Welcome to the first CSA week of 2016!  We're finally at the start of a 20 week culmination of work that began in January amidst spreadsheets and conferences, took hold in March and April when we began seeding in the greenhouse and planting in the fields, and will continue on through October.  This first distribution is a humble offering of the fruits of so many labors and laborers and our subsequent distributions will only grow with those efforts.  

Anna, Dan, Naomi and I got things rolling this season in the greenhouse and in the fields in March, with Assistant Grower Janelle joining us in April.  Greenhouses filled with seedlings, tractors got spiffed up, fields got prepped and skills and systems were remembered, learned and re-learned among us all.  Naomi kept careful track of the greenhouse production not just for the farm but for our annual May seedling sales while Anna began executing her plan for our Lyman Estate fields, where some of our earliest plantings were mapped to go.  Meanwhile, Dan gave a lot of love to our equipment fleet, changing fluids and hitting grease points on tractors and implements, getting them all running like tops.  Janelle jumped in with both feet in April and she's already disking fields and leading volunteers like a pro.  And don't even try to keep up with her transplanting.  We all have our areas of focus, but the real magic of this team happens when we're all working together, playing tractor relay prepping up beds or cruising through a big transplanting push.  The seemingly linear path of seed from greenhouse to field to plate has so many human touch points along the way (beyond what I mention above) that it's almost hard to believe. One of the most common remarks we hear from volunteers on the farm is how much labor goes into farming.  Organic farming on our scale is incredibly labor intensive and there are few shortcuts around that.  Waltham Fields is lucky to have some incredibly talented farmers in Anna, Dan, Janelle and Naomi and these first harvests are thanks to their commitment and tenacity.  We're thrilled too that the Weed Crew started last week, and Annie, Bekah, Jack and Jenny have already left many thousands of weeds in their wake in that brief period of time.  Moving forward, we'll have crops to harvest because of them.

The small array on the stand this week are the hale and hearty bell-weathers of the season.  The lettuce in particular is looking beautiful this spring.  Bok choy is petite but lovely and we'll see it on the stand intermittently over the next few weeks; kale and collards are coming along but not quite at their potential, so we may have some bunches from Picadilly on the stand this week but we'll give our own planting a bit more time to size up.  We're excited for one week of green garlic, the young immature garlic such a fresh and vibrant taste of late spring, soon to be followed by garlic scapes in the coming weeks. The spring was a cold continuation of the mild winter but these past couple of weeks have offered more cooperative growing weather.  On the way are scallions, radishes, turnips and chicories and the recent warm weather combined with two rain events in two weeks should have those crops sized up and on the stand soon if not next week.

Remember to come out to one of the CSA orientations scheduled this Wednesday and Saturday, where you'll meet some farm staff, get an overview of the CSA pick up along with key tips on pick your own crops, tour the farm and have a chance to talk with one of your farmers.  We're also excited to have a farmer back in the barn during Saturday distributions, where Anna and Janelle will alternate weeks working the CSA distribution.  I'll be doing my best to duck into Wednesday and Thursday distributions as well.  Lauren manages the CSA with so much care and attention, and one of the great benefits of her work is that farm staff has been able to spend at least fifteen more hours in the field weekly.  But even though we get to chat with some of you while we're working in the fields, we missed the direct one-on-one that a CSA distribution affords. We're hoping that having a farmer back during at least one distribution will strengthen that connection between us, your growers, and you, our shareholders, who sustain this little farm!

Enjoy these first tastes of the season!

-Erinn, for the farm crew

Farmers Anna, Erinn & Janelle harvesting green garlic. Photo by Naomi Shea.