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Welcome to Long Life Farm Share 2015
Welcome back to our shareholders from prior years and to our new shareholders, we are happy to have you on board. We have been busy since January on Long Life Farm preparing for this season. We can hardly wait for fresh produce. We picked a few heads of lettuce this week to eat at home and we finally tasted real food again. We have long since run out of our bounty stored in the freezer, although many jars of tomato sauce will keep us whole until tomatoes ripen.
We seeded our first of 600 trays of seedlings on 2/5/15 and finally after waiting for snow melt and mud to clear we put the first plant in the ground on 4/10/15. All of our seedlings are grown at 205 Winter St except for some sweet potato slips and seed potatoes. In May, we have received 10% of the normal rain fall, we are starting to think we are farming in a dessert, hopefully starting tomorrow we will receive some much needed saturation. Our production plan is a giant web of spreadsheets that starts with a list of items we want to harvest for our shareholders and farmers market customers each week throughout the 20 week season. Seeding, greenhouse, pot-off, field and harvest dates are all there giving us a plan of work for each day from beginning of February to end of October. Our first harvest will take place on Tuesday, June 9th and then every Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday after that through the third week in October. Harvests and share bags are generally light at the beginning of the season, get heavy in August and September and then lighten up again in October.
Each shareholder will receive a separate email from me with pick up address, day, date and time of pick up. If you have not received an email by end of day Monday, June 2, please email laura@longlifefarm.com. If you have any questions during the season, please reach out, I will try to respond as soon as I am able. Laura 508-596-1651.
HOW DOES THE SHARE PICK UP WORK?
Each week we harvest those vegetables that are ready to eat. Our fields are at 3 School St, Hopkinton and 11 East St, Upton. The harvests are brought back to Winter St, washed and packed into share bags for pick up.
Shareholder pickup locations and times:
205 Winter St, Hopkinton from 3-7pm on Tuesdays and Fridays
8B Street, Hopkinton from 4-7pm on Tuesdays
146 Clinton, Hopkinton from 4-7 on Fridays
127 East St in Upton from 4-7pm on Fridays
125 Front St in Ashland from 9-1pm at the Long Life Farm tent at the Ashland Farmers Market.
EMAILS: Each pickup day you will receive an email reminding you of your pick up and also detailing what will be in the bag that day. I will also be attaching recipes throughout the season. If you have some favorite recipes we would love to share with everyone. There is a photo gallery of vegetable pictures on our website that will help you identify what is what called "What is that Vegetable?", I will also include some on your weekly email, don't hesitate to ask if you don't know what an item is in your bag. If you want to add an email address to the weekly email list, please let me know.
BAGS: Each share will receive two reusable bags with a name tag. This bag will be packed with your veggies for you to pick up at your chosen pick up site. Please bring your bag back when you come for your second week, where you will find your second bag packed and ready to pick up. If you forget to bring your bag back, we use paper and plastic which is more work and more mess for all of us. Shareholders from past season, if you have bags still from prior years, please send them back and they will be washed and reused.
VACATIONS: Please email Laura at least 48 hours in advance if you don't have a friend picking up in your place. In some cases, we can arrange for you to pick up on another harvest day with enough notice. Please limit your changes to two per season.
I FORGOT TO PICK UP MY SHARE: This seems to happen often at the beginning of the season when folks are not in the routine yet and at the end of the season when people think the share is finished. If you are picking up at Ashland or Winter St, holding your bag at Winter St for 24 hours in a cooler is an option, IF you communicate to me that you will actually pick it up. Downtown Hopkinton and Upton pick ups are at a shareholders house and I don't expect them to offer this additional service.
VEGETABLE CLEANING AND STORAGE: Proper storage is going to prolong the life of your vegetables well into the second week. Cold water soak in the sink will do wonders to bring greens back to life. If you don't have a salad spinner buy one, it is the most important tool in cleaning your vegetables. We rinse off field dirt, but the veggies you receive are not plate ready. Filling your sink with water and washing everything will be a good way to get them ready to eat. Some people like to use a 1/2 cup of vinegar in a sink of water to clean vegetables. For beets and carrots, do not store with the greens attached as the roots will become softer and pliable. Beet greens should be eaten as salad or sauteed. Carrot greens are eatable and more nutritious than the roots, but are somewhat bitter, so young ones are great for smoothies, olders ones most people will not have the stomach for. Greens and lettuces like to be wrapped in plastic to retain their moisture. Wrap in a dish or paper towel and then in a plastic bag. Some breathable vegetable bags do work to prolong shelf life. Basil should be stored in a glass of water on your counter, do not refrigerate. Tomatoes will be stored on the counter as well and not refrigerated. If you get busy and don't have time to cook your share, freeze it in ziplocks. This works for most vegetables except for lettuce. Rip the kale leaves off ribs, store in ziplock and freeze. Tomatoes you can also freeze whole, in chunks, pureed in the food processor, cooked, etc.
FARM TOURS: We will have two farm tours for those that would like to see where their food is grown. Please RSVP, 10 shareholders per tour. If I have more interest, I will schedule another date. This is a progressive tour starting at 205 Winter St, Hopkinton proceeding to 3 School St, Hopkinton and then to 11 East St in Upton. The terrain is not stroller friendly and requires a good walk to the last field.
Saturday, June 6, 3:30-5:00pm
Saturday, June 13, 3:30-5:00pm
RECYCLING: Some of our plastic bags are compostable and recyclable, I do like to use fresh ones to insure food safety, so I will not be taking these back from you. Clean plastic clam shells and rubber bands that you receive from me can be returned to me.
PAYMENT: Final payments were due May 1, kindly remit if you paid only a deposit.
If there are additional questions that you have you can check out some of our common ones here.
This photo was taken this week at the Upton field. In the foreground are lettuce beds. We plan on harvesting over 5000 heads of lettuce this season. The white tunnels you see were placed over kale and early crops to prevent frost damage. They remain there to hasten growth and to protect young plants from the dainty but dangerous white and yellow butterflies. If you grow brassicas you know how damaging the cabbage worms and cabbage lopers can be to plants once those butterflies lay their eggs. The black covers you see are weed guard fabric. We make beds long before we will need to plant them and we don't want to have to weed them again beforehand. This has worked well except for the quack grass that continues to flourish underneath the black fabric. In the far right section of the photo are the trellis of snap peas.
We are very happy to be growing fresh organic food for you and your family. This is a labor of love and we very much appreciate your support.
Laura Davis and Donald Sutherland |
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