each of the interns chose a vegetable to learn about and be responsible for. so no, we do not have cucumbers or melons ripe yet.

hi everyone,

NO STRAWBERRY PICKING THIS SUNDAY, JUNE 4.

my apologies! the strawberries fooled me and they won't be ready for
picking this sunday.
probably the first time we will be open for extra pickers will be next
saturday at our summer kick-off (Sat June 10, 4-7pm).

POTLUCK this SATURDAY, June 3: Philosophy of the Catholic Worker Movement.
if you want to read up in advance for the discussion, or just do a
little research to see if you would be interested in coming, check out
this web page:
http://www.catholicworker.org

thanks,

hi friends,

Our season schedule is not totally figured out, but we do have some dates set and we have a potluck coming up this saturday. I am sending our rough draft so that you are able to have a few days warning for this week. the more elaborated and decisive schedule will be following soon. the bold events are sure things, and the tba-s could change. We are trying to have one event a month that is more kid friendly than talking about serious issues. these are from 4-7pm. All summer events are at Mustard Seed Community Farm - 366 W Ave.

This coming week we will be delivering our first boxes of veggies. Here is the CSA sheet made by Claire Boeke.

There are lots of leafy things at the beginning of the season because they grow the quickest and like cool weather. Over the next few weeks there will be radishes and sweet hakurai turnips in the box. The greens are edible and a little spicy. Both the root and the greens will keep longer if they are separated, so cut the tops off and bag them separately in your fridge.

hello friends,

just 3 bits of information:

1. tomorrow's harvest training (friday 5/19, 7-10am) has been cancelled due to an extremely unpleasant weather forecast.

however

2. there is an excellent opportunity to come out to the farm during nicer weather on Sunday 5/21, 1-4pm.
we could totally use all hands. bring your friends, your kids, your neighbors. bring your bible study group, your knitting group, your support group. we will be planting and weeding and harvesting asparagus and more.

hi farm team and friends,

the work on the farm is seriously intense right now!

we are planting our warm season crops and the ones we planted earlier
are starting to need weeding. Our intern Claire is moving out to the
farm on tuesday and the others are coming next monday and there's
still a lot more home preparation and kitchen prep to do to switch to
our summer living formation. also, we are starting to sell at farmers
market next saturday and i am way behind on the things i need to do.
the weather has been beautiful! the work is exciting! i am just
falling behind.

dear friends,

(i wrote this last week, but then forgot to post it. oops!)
it is a lovely morning during a lovely spring.
There is so much going on at the farm right now!

HARVEST TRAINING AND CSA: next week we will begin training our harvest
crews on Tuesday and Friday mornings and we will be ready to start our
full CSA and donation deliveries on the week of May 23. If anyone
would like to join in these trainings, please let me know. We learn
all the jobs of the harvest, and harvest a few crops for the workers
to take home. If you do this training, you would become an extra

Thanks to a long enough break in the rain, a good wind from the north,
help from neighbor Nate, and some good planning and prep from Nate
Kemperman, the three of us were able to safely burn all of our tall
grass prairie wednesday evening. It was beautiful and fun.

last year we participated in a couple of on-farm research projects with Practical Farmers of Iowa.
here are links to the nice reports they made. i also want to officially thank our interns for all the help they gave in doing these projects, especially Ethan Evans for the amazing data collection he did for our pollinator strips. Ethan - I am totally sorry that you are not credited in this report.

pollinator strips:
http://www.practicalfarmers.org/farmer-knowledge/research-reports/2016/a...

broccoli variety trial:

The season is warming up and it is almost time to start planting. We have already started planting seeds in trays inside the house and greenhouse, and starting April first, we will begin planting outside. Every week we will get more things in the ground. For me it is an exciting time on the farm - to witness the return of life, light, and warmth after the long winter. i get to be outside as birds return and all our dormant plants start waking up and i get to put little seeds and plants into the ground to begin their life-cycle anew.