Spring weather

This weekend has been beautiful. We put up our greenhouse, and started a bunch of flower transplants in it today. And yesterday I planted radish and beets in one of the gardens.  We also have some more additions to our bovine family: Lizzy and Yuki. Yuki was born yesterday, and Lizzy was born the day before.  I was thinking that it would be funny if we had twin male/female calves, and name the male Yang and the female Yin.                                                  
                                    This is Lizzy.

Community Supported Agriculture

This year on our farm we are starting a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).
What is CSA?         
In it's most basic form the CSA farm produces vegetables for a group of farm members or subscribers who pay in advance for their share of harvest.  Farm members receive the shares once a week, either coming to the farm to pick up their  share or picking it up a a central delivery point.

I will use an example CSA: my example CSA runs for 20 weeks, there are 15 shareholders, the farmers names are Burt and Beatrice, and it is pickup day at their farm.
How CSA works:
Burt and Beatrice have harvested all their crops for this weeks CSA members. They put the vegetables in baskets, a basket for each member.
Previous weeks' basket:
Beet greens
Beans
cabbage head
carrots
cucumber
cauliflower
eggplant
head of romaine lettuce
Kale
baby onions
potatoes
radish
tomatoes
zucchini
cilantro
                                                
 This weeks' basket:
beans
broccoli
carrots
cucumber
fennel
swiss chard
lettuce mix
onions
peas
peppers
spinach
tomatoes
corn
turnip
parsley

(The point is that there is approximately $20-$25 worth of food in each basket. And that this weeks basket differs from the last.)

Now Burt and Beatrice load 6 of the baskets into the car. They drive 35 minutes to a central delivery point. Within 25 minutes the 6 baskets  have been picked up the farm members.  Now Burt and Beatrice go home to greet the other nine members picking up their shares.  Between 5:30PM-7:30PM the other nine members come and pick up their shares at the farm.  While the members are at the farm, Beatrice gives them a tour of the animal barns.  One of the members, Shelly, instead of paying for her basket she works on the farm during the week. This pays for her share, and helps Burt and Beatrice.

CSAs have become extremely popular. Many people not only want to know where their food comes from, but also want to get to know their farmer. Some people even want to get to experience the farming and gardening process (like Shelly).