The last of our 25 weeks has arrived. The box this week is full of delicious fall crops. We hope you enjoy this week and thank you for the entire season of community supported agriculture. We also want to thank our outstanding crew. Sonya, Seth, Vanya, Alex, Rachel, Suzie and Mario have all worked many long, exhausting days bringing the harvest to you. They are an excellent bunch of farmers.

Although the CSA is over, we will still be working until mid-December to prepare for next year and wrap up this one. This week we are popping garlic cloves from their bulbs and sorting them by size. The big ones get planted out for mature bulbs and the small cloves we plant very closely spaced for green garlic. We have already put down the black plastic mulch for the strawberries and in two weeks we’ll plant the new berry plants in their well composted home. We first make the beds tall and narrow, then we lay down two lines of drip tape irrigation. We’re experimenting with thicker drip tape this year because in the last two years the rodents have chewed countless holes up and down each line. These holes are very hard to find and fix when buried underneath plastic. The last part of berry preparation before planting is laying down the black plastic. It has to withstand two years of rain, wind and sun so we stretch it tight and anchor it well. Then in about a week or two, we will plant out several thousand berry plants. Around that time we’ll also plant out our overwintered flowers for next year. We plant: larkspur, sweet peas, stattice, sweet William, bells of Ireland, agrostemma, and bachelors buttons. These will all be blooming in early May. The last of the work projects will be to shore up some weak parts of the barn and fix some major leaks in the roof. And then we’ll put our equipment to rest for the winter.

We’re happy to take a much needed rest. And so are the farm fields. Thanks to you and your support of our small farm we are able to rest ourselves and our soil so both will be ready to do it all over again next year. Right now, a lot of the soil at Blue House Farm is planted with cover crop seed. This crop goes to feed the soil with lots of organic matter and nutrients. The roots hold the

How was your CSA experience this year? Please let us know. Last week we sent out an email with a link to an online CSA survey. You can also find the link on our website. Please complete this survey. Your feedback is what we use to improve the CSA from year to year. We need to hear from you! Thanks.

Please see the side bar on this newsletter and our website for more information on how to sign up for next year. Even if you have been a member with us since the beginning, you’ll need to send in your 2010 form with payment. We’ve changed a few things for the coming year so check it out!

Enjoy the winter and see you next season,

Ned and the Blue House Farm Crew.

soil and prevent erosion and compaction. The thick stand of cover crop will also out compete weed crops and help us have a cleaner field come planting time next year.