Many of you are asking when the main season ends, so here are the dates to remember:
The last Farm Market Friday when I will have extra for sale will be October 11.
The last Friday of the main season CSA will be October 25.
The last Tuesday of the main season CSA will be October 28.
The first Winter CSA pick-up will be Friday November 8 (more details to come).

As a reminder, if you have had a winter share in the past and are interested in one again this season, please let me know by the end of the month. Many of the winter crops look really good (the rutabaga you’ve gotten is an example, but don’t worry it won’t be all rutabaga!) I do have a number of new people interested in the winter share, so if you don’t let me know, you will likely lose your spot.

A few of you have been asking for garlic for planting. Rony and Myriam of LunaMia farm have some they have selected out specifically to plant. If you are interested let me know how many pounds you would want. Or if you tell me how many cloves you intend to plant we’ll figure out the weight. If I know by the end of the day Wednesday I can have it in the store by Friday…

It’s the first of September and at this time I would like to start accepting RETURN Winter CSA members to sign up for shares. Anyone who has had a Winter share before has the month of September to sign up again. If the Winter CSA is not full by the end of the month I will accept new members. The Winter share prices will remain the same as last year: $250 for a small and $400 for a large share. Like last year, potatoes from Ben Cameron will be available to purchase. When you sign up, please let me know how many pounds of potatoes you would like for the winter. I will pick them up before the first Winter CSA date and store them for you. You can take them as you need them through the winter.

As always, if you have any questions, please ask!

At the Friday store and Tuesday CSA there will be beautiful garlic for sale from Rony and Myriam of Lunamia Farm near Desboro. Don’t miss it!

A before and after picture of a party doesn’t always look like this! Some of the weeding crew is pictured below, and thank you all for making a daunting task so enjoyable!

Join us at 9am in the CSA garden for the satisfying task of weeding some of crops we will all enjoy later this season. Many hands make for light, social, and enjoyable work! We’ll be cutting most of the weeds, not pulling them out, so if you have clippers, or a sturdy knife, please bring it. We have some extra but not enough for everyone. However much we get done, we’ll stop at noon for a potluck lunch. If you just want to come for lunch, feel free to bring a dish to share! Please bring your own cutlery and plates.

Soil wants to express itself. It’s the organ for the Earth’s artistry.
Weeds are always an expression of something, as is every plant. Seeds can wait in the soil (sometimes for decades) for the right time, place, and reason to express what the soil desires. Some weeds are medicinals for humans, animals, and soil. They can be trying to bring something that is missing, or balance an excess. Some weeds follow cultivation, and like the fertile soil that we prepare for our crops… that’s mostly what we have.
Most of all the soil wants to cover itself, to be a storehouse of carbon, which holds the potential for the expression of life. The trick is letting the soil express the life of our crops before it feels the need to express the life of the fertility loving weeds.
Weeding, as with so many things, is all about timing. If we catch the weeds when they are young, just sprouting along with our crops, we can direct the expression of the soil with a quick hoeing. Each bed can be hoed in 10 or 15 minutes. If we miss that window, each bed can take 2, 3, 4 hours to weed. This has happened a bit this year, encouraged by the rains. Because of our earliest first harvest day in mid-June, as soon as we finished the planting push, I had to focus on the twice a week harvest and distribution. I lost the crucial window to do the quick and easy hoeing for many of the crops. Getting many hands for the task Saturday will be great to get caught up!
There’s more to this story, but that’s to be shared in the garden!
Hope to see you there,

On a lovely afternoon, light breeze, filtered sun, many hands from good people came together to make light enjoyable work. We got all the outside peppers and tomatoes in the ground then enjoyed an amazing potluck. Next scheduled event will be our weeding party Saturday July 20, 9-12 with a potluck lunch. Hope others can make it out.

The first of our three planned community events at the farm is this Saturday June 1st. We will have a planting party from 2-5pm followed by a pot-luck dinner. It looks to be a beautiful day. If you don’t want to, or can’t make it to the planting part, feel free to just come for the pot-luck. Please bring your own dishes and cutlery.

For those who do come for planting, there’s also mulching if you don’t do well on your hands and knees. If you have a pitch fork, or trowel, it would be helpful if you could bring them. We have several here, but maybe not enough. Depending on who’s here and how the day goes there might even be tomato post pounding… so many fun opportunities!

If you have any questions, let us know… Hope to see you here!

Will see some of you today for the Spring CSA, but also wanted to share a quick note about the spring. I’m grateful that I have been working with premade beds, since, as is common, we have a wet spring and preparing beds between the rains would be, and has been challenging.
Part of the pre-made beds issue that I’ve run into in the past is that if the spring is very wet the weeds start taking off before I can even scratch the surface of the bed to plant. Last year I had the idea of a horse implement that I could use to do this. The implements I have used with the previous horses I can’t use with the horses that are here now (that’s a bit of a long story). I designed it and had it fabricated and am trying it out for the first time this spring. Not a lot of time for experimentation, but with continual tweaking it’s coming along.

Still trying to come up with a name for the tool… any ideas?

The cabin above our root cellar is available for short term rentals from early May to the end of July. If you know anyone needing a weekend here or a week there in need of a place to stay you can have them contact me at saugeenrivercsa@gmail.com or 519 369 3567.