additional 7 choices.

Want some recipe ideas?

CHECK OUT THE CSA RECIPE PAGE!

Your Farmer, Sam (For Tim, Mikaela, Jeannie, Jim, Evrald, Shawn, Jav, Colin, Jaime, Wyatt, Ani, Franconia, Riley, Ridge, and Thatcher)

Summer CSA Pickup #3

We hope you have enjoyed welcoming Meadowstone Farm into your kitchen during the first 3 weeks of the CSA. Thank you for all the feedback, questions and thoughts provided to us so far, keep it coming!

Are there things you would like to change about your 2026 Summer CSA share? If so, let us know by email or phone BEFORE your next pickup!

Options include switching share size from Small to Full or Full to Small or changing add-ons. Coffee, Flowers, Beef, and Pork Sausage are all available options. We can only offer refunds for Eggs as there are no more Egg Add-ons available for purchase.

If your CSA changes require a partial refund, the amount will be added to your Farm Bucks account in our farm-stand to be used at your convenience on any item we sell in the stand. Don't have an account? We will set one up for you!

If you owe us, bring a check on your pickup day, Monday or Thursday.

To change something about your CSA just shoot us an email with the subject "CSA Changes" and then touch base with Jaime or Sophie on Monday or Thursday.

Due to the administrative work and CSA organization, this is the week of the CSA season to make a change if you would like to make one.

—-No need to reach out to us unless you are interested in changing a part of your CSA.—-

Tomato seedlings are started sometime in January, some years even earlier. We end a season take a breath and immediately start up again for the next season. Our production greenhouse tomatoes are mostly all grafted: The fruiting variety top or Scion is attached to a disease resistant, vigorous root system of another variety. fruit trees, melons and cucumbers are other plants that are sometimes grafted.

A wood-fired radiant system in both greenhouse 4 and gh3 allows us to get a head start in heating the soil. The air temperature can be favorable for growing however if the soil temperature is anywhere below 60 degrees, growth on tomatoes and cucumbers will be slowed and inhibited. Once the soil temperature is up where we want it, typically by beginning/middle of March, tomatoes make their way into the ground. Here in GH4, you can see tomatoes planted and trellised with salanova head lettuce. As a heartier crop, the head lettuce was planted a couple weeks before the tomatoes. See the snow out the right side of the greenhouse?

Propane heat with a torpedo heater as back up in GH10, made sure the low night time temperatures in GH10 did not affect the growth of these later cherry tomatoes. Temperature sensors in each greenhouse connected to our phone line, will call us if temperatures get too low or too high. Sometimes the nighttime heaters stop working!?

Early cherry tomatoes made it into the spring CSA baskets this season and we have been thrilled to have them for you too!

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Pickup
Come anytime between 3 pm and 6 pm to choose your share on the day you chose when you signed up, so either Monday or Thursday.

Please bring your own bags or box to gather your choices.

Remember to contact us in advance if you will be unable to pick up on your day, so that we can store your share in our walk-in refrigerator to keep it fresh. You can email or call us to let us know. Thank you to all of those who have already arranged another time to pickup!

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Here's what you will find in this weeks share:

 Everyone gets to take some form of Lettuce type greens….lots of lettuce this season!

Full shares receive an additional 11 choices

Small shares receive an additional 7 choices.

Want some recipe ideas?

CHECK OUT THE CSA RECIPE PAGE!

Your Farmer, Sam (For Tim, Mikaela, Jeannie, Jim, Evrald, Shawn, Jav, Colin, Jaime, Wyatt, Ani, Franconia, Riley, Ridge, and Thatcher)

Summer CSA Pickup #2

Happy Summer Solstice!

Today, June 21, 2026 at 5:02 am the sun rose.

Sunset will take place at 8:33 pm giving us

15 hours 31 minutes and 9 seconds of daylight.

On December 21, 2026, the shortest day of the year will only provide us with 

8 hours 51 minutes and 27 seconds of daylight. 

Sun and Flowers from October 2024. Garden 2 was once the spot for the bouquet flower garden. Green House 11 has taken over this spot.

Greens over at the Oxbow late summer 2025

As you are fully aware, the growing season here is relatively short. By the summer solstice we aim to have most of our crops established in gardens and greenhouses as in late June these established crops go through a rapid growth phase.

Plants can detect the slight decrease in daylight hours and begin to allocate more energy into flowering, setting fruit, or in the case of garlic, and potatoes bulbing up.

With constantly changing weather, the spring can be quite stressful protecting plants and moving them into the ground, June then providesa a bit of a reprieve before the harvest comes in earnest. However with the harvest season on the horizon, the weeds also come in quick. Over the last two weeks, leading up to the summer solstice today, weeding has moved up on the priority list.

Jav and Franconia weeding Onions over at the Oxbow. When we see massive growth in our cash crops, we are also seeing massive growth in the weeds!

In reality, the solstice marks the transition from "growing the plant" to "growing the harvest." Our vegetable crops shift focus toward fruits, seeds, bulbs, tubers, and roots rather than just leaves and stems.

Addison is all about the High-One right now instead of a High-Five!

Tim provided some TLC to the Cub Cadet Tractor. Fixed the basket weeder, greased fittings, changed out all the fluids, and set it up for a successful 2026 season!

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Pickup
Come anytime between 3 pm and 6 pm to choose your share on the day you chose when you signed up, so either Monday or Thursday.

Please bring your own bags or box to gather your choices.

Remember to contact us in advance if you will be unable to pick up on, so that we can store your share in our walk-in refrigerator to keep it fresh. You can email or call us to let us know. Thank you to all of those who have already arranged another time to pickup!

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Here's what you will find in this weeks share:

 Everyone gets to take Lettuce

Full shares receive an additional 11 choices

Small shares receive an additional 7 choices.

Gweneth Paltrow published a cookbook “IT'S ALL GOOD: Delicious, Easy Recipes That Will Make You Look Good and Feel Great” that has a delicious creamy parsley dressing in it. Swapping out the parsley for cilantro creates a different delicious version. With all the lettuce you have been bringing home, we encourage you to get creative….this dressing will help! You can find a link to the Creamy Parsley Dressing here.

Want some recipe ideas?

CHECK OUT THE CSA RECIPE PAGE!

Your Farmer, Sam (For Tim, Mikaela, Jeannie, Jim, Evrald, Shawn, Jav, Colin, Jaime, Wyatt, Ani, Tobi, Franconia, Riley, Ridge, and Thatcher)

Summer CSA Pickup #1

welcome to the Summer CSA! Whether you're continuing with us from a previous CSA season, been a loyal customer for many years, or just joining us for the first time, we thank you for being a part of our farm and for welcoming our produce into your kitchen.

You are integral in supporting local agriculture!

Garden 6 (G6) head lettuce is loving the heat, sun, with some rain.

The peas, also in G6 interplanted with some Radishes.

It has been full speed ahead the last few weeks getting soil prepped and plants in the ground both in greenhouses and outside in our gardens. Early tropical plants such as Tomatoes, Cucumbers, and Peppers requiring heat and other plants we want to protect with cover have gone in greenhouses or one of our two CAT tunnels. Now that the cold nights have passed the outside gardens have been filling up with more greens successions, zucchini, winter squash and pumpkins, as well as herbs, and field cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes. The team has been working hard to set ourselves up for a successful and bountiful season.

Above: Greenhouse 11 (GH11) was erected on the site of our second garden here at the farm. This area has been transformed! We have a few seedlings still available for sale if you are interested. We are also offering them as a choice this week.

The cover crop planted in the side beds of GH3 has popped up.

The broccolini harvest has begun! We are excited to have this for you as an option.

We watched these little ones hatch, grow and then leave the nest this spring. The mother sneakily built her nest in a seedling sale tray of peppermint!

GH4 cherry tomatoes are beginning to ripen in earnest, all that work this winter and spring has paid off. We also have cherry tomatoes in GH10. Take a walk around the farm when you come pick up your share to see these first hand.

Evrald was integral in prepping and planting all of our Greenhouses starting with GH4 back in February. We trellis each plant on a string, pruning them to a single stem.

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Pickup
Come anytime between 3 pm and 6 pm to choose your share on the day you chose when you signed up, so either Monday or Thursday.

Please bring your own bags or box to gather your choices. To find the pickup location look for the CSA sign and tent left and straight ahead after driving into the farm!

Written under the bin or crate holding each item available to choose from will be the size of 1 choice. So for example, some weeks a cucumber choice will be one single cucumber, another week it could be 2 cucumbers. Jaime and Mikaela will be present and able to help answer any questions you may have as you select your share.

If you signed up for an add-on, there will be a shelf with coffee, eggs, beef and pork sausage for you to take. The PYO and Bouquet flower CSA starts in late July, when the patch starts blooming in earnest!

Remember to contact us in advance if you will be unable to pick up on Thursday, so that we can store your share in our walk-in refrigerator to keep it fresh. You can email or call us to let us know. Thank you to all of those who have already arranged another time to pickup!

To keep track of choices taken we will provide you with a Tally Sheet upon arrival to pickup your share. This example is from September of Last year. You will notice a few things:

• Must take item(s) will already be checked off. If you would like to take a second of the must take items, add a second tick mark next to the item.

• On the bottom of the tally sheet circle your share size as a reminder of how many choices you get to take. The number includes the must take item(s) if there are any checked off above already.

The tally sheet allows us to keep track of what was taken to improve our selection from week to week and year to year for our CSA.

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Here's what you will find in this weeks share:

 Everyone gets to take Lettuce

Full shares receive an additional 11 choices

Small shares receive an additional 7 choices.

Want some recipe ideas?

CHECK OUT THE CSA RECIPE PAGE!

Your Farmer, Sam (For Tim, Mikaela, Jeannie, Jim, Evrald, Shawn, Jav, Colin, Jaime, Wyatt, Ani, Tobi, Franconia, Riley, and Ridge)