We also have plenty of great organically grown vegetables coming out of our very own fields: carrots, beets, broccoli, basil, parsley, summer squash (we have some fantastic varieties, including yellow straightneck, green zucchini, golden zucchini, pattypan, and heirloom Costata Romanesca), green beans, yellow wax beans, and spring onions.

And we have flowers! Beautifully arranged bouquets of cosmos, sweet peas, Queen Anne’s Lace, early sunflowers, and plenty more.

Hope to see you at the farmstand this weekend!

Spring onions are in season!

We’ve been getting a lot of people coming through the farm stand wondering why we don’t have corn, or tomatoes.  The answer is– it’s not in season yet!  Even though it feels like summer outside and the plants are growing quickly, and everything has been early this spring and summer, many of the late-summer goodies like corn and tomatoes are just not yet in season.

Zucchini and summer squash are in season!

Fortunately, we do have many delicious things that ARE in season!  Lettuce, carrots, beets, peas, zucchini, spring onions, green beans… all of these tasty late-spring-early-summer foods are at their peak right now.  One of the great things about eating with the seasons is that the veggies are always at their best.  In-season foods are naturally the sweetest and most flavorful. You’re enjoying them at their finest.  Plus, you can eat them every day for the few weeks when they’re at their prime, and then by the time you’re sick of them– the season’s over until next year!  Voila!

How do you tell what’s in season?  The folks over at SEMAP have provided us with this handy dandy calendar:

http://www.farmfresh.org/learn/harvestcalendar.php

Check it out the next time you’re wondering when tomatoes are going to come around, then come by the farm stand to see if it matches up!

The farm stand will have a picnic area, and in the future will include demonstration gardens of herbs, flowers, and vegetables.   Because the produce is grown on-site, offerings will change with the seasons.

After Saturday, the farm stand will be open every Tuesday through Friday from 12 pm to 6 pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 10 am to 6 pm. We will still be at the North Easton Farmers’ Market at the Sheep Pasture and our CSA will continue as usual.

Cherry Belle, Easter Egg, and French Breakfast radishes

This week we started our CSA pickup and we went to the North Easton farmers’ market for the first time.  The response has been amazingly positive– everyone has been so supportive and happy about our veggies, and we sold out of just about everything we brought to the farmers’ market!  Halfway through we ran out of radishes, but luckily our fields are just across the street from the farmers’ market and we could just run back and harvest some more.  Doesn’t get much fresher than that.

Lettuces growing bigger! Photo by Glenn Cantor

Spring vegetables

Our vegetables are getting closer and closer to their full edible size!  The spinach, radishes, bok choy, and lettuces are all going to be ready within the next few weeks and we are licking our lips in anticipation.  We’ve been so lucky with the weather lately, with the perfect balance of sun and rain, and our little plants are soaking it all up.   As we watch our spring crops grow, we’re also thinking ahead to summer time, planting summer squash, melons, basil, and potatoes.

Farm stand

If you drive by the farm on Washington Street, you’ve probably noticed all the excavators and loaders and other heavy equipment at work.  All the construction will soon be our driveway and farm stand!  The work is going fast, and we are very much looking forward to having a place for people to enter the farm and park. We will send out a big email notice and will also post on our website when the farm stand is opening.

Farm stand driveway goes in. Photo by Glenn Cantor

Last week, we received an enormous cardboard box containing a bunch of sticks with roots coming out. These sticks, carefully planted, pruned, and tended to for the next several years, will eventually bear fruit!  This past Sunday, our dreams of sweet juicy fruit came one step closer to coming true as we planted our orchard.

First we had to dig the holes.  Given the rocks, this was no easy task.  We had an excavator to make the job easier, but we still had to move some sizable boulders.

Rory & Kevin move boulders. Photo by Glenn Cantor

Finally we planted trees!  We dug a hole where the excavator had moved the sod aside, stood our little stick-tree in the hole, filled it with compost, flipped the sod upside down to make a grass-free zone around the tree, and topped the whole thing with some more compost.

Planting trees! Photo by Glenn Cantor

Multiply that process by 74 and you have a beautiful orchard and some very tired farmers.  Luckily we had a great crew that day, including Alida’s dad Glenn, who took all these photos.   We also had some surprise guests, including a reporter from the Enterprise who took some photos for this great article on CSA farms, and a very cute bluebird who seems to like our new orchard!

Bluebird checking out the new orchard. Photo by Glenn Cantor

All in all a very good day.

Triumphant farmers! Rory, Kate, Kevin, & Alida (left to right). Photo by Glenn Cantor

Lettuces waiting to be transplanted

We first put black plastic mulch on the ground, which is one tool organic farmers can use to combat weeds.  Then we go down the row, punch holes in the mulch, and carefully put a little plant into each hole.  Finally, we cover the whole thing with wire hoops and row cover to create little mini-greenhouses right in the field that will protect our tender baby plants from frost and deer.

Spinach is happy to be in the ground

As plants are moved into the ground, we are also making sure they have the best conditions possible by amending our soil.  If you have recently driven by our fields and are wondering what all the white stuff in our fields is, it’s powdered limestone, a soil amendment that is approved for organic farming.  Spreading lime improves the very acidic soils we have here in New England and creates a friendlier growing environment for vegetables, which prefer a more neutral pH.

A bucket of rocks!

Thanks to our fantastic crew of volunteers who came out yesterday afternoon, we removed a whole ton of rocks from the worst (rockiest) section of our field.  Even the youngest volunteers pitched in, running around the fields trying to find and lift the biggest rocks.  We all got a great workout and it was fun to meet some of our neighbors and CSA members. Rory and Kevin’s mom even stopped by with freshly baked cookies.   We are so thankful for the help!

To those who couldn’t make it, don’t worry, there will be many more chances coming up!

Unfortunately we were so busy with the rocks we forgot to take pictures, but here is some of the final product at the end: a tractor-load full of the finest fresh local New England rocks.  

Author Carson Poole writes:

Starting a small organic farm may be the pipe dream we green-thumbed and eco-minded urban dwellers all share, but Alida Cantor and Rory O’Dwyer are actually living the dream. Last summer the two, along with Rory’s brother Kevin and his wife Kate, were chosen from a pool of farmers vying for the right to start Langwater Farm, an 80-acre property nestled right in the middle of small-town Easton, Massachusetts.

Read the whole interview on seriouseats!