Click here to place your order for this week (please give us 24 hours lead time before your desired pick up date/time).
Lots of veggies listed – order the Veggie Package for the whole sha-bang!
Off-Season Market Schedule
Sunday – Squirrel Hill Market 9 -1
Monday – No East Liberty Markets til spring
Wednesday – Farm – 11 – 7 (Orders will be packed and waiting with your name. Please prepay on the website.
Friday – Northside Market 3 – 6pm
Saturday – Mt Lebanon Uptown Market 9 – 12 (the 30th is the last one)
Speaking of markets….. have you tried our homemade Hot Chocolate? Organic, vegan (made with powdered coconut milk), and yummy. It’ll be the warmth that gets you through those chilly market days! We’ll have it at the Farmer’s Grill until the end of the season!
In the fields
Although the CSA is done for season, we’re still busy! Mud season is here and we’re doing our best to keep bedding dry for the pigs, keep the chickens from muddying their eggs, keep the driveway from washing out, and keep the dirty dogs (and kids) from wrecking the house.
Meanwhile, we’re also taking on projects that are usually left to the tail end of the season. We have a high tunnel that we inherited when we bought this farm (I have no idea how old it was at that point). We’ve put new plastic on is several times, but it’s starting to build up salts from the manure/fertilizers we’ve used over the years. The salts come up as the water from irrigating evaporates and leaves a white crusty surface, known as soil salinization. This is normal behavior in a high tunnel as it’s a fabricated environment. The cure is to “wash” the soil. Since before 2006, that high tunnel soil hasn’t been exposed to rain and snow. Well this is the year for a good cleaning! We haven’t planted any crops in that high tunnel for the winter, as we knew we needed to let the soil get exposed to the weather (and the curiosity of the wayward hens). In the picture, it’s a bit weedy – but the chickens will help with this problem and we can easily throw the rest of the weeds in with the pigs. They’ll love it!
In the spring, we’ll probably have to rebuild the end walls, baseboards, and doors. Afterwards, we’ll put a fresh “skin” on the high tunnel and it’ll be good to go for a few more years! We’ll do a soil test in the spring and see if the precipitation helped at all.
Vote
I tend to stay out of politics in these newsletters…. but here we go:
I am a firm believer that we can make change most effectively when we operate on the smaller scale as a community, with the acknowledgement that we’re all people doing the best (hopefully) we can. You all know that Election Day is fast approaching? It’s important that you get out there and vote on NOVEMBER 2nd.
AND
If you live in Brackenridge (or know someone who does) – please consider voting for our good friend and Farm Fan – Linsday Fraser for Mayor. She cares, she’s down to earth, she’s reasonable, she can listen and also tell it like it is, she’s active in the community, she has experience in small town bureaucracy…. and she’s from ’round here anyway!
