Gearing up at the farm stand

We have been busy in the fields keeping up with planting summer crops, protecting spring crops from pests, and preparing fields for fall vegetables! It has been great to see many of you when we come in from the fields to stock up produce in the farm stand. When you come by for your veggies this week, say hello to our new shopkeeper for the season, Alexis! Alexis just graduated from college at UMass and is jumping right into the action at the farm stand on Tuesday.  The farm store will now be staffed for the remainder of the season so we will have change for cash purchases and our Barrett's Bucks record book available for review. 

The CSA starts in one week! Pick-ups begin June 6th. CSA pick-up hours are: Tuesdays and Thursdays 11am - 6pm and Saturdays 10am - 3pm. We have just 10 spaces left so if you or your friends have not yet signed up but want to join us for the season contact us now or stop by the farm this week! We are hosting a drop-in CSA orientation at the farm stand June 3rd between 1 - 3pm.  New, prospective, and returning members are all welcome to stop by for 5-10 minutes to talk with Melissa and Lise about the farm and check out how the CSA works. 

In the farm store this week: asparagus, lettuce, bok choy, Salanova lettuce mix, radishes, and basil plants. We will also continue to sell mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm. This will be our last week of the asparagus harvest for this season but we look forward to more next May from both our old and new plantings!  All items in the farm store (and CSA) are certified organic and grown here at the farm unless otherwise noted. 

Farm Store Hours

Tuesday and Thursday 11am - 6pm

Wednesday and Friday 2pm - 6pm

Saturday 10am - 3pm

Summer crop planting season is here!

With the last frost behind us we have moved into two weeks of non-stop planting! We have a line-up of frost sensitive crops that are ready to be planted including tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, summer squash, cucumbers and flowers.  All these mid summer favorites need warm nights to thrive but we want them to fruit as early as possible so the trick is to get them all in the ground quickly as soon as the weather forecast looks frost-free. Now is that time!  This week you'll see us out in the fields with a truck full of plants and our trusty clipboard containing our planting schedule which lists the date, variety, location, spacing, and fertilizer needs for each crop. The planting schedule starts at March 25th and goes until October 31st when we plant garlic at the end of the season. May 20 until the 30th takes up one third of the printed planting schedule!

Before we get to all that planting we will still be starting each day with the harvest! This week we will be harvesting asparagus, Salanova lettuce mix, arugula, and radishes. We will also continue to have basil and parsley plants and Fat Moon Farm mushrooms for sale.  Our self serve farm stand is open our regular hours:

• Tuesday and Thursday 11am - 6pm
• Wednesday and Friday 2pm - 6pm
• Saturday 10am - 3pm

The farm store will be staffed starting May 30th. CSA pick-ups begin June 6th and the CSA has just 15 spots left so if you or your friends have been thinking about joining now is the time to sign-up!

Blue skies (and green veggies) on the horizon

By the end of the week it will feel like summer, and rightfully so - strawberries and sugar snap peas are only a few weeks away! Last week's cool wet weather certainly slowed down the asparagus harvest and other crop growth, but it didn't slow our crew down. On some of the wetter days we thinned and weeded beets and carrots, transplanted successions of celery, lettuce and scallions, kept on top of our greenhouse schedule, put up our deer fence, and shifted around row covers. On drier days we hoed lettuce, cultivated peas, plowed more fields to prepare for tomato and summer squash planting, and seeded greens, sunflowers and beans!

The farm store will continue to be open self- serve this week with asparagus, arugula, red Russian kale, and basil and parsley plants for sale. We will also continue to stock Fat Moon Farm mushrooms. This week is also asparagus week at 80 Thoreau restaurant- look for our asparagus on the menu! The warmer weather that is forecast this week should improve our asparagus yields so that hopefully there will be plenty for both the farm stand and the restaurant!

Farm store hours

Tuesday/Thursday 11am-6pm

Wednesday/Friday 2pm-6pm

Saturday 10am-3pm

Early May activity in the fields and farm stand

We planted 10 beds of potatoes last week! To get it all done in one day we used a tractor to make furrows and then we dropped a seed potato every foot. After laying out drip tape we used the hilling discs on the tractor to cover them all up again. Dave, our new Assistant Grower, started work just in time to help us plant all the potatoes before the rain began! Dave is an avid gardener and is trying out farming for the first time. He and Shaun are now on the farm full time for the season.

It is important to have a full farm crew in May as work really start to pick up! This time of year, each day starts with the asparagus harvest. When we meet up at 7am we head out to the asparagus field with knives and 5 gallon buckets. We each walk along a row, cutting any spear that looks tall enough. We walk quickly because after the harvest and washing is done it is time to prepare for the many crops to come next month and beyond! Last week we began setting up our deer fencing, installed some new herb beds by the farm stand, worked on securing row covers all over the farm, and continued seeding in the greenhouse and directly in the field. We also did plenty of transplanting and weeding this past week. In addition to potatoes we planted lettuce, bok choy, scallions, chard and lettuce. We also started our weed control campaign by using our basket weeder on the carrots and beets. We use a combination of tractor cultivation and hand weeding to make sure that each crop can out-compete the weeds for nutrients, space, and light. This week we will be carefully weeding and thinning the carrots and beets by hand to ensure a good harvest in June!

In the farm store this week we will continue to have asparagus, microgreens, and mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm. We will also have our own basil and parsley plants.  We hope to have field greens including arugula and red Russian kale by the end of the week. 

2017 farm store hours continue this week: 

• Tuesday/Thursday 11am-6pm
• Wednesday/Friday 2pm-6pm
• Saturday 10am-3pm

Shaun using the Farmall 140 hilling discs to cover our potatoes (and drip irrigation). 

The farm stand is open and certified organic!

We've got an exciting new sign (painted by Lise's dad of course) out in front of our stand! After 3 years of farming the land organically, we are now officially certified organic! Our newly leased land across the street is still transitional but most crops are grown on our main fields so unless otherwise noted all vegetables in the farm store and CSA are certified organic. 

We've been enjoying a pretty robust asparagus harvest for the past several days, which means the farm stand will be open this week for our regular 2017 hours:

• Tuesday & Thursday 11am - 6pm
• Wednesday & Friday 2 - 6pm
• Saturday 10am - 3pm

In addition to asparagus, we'll have our own basil plants, as well as mushrooms from Fat Moon Farm in Westford. By the end of the week we should also have our own micro greens and eggs from Pete and Jen's Backyard Birds. Also coming soon are arugula, red Russian kale, and a second planting of pea shoots.

The farm stand will continue to be self-serve this week, so exact change, check or Barrett's Bucks are accepted. If you are using Barrett's Bucks, we have cards for you to fill out for totaling your purchase. Just drop your filled-in card in the payment slot and we will debit your purchases in our record book.  If you have a question about your balance, don't hesitate to send us an email.