Category: A Note to the Hope’s Edge Community

Greetings Hope’s Edge CSA members,                     June 13, 2014

I am taking advantage of a heavy rain this afternoon to write this letter welcoming you to the 2014 version of Hope’s Edge Farm CSA. This letter is also a means of informing you of starting dates, pick-up days, potluck schedules, and farm news. I suppose the fact that I am writing to you via snail mail rather than using an electronic form of communication says something about my age and my preference for simpler technologies. Using snail mail is also my way of supporting my local postal delivery person.

I have been receiving a lot of “electronic” mail recently asking when the CSA would begin and my response has been sometime around the third week of June. Until now, however, I have been unable to nail down a specific date. My crew and I have been working long hours seemingly non-stop all spring preparing ground, planting seeds, transplanting seedlings, putting on row cover, taking off row cover, husbanding/midwifering sheep and cows, etc. In spite of the fact that we are now receiving heavy rainfall, it has not been a particularly wet spring. But it does seem like it has been colder than recent years. I mention this as a possible explanation for the slow growth of some of our transplanted seedlings. Despite the fact that our planting dates have been consistent with other years, our lettuce, scallions, and parsley, for example, have been slow to grow. A fact which I suspect may be due to cold soils and hence a slow awakening of soil life. This slow growth has in part been one of the reasons that I have been unable to decide on a start date. We cannot begin distributing vegetables until they are ready.

The recent spate of warm (hot) weather has however awoken the soil bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes which in turn have given the lettuce, peas, chard, kale, strawberries et al the jump start they needed. Things are growing and we are looking forward to the first week of produce beginning next Monday June 23. The first Tuesday pick-up will be the 24th and the first Friday pick-up will be the 27th. The season will run 18 weeks with the last market on Friday October 24th.

That hard-working crew that I mentioned earlier includes Amanda Labelle, returning for a third consecutive year, Bradley Dickanson, a young future farmer, and Thena Webster, an experienced gardener from Vinalhaven. They are awesome!! I am still looking for one more additional helper 2-3 days a week. Anyone interested?

PLEASE TAKE NOTE: The following information is IMPORTANT.

TUESDAY AND FRIDAY SHAREHOLDERS: The pick-up time is from
11am (please DO NOT come earlier) until late evening. If for some reason you cannot come on your assigned day, your share will still be available for up to two days later. After that, your share will be recycled.

MONDAY SHAREHOLDERS: Monday shareholders have the option of picking up their share in Rockland on Park Drive, across from Hamilton Marine between 10:30-11am. If you miss this narrow time slot you can pick your share up at Avena Botanicals barn by 7pm. You will be notified when cut flower, strawberry, cherry tomato, and pea-picking seasons are upon us. It will be up to you to come to the farm for these items.

ALL SHAREHOLDERS: At the top of this letter is written the pick-up day you requested. PLEASE LET US KNOW IN ADVANCE IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO PICK UP YOUR SHARE ON ANY GIVEN WEEK. This way we avoid over-harvesting and wasting food.

At the end of this letter is a schedule of potluck get-togethers for the season. These events offer you an opportunity to meet other participants and a chance to enjoy the farm in a relaxed and convivial way. Please post this schedule and try to come to one or all of these events. For those of you who use Facebook, you may “like” us and in so doing receive updates on what’s happening on the farm such as pot luck reminders, colorful photos, recipes, and more.

Directions to the farm for those of you who have never been here are given at the end of this letter. Follow Morse Road past a pair of corrugated metal buildings. On your right you will see yet another building with brightly painted murals on the doors. This is the pick-up shed. Come on in. Welcome to Hope’s Edge CSA. I am looking forward to seeing many of you again or to meeting you for the first time. We are looking forward to feeding you food and beauty during the coming months.

POT-LUCK SCHEDULE

Tuesday June 24th  6pm
Friday August 1st    6pm
Friday Sept.  12th    6pm
Sunday Oct 19th     4:30pm

DIRECTIONS
FROM CAMDEN VIA 105. Take 105 into Hope Center, continue two miles past Hope General Store. Turn left onto Ludwig Rd. Travel one quarter mile to Morse Rd on left.
FROM APPLETON/SEARSMONT VIA 105. Travel approximately 3 miles from 105/131 intersection. Turn right onto Ludwig Rd. Continue as above.

Your Farmer,
Tom

Greetings Hope’s Edge CSA members                                                                                                                 10/14/13

The final installment of the 2013 version of Hope’s Edge CSA is rapidly approaching. In relative terms this has been a very good season, above average in many respects. Many of you have noted this by expressing your pleasure your satisfaction and your gratitude for your weekly bag(s) of vegetables. From my point of view, this year has been filled with many successes (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant etc…), a few disappointments (lettuce, carrots, Chinese cabbage), a couple of major improvements (a new cooler and a new hoop house), and even a few challenges (herbicide contamination).Through all of the above I have tried to maintain a state of gratitude with the belief that everything that comes my way even or perhaps, especially, the difficulties have something to teach me.

Today is Monday the 14^th of October. In this country we are celebrating the founding of this continent by Columbus. Our neighbor to the North, however, uses this third Monday in October as a day of thanks giving. As I write this note to you, Kat (our Canadian import) is cooking up a Thanksgiving feast for all of us farm workers and guests. As a farmer in these far northern climes I am more apt to agree with the Canadian choice of a Thanksgiving date than our traditional 3^rd Thursday in November. Regardless of ones preference for which date should be called “Thanksgiving Day”, it is my practice to try to give thanks every day. Thanks to the soil, sun and rain for working in unison to produce the miracles that sustain us. Thanks to the animals who convert grass into milk and meat which also find their way to our tables and whose waste products ultimately becomes food for our food. Thanks to Holly Miller, the owner of this land for allowing this venture to happen here on Hope’s edge. Thanks to all the people whose hands plant, hoe, harvest, wash, weed, milk and do all the other various tasks (too many to mention) required to bring food to our plates. Thanks also to the unseen and often underappreciated life forms which convert dead and decaying material into a form which is once again made available to new life thus completing the birth to death to birth cycle. And finally, thanks to you our Community of Support. It is so much more satisfying for us to grow food for people we know than to grow for the unknown marketplace.

We hope that you feel similarly. And we hope that having a connection to the source and to the people who grow your food is something that you value and that you would, therefore, want to participate again. If this is the case then a $75 deposit now will guarantee you a spot in next year’s garden. We like to refer to this deposit as “seed capital” as it is used to purchase seeds and other supplies necessary to get started. These start-up costs come long before you ever get to take a bag from the cooler.

It has been such a pleasure to provide you with food and beauty over these last six months. I know that I speak for all my crew when I wish you a healthy, safe, warm and nourishing next six months. We hope to see you all once again come June when the earth and we farmers are once again renewed.

Your Farmer, Tom

PS Our last potluck and bonfire will take place this Saturday the 19^th at 4:30  Please come celebrate with us.