August
The thick cover crop at the oxbow of Oats and Peas popped up over the weekend, oats first and peas just a day or so behind. Oats germinate at an extraordinarily fast rate, outpacing and suppressing any weed seeds in the soil attempting to germinate. Oats also can improve soil health by scavenging nutrients and recycling them, setting up the next crop for success. Cover crops help with erosion control and can penetrate heavy hard soils, making the growing medium softer for the next crop. Peas recycle nutrients and fix nitrogen. They too are quick growing, outpacing many weeds.
Oats and peas at the Oxbow. Check out the germinated peas.
Oxbow cover crop zoomed out.
Cover Crops will next be planted out in Garden 7 where the zucchini was. Matt, Evrald and Sam folded up all the fabric used exposing the soil to receive the next planting.
Garden 7 fabric (where the zucchini was) coming up. Measured, marked and folded. Thankfully the tags Matt made and affixed to them last year have mostly stayed on!
The number of Red Devons at the farm have fluctuated over the years, however currently we have 10. Two cows are on the main farm property: Kona in Bobby’s World and Emmett by the farm stand. The other 8 just moved from one pasture on Blaney Road to another. We walked/ran them down the road and thankfully all went smoothly.
As you can see in the video there was a brief moment when it looked like the simple walk was going to take a detour, however everyone behaved and they made it directly to fresh pasture.
You may recall two out of these GH2 pictures from last weeks newsletter, however check out what has happened in the last week.
GH2 prep in full swing.
Shawn and Evrald set up GH2 for Fall salanova head lettuce: weeded, amended, irrigation, fabric and plastic mulch. Small now, these salanova are set up to thrive and flourish after the cover crop earlier in the season.
GH2 Salanova
The wheels on the Littleton Coop bus rolled right into Meadowstone Farm on Wednesday! We enjoyed touring about 40 folks celbrating NH Eat Local Month by visiting us, Gingue Farm and Tellman Hill Farm. Our certifying agency continues to be our customers and visitors to the farm.
With our Littleton Coop Visitors, we talked about farm and food resiliency in the North Country, the effects of mother nature, how we works to control water, temperature, nutrients, and pest pressure when we can, and how we pivot and handle factors we can not.
If you haven’t had the opportunity to walk around the farm in a while, we encourage you to do so.
Woodland Community School is back in session for the 2024-2025 school year. CHILDREN AND PARENTS MAY BE STILL IN AND AROUND THE DRIVEWAY WHEN PICKUP BEGINS, PLEASE BE CAREFUL NAVIGATING THE PARKING LOT.
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.
If you signed up for an add-on, don’t forget to pickup your
Coffee, Eggs, Pork sausage and Flowers!
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!
Here's what you will find in this weeks share:
You get to take Kale home with you and…
Full shares receive an additional 11 choices.
Small shares receive an additional 7 choices.
WANT SOME RECIPE IDEAS?
CHECK OUT THE CSA RECIPE PAGE!
Enjoy! Thank you for supporting local agriculture. See you Thursday if not before.
Your Farmer,
Sam (For Tim, Matt, Mikaela, Jeannie, Jim, Jaime, Evrald, Shawn, Colin, Jessie, Ani, Wyatt, Gal, and Claira)