Caveats

Like our spring, this newsletter and our CSA are a bit late getting started this season, but there is much afoot to report. We have even left some tracks worth reporting, and there are some new paths that we ardently hope to tread this growing season. so let us look back and forth.

CSA 2004

Early anxieties about farm help and equipment woes were overcome by the remarkable efforts of a diverse group of people. They included a highly skilled mechanic and farm equipment buff, Peter, of Bethel, CT; 2 highly competent Brewster gardeners, Gary and Corina, who, despite fulltime jobs and many volunteer activities, turned up in timely fashion throughout the season. Among the local volunteers were 2 mature women gardeners, Evelyn and Beverly, who showed up frequently to do mostly greenhouse and field sowing/transplanting work. Early in the season we also got help from 2 recent college graduates, Erika and Lauren. For the heavy, hot work of weeding and harvesting, we relied on 3 young Equadorian women who live year round in Carmel. They arrived for work most mornings in a taxi, labored for 8 hours, then were driven home by me or one of their countrymen. Another helper from abouad was a personable Romanian exchange student named Bogdan. He labored energetically for the 3 months of his contract with the Interexchange people of New York City, who have been recruiting European students for Ryder Farm since 1983. An even older (1979) student association is with the John Bowne High School in Queens. They sent us our youngest worker, Jian, a 16 year old Chinese girl, born in Peking, reared in Budapest, and “liberated” at Ryder Farm. Close to home was our college senior granddaughter, Helen, who pitched in for 2 weeks in late spring. Behind the scenes, we also got strong support from 2 stalwarts, Peggy, of Brewster, who edited our brochure and newsletters, and Delia, of Scarsdale, who initiated and sustained our web site (www.ryderfarmcsa.org). Closer to home, we were most fortunate to have Kathleen, our all-around, live-in helper, doing great deeds to get our thrice weekly vegetable shares to our various CSA members on time. In summary, to paraphrase (or parody) a late, famous chicken man: “It takes a tough crew to make a tender vegetable.”

Weather

the 2004 weather, too, favored our enterprise. Overall, it was a moderate and rainy growing season, just what we needed after our springtime discovery of the failure of our irrigation system. Our crop successes included greens (e.g. Bok Choy), tomatoes, and Brussels sprouts. Our failures counted garlic, eggplant, summer squash, and fall cabbage. Several of these failures were due to inattentive scheduling, which we are trying to correct in 2005.

Terra Madre (Good Earth)

For 5 days in October 919-24), I lived one of the most exciting episodes of m 83 years. It was my attendance, as a delegate, to a remarkable grassroots conference in Turin, Italy, called “Terra Madre,” organized by a new international organization called “Slow Food” (yes, versus McDonald’s-type fast food). Around 5,000 delegates from 130 countries gathered there for 4 days of plenary sessions; big workshops; small, crowded workshops; incredible mingling (e.g. lunch with 4 reindeer herdsmen from Russia); and a surprise climax speaker, Prince Charles (but no Camilla) of Great Britain. Topping even this were 4 evenings of wining and dining at country villas 60 km south of Turin. My brief, but heartfelt, report on Terra Madre appears on our web site (www.ryderfarmcsa.org).

CSA 2005 Farm Report

People and Plants

Fortunately, several of the 2004 crew are back to support our 2005 enterprise. Gary and Corina showed up in the snows of February and March to “jump start” our season. During dozens of mostly short work sessions, they have sown seeds in dozens of pots and scores of 72-cell cavity trays. Most of their greenhouse seeding was begun in sun room of our residence, “Kay Hall.” As the seeds sprout, they are transferred to the better growing environment of the propane and solar heated greenhouse. Finally, in the second full week of April, the crop fields should be dry and warm enough to allow us to break ground for the direct seeding of peas, spinach, carrots, etc. Then, soon thereafter, we will begin the transplanting of onions, leeks, lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, and many other crops. One long term crop, garlic, already has pushed up fresh green sprouts through the cold, muddy soil where the seed cloves have lain since the chilly days of last November. Thus, our optimism for another good season is rising with these green harbingers of spring.

Schedule

Though nature broadly controls the growth of our crops, we must be more precise in scheduling the harvest (whatever may be available) for our members. The 2-week main season starts in the second full week of June and ends in the last full week of October. For an additional fee, we also offer a 3-week pre-season and a 3-week post-season.

Precise starting dates are as follows:

* Pre-season shares (roughly equivalent to a main season half-share) are available only by pick-up on 3 successive Fridays at noon or later at Ryder Farm, beginning 27 May.
* Main season weekly share pick-up/delivery will start on Tuesday, 14 June, for Ryder Farm pick-up and Scarsdale delivery; on Thursday, 16 June, for Mt.Kisco deliver only; and Friday, 17 June, for Ryder Farm pick-up only.

Picnics

We would like to host two picnics for our members at Ryder Farm during the season. Tentatively, the picnic dates are Sunday, 31 July, and Sunday, 11 September. Of course, members are welcome at other times as well.

Innovations for 2005

This year we are realigning the growing fields to support the on-farm sod strip experiment and to “rest” some previously overworked sections of the fields. the north field (R1N, as we call it) has been divided into a vegetable cropped flat in the south 2/3 of that field, and the remainder north third left fallow for protracted enrichment. Of the 2 south fields, R1SE will be kept in vegetable production while R1SW will be devoted to cover cropping. Each of the 3 fields is an acre or less. All three fields will be converted to the sod strip configuration; i.e., 40” wide growing beds flanked by 20” wide sod strips.

Ready or not, this season we will attempt to start the on-farm sod strip experiment. This start was denied us in 2004 because an essential new implement, a precision row marker, could not be built (by Peter of Bethel) until the season was practically over. Even now we lack a compost turner, a combination mower-coulter machine and a belly-mounted three-row seeder. (Alas, the July 2004 delivered seeder is too long to fit our “Little Monster” tractor.) Many expected and unexpected difficulties will, no doubt, hamper us but we will persevere and let experience be our guide. You are invited to come and behold us.

In sickness and in health

You are fortunate not to be married to your CSA farmer, but his sickness and health do affect your CSA. My sickness came upon me late in the fall of 2004. I suspected a spider bite caused the persistent lump and rash in my right armpit. The doctors at the Mt.Kisco Medical Group didn’t buy my story. Immediately, and repeatedly, they probed my body with sharp needles and humming electromagnetic devices. By mid-January, they concluded that I had a melanoma cancer in my lymph gland but was cancer-free elsewhere. My inauguration to cancer surgery came on January 20th when an “ambulatory” surgical procedure removed 18lymph nodes, though only one proved to be cancerous. Recovery from the 6-inch incision proceeded normally into February, when an expanding infection appeared in the incision area. My recently impaired immune system couldn’t overcome it. After 3 oral antibiotic failures, I was ordered to Northern Westchester hospital for 5 days of intravenous antibiotics. That failed too, so I was sent back home to undergo 2 weeks of treatment with a new, very powerful, extremely expensive oral antibiotic. It worked. Since then, I have been trying to catch up with my normally active, optimistic life. As I write this I am well on my way, through treading a narrower path.