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| | | Hutten Family Farm Newsletter for Sunday Sep 18, 2011 |
I started to write a newsletter on Sunday evening but it never materialized. Now it is Monday. My family and I spent some time yesterday afternoon at Chipman brook; a small cluster of cottages on the bay of fundy just north of our farm. My mother, my three brothers, and our collective families had a little reunion up on the beach to mark the 20th year since my father died. On September 17,1991 I helped my dad pick about twenty bushels of stanley prune plums. He died the next morning. I picked stanley prune plums this past Saturday again just like I do every year. They are always ready around the middle of the month. Picking them always reminds me of my father.
The farm that Debra and I own is our family farm. My parents bought this farm in April, 1966. My father actually signed the papers to buy this property while my mother was in hospital delivering me. It was a small dairy farm with about 30 acres of apples in the 1970's. Because of health reasons the farm was not actively farmed for a few years. I began planting vegetables here about twenty-five years ago. About fifteen years ago I figured out how to grow vegetables (with some success). Over the years we have built cold frames and greenhouse structures to extend the season and to help generate income in the shoulder seasons. It is still a small farm with limited volumes of production. This is why we have limited our CSA membership to where we are now.
There will be a few stanley plums in the boxes this week. I will need to limit the volumes a bit because the crop is quite small this year. We will also be able to put blueberries in again. This will be the last blueberry week for the season. We will also have some really nice and young string beans for the CSA this week.I made an awesome salad on Sunday with little green beans. It had beans (just blanched and cooled), fennel, red onion, candied almonds, and salted under-ripe mango in it. I did not grow the mango.
Harvesting about a zillion different crops continues full swing. We are only beginning to harvest crops for fall and winter storage. Shallots and red onions are all pulled and are drying. We will begin to harvest some daikon and tae baek radish for storage this week as well. Most of the apples that we have picked this season have been sold fresh, within a few days of picking. This week we start picking apples for storage. The first macintosh apples for winter storage will be picked in a couple of days. We are also picking gingergold apples. These are a great fall yellow fleshed eating apple.
One quick comment about those nice blue totes. We like them too and we need them to pack your produce in each week. In the last year we have seen many totes go missing. If this trend continues (and it seems to be) we will have to start numbering totes and assigning them to individual customers. This is a totally unnecessary measure and a hassle for both us and all of you. Please return totes. Late is much better than never. Dirty totes can be washed. I will beg if need be. Feel free to reprimand tote thieves in public places.
Have a good week. ted
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