bees | Fair Share Farm

The years were flying by 2009. Entering our sixth season of the CSA, we were starting to feel comfortable with growing vegetables for over 100 families. Our original business plan was based on supporting the farm with a CSA membership of 100 shares, but we realized that a more realistic goal was a bit more than that in order to be economically sustainable. To continue to grow we would need not only more members, but also more full-time farm workers.

January at the pond

We were able to grow enough crops in 2009 to sell 115 CSA shares. The Fair Share Farm CSA Core Group continued their stellar work of running the organization as it grew: the Spring sign-up meeting, coordinating the farm work schedule, surveying the membership and expanding distribution.

Gary Glauberman and Kelly Parker helping with contracts at the Spring Sign-up

By the start of the season we hired two full-time apprentices. Lori Watley was a friend of the farm who had helped us often during 2005. Kara Jennings was so enthusiastic to apprentice with us that she drove in from Gladstone every day to learn the trade. Kara and Lori made the season what we called our best year yet.

Kara and Lori at the wash sink

Jeff and his son helping in the Spring 2008

A regular volunteer in 2008 and 2009, Jeff Hunter also was a big help in those years. He and his wife Stacey started a large garden at their local church, helped create a learning garden for kids, and now farm their own land.

In 2009 we made a big shift in our greenhouse production. We had been experimenting over the previous couple seasons with the use of soil blocks for starting our transplants. We had found they created plants that were more robust, greener, held longer in the greenhouse, and experienced less transplant shock than plugs.

Soil blocks in the greenhouse

A flat of nice cabbage plants

When the harvest came in we couldn’t complain. Shares were full, filled by the harvest of 835 quarts of strawberries, 1,000+ lbs of beans, melons for all, great brassicas, and a stellar fall carrot and beet crop.

All this with the same annual rainfall (44+ inches) as the previous year. While the rain fell in less of a downpour pattern than 2008, our adjustments to how we prepared the ground also helped keep the crops out of the muck.

This was also to be the year that our cover cropping program came to life. We had initated an annual system whereby we plant oats and vetch in April, turn the crop under in June/July, and plant the bed in fall vegetables in August. We had a very good cover crop that year and the carrots and beets in those beds grew like none we had seen previously.

Strawberry harvest at its best

The Rouyer Family picking peas

Bean picking crew returning with their harvest

Sweet peppers

Watermelons for all

That year, we experimented with raising livestock. We borrowed six of Parker Farms’ sheep to reduce our mowing needs, apply some fertility to areas of ground yet to be broken, and learn about caring for livestock. It was fun and a success.

Katahdin sheep borrowed from Parker Farms

Bees proved to be a harder project. We had everything in place; an experienced beekeeper in member Keith Stubblefield, new hive boxes put together with the members’ help, organic fields, and thousands of bees bought in their packages. But alas, for the next 3 seasons we could not develop a strong hive, and very little honey was drawn while most of the hives disappeared. The experts call the phenomenon Colony Collapse Disorder, a generic term that describes a problem with no known cause.

Ann Flynn, Fran Gillespe, Keith and Nancy Stubblefield
building the hive boxes

Bees but little honey

Rocky continued to grow and make friends, among them Nora Gibbons. Her parents, Heather and Scott, have been CSA members since our second season in 2005. As Heather was pregnant then, Nora has the distinction of being the oldest person to have been in the CSA her whole life!

Nora and Rocky

That Winter we drove down to Texas as part of an annual trip for Rebecca and her snow-bird, Grandmother Kathleen. It was a chance for me to meet her many cousins, uncles, nieces and nephews in the Lone Star State. When back at the farm we planned and studied. One such science project included looking at our compost through our microscope and realizing I could film it. Those critters are called springtails.

Rocky in December

Next up…2010 and lots of heat, learning to gutter, best winter squash, solar stimulus and a wedding day.

We would like to extend a thousand thanks to the Fair Share Farm CSA Core Group for organizing and running the annual Spring Sign-up Meeting. Their efforts are a great help to us, the farmers (as well as to the members!) In another smoothly run show, at a new location to boot, we “oriented” new members, signed contracts with both old and new, helped you schedule your farm work shifts, and introduced you to our partner vendors.

If you are a new member and missed the meeting, you need to attend the alternate signup meeting this Saturady at the farm at 2:00pm.

Contract signing

Meanwhile, farming continues. The broccoli continue to gain leaves, the garlic is pushing through the straw mulch that protected it all winter, and the earthworms are mating. We have planted onion sets, peas and spinach in the field and start the peppers and eggplant in the greenhouse today.

Broccoli starts

Garlic

Earthworms

This time of year we also find time to do our own Spring yard work. We have a home garden that is more protected than the fields where we start early lettuce and greens, so that we have some food for our interns and volunteers before the season is in full swing.

On that note too, if you planted the walking onions we handed out a few years ago, take a look at them now, as here at the farm they are perfect for pulling. If you want to keep a supply for next year simply pull a bunch/cluster, take the onions you want to eat, and replant a couple. You can trip the roots and tops before planting to help the plant out. They can last a lifetime, as these were from a garden in central MO that was originally planted in the 1940’s.

Lettuce planting

Home garden

Yummy walking onions

And yes, we still have bees. After buying 7 hives in the past 2 years, we still have 2 (maybe 3) viable hives going. We will see how they do this year. If available, we plan on buying some locally bred bees from Les Miller this year to fill in some.

Springtime for the bees