We had our first CSA harvest today! It is still early in the season, so expect a lot more in your boxes as the farm bursts with life!

Here is a fun little tour of the farm with Tracy, Esther, and Jim. (please excuse the shaky hand-held video quality and noise from the wind…)

Tracy found a free supply of coir (coconut fiber) from a hydroponic tomato grower, and we added that to the rows that we have yet to plant in.  This will help add organic matter to our clay soil.  I must say though, the soil has greatly improved over the past year, and seemed very fertile during our first growing season.

And in this nice soil we have lots of goodies growing for this year’s CSA and beyond. Esther has been diligently seeding successions of a wide range of greens, root crops, peas, and many other items.

What is new on the farm you ask?  Well, the garlic & shallots that we planted last fall are growing beautifully! We have one variety of shallot, and three varieties of garlic.  Already seeded and starting to germinate are: lettuce, arugula, turnips, radishes and more!  This past week Esther planted a bunch of onion seedlings, and speaking of seedlings… the hot weather crops are growing nicely in our little greenhouses.  We’ll have a nice variety of tomatoes again this year, as well as peppers, basil and eggplant.  Since last year’s eggplant harvest was extremely low and we were unable to give any to our CSA members (because there was never enough to give everyone), this year we started a lot more eggplants in the greenhouse.  We hope everyone gets some eggplant in their boxes this year!

I was down on the farm this weekend preparing rows, getting the irrigation set up again, and I started seeding! Esther, our intern, has been doing much of the work and has many, many seedlings started, and we’ll even have seedlings for sale.  We’ll post more details on the starter plants we’ll be selling at a later date.

Another new thing we will be adding is a self-service farm stand to make it easier for our farm stand customers to buy our produce.  Again, we’ll have more details on that later.

We are looking forward to another great year, and thank you to all of our new and renewing CSA members, and to our great intern, Esther!

- Jim

HeartEye Village CSA will be offering a range of workshops this Spring and Summer.  Topics will include:

• Plan your CSA or Garden with the Fantastic Farm and Garden Calculator
• Home Greenhouse Basics and Soil Preparation
• Transplanting and Seeding for Maximum Yield
• Biological Pest and Pathogen Control
• Food Preservation

Visit our Workshop page to learn more.

Please note that our internship position has been filled for our 2010 season. Keep us in mind for 2011!

It is hard to believe that the Winter Solstice has already happened and Christmas is right around the corner! It is even harder to believe that is has been almost three months since our CSA ended, and close to two months since I cleaned up the garden and seeded a cover crop. Cover crop? Yeah, I think I got that in to late and the early snows and cold weather didn’t help.

So how was our first year as beginning farmers you ask? It was incredible! Our little farm produced a lot of food, 4000 lbs or more, on about 4000 s.f. of growing space. We fed 25 CSA members, provided a variety of produce to the Mountain People’s Co-op, and the Savory Cafe in Nederland, and a little bit to Zamparelli’s Restaurant down the road from the farm. We also sold a modest amount at our farm stand.   Continue reading

8-Month, Full-time Farm Internship
Room/board/stipend

We are a bio-intensive, ¼ acre micro-farm serving a small CSA program in our second year of operation, and an 80-acre horse boarding facility. We have one position for a FULL-TIME farm intern from March 2010 through October 2010. You will learn by performing all aspects of farming for the CSA, including limited work with the horse boarding operation.

Private accommodation provided, along with $100 weekly stipend and a 1-person share in the CSA. Our internship is modeled upon the Western SARE farm internship program. Unless successful candidate makes arrangements, there will be no academic credit obtained at the end of this program. This position is physically demanding and will require working outside of “normal business hours”. Successful candidate must be able to follow directions and protocols, be well organized, attentive and be able to work independently.

Please send resume, 3 references and cover letter explaining why you are interested in this position to tracy@localsustainability.net

Sorry for the lack of blog posts, things have been busy since our last CSA harvest.  Busy removing the crops that were killed off by the early cold, preparing beds and cover cropping them, planting garlic and shallots for next year… a lot of work to finish up the garden before winter.  Or in between winter, I should say.  As I write this, I’m waiting for the rest of the snow to melt so I can finish cleaning up the south side of the garden and seed a cover crop there.

Thanks again to all of our CSA members, and working share members!  Thanks to all those who purchased from our farmstand, and to the Mountain People’s Co-op, Savory Cafe, and Zamparelli’s for supporting our farm.  And a huge thank you to Jillian and Tracy who put in a huge amount of their time making things happen, both on days I was not on the farm, and days I was.  Of course the biggest thanks go to Sue Weems for allowing this farm & CSA to happen, and for funding a large part of the start-up!

We are looking forward to doing this again, and are happy to see that so many of our CSA members intend on renewing (or already have)!