Tag Archives: csa

Crops Update: How The Farm Adjusts to Rain

Posted on June 12, 2019 by Kelly R.

We don’t mind harvesting in the rain, especially at this time of year when we’re working with crops that prefer cool weather. There’s less stress on us because we’re not worried about the sun wilting the greens. And we can save time by loading crates of veggies directly onto the trucks. During a sunny harvest, we stack crates in patches of shade cast by the trucks, and then load them when we’re ready to move. When it’s not efficient to head directly in to the wash station, we may load, move, and then unload back into the shade of the truck as we arrive at a new harvest area. None of that to worry about this morning, but we still had to get our work done quickly so as to get to the restaurants on time. That may account for our serious faces (pictured below) as we bunched up Japanese white salad turnips.

If you haven’t had Japanese white salad turnips before, set your turnip preconceptions aside. These are sweet and can be eaten raw or lightly cooked. I like to halve them, start them sauteing in olive oil, add scallions, then add the turnip greens—total cooking time is about five minutes. I dress it while it’s cooking: shoyu, rice and ume plum vinegar, Sir Kensington’s mustard, lemon, and maybe a little maple syrup. Freshly harvested turnips, scallions, lettuce and greens are available at the farm stand by admissions right now!

In advance of this heavy rain, we focused on weed control. The soil was dry and the sun was shining, so we’ve been hoeing, running the flex tine over established crops, and using the Star hoe to hill up potatoes and fertilize tomatoes, summer squash, and cucumbers. On Wednesday, we hosted a meeting on weed control for area farmers, and demonstrated various implements and hoes. The end goal of our approach is to minimize hand-weeding, which is most costly in terms of time. But there will always be weeds to pull, especially under the row covers that have been protecting onions and brassicas since early May. Now that those crops have grown to a size where they can withstand pest pressure, we began removing the covers last week.

On Tuesday, volunteers from Dell helped us haul in 3 sections of row cover and transport about 400 sand bags back to Rock Island. That was the first time volunteers assisted with that, and they did a great job! They also planted scallions and cucumbers and hand-weeded onions (pictured below).

On Friday, volunteers from Goldman Sachs returned for the second year in a row, again making a donation to help us purchase herbs. They planted rosemary and dahlias, and then really seemed to enjoy weeding in the perennial garden (pictured below). So helpful for us since the weeds are endless there.

On Saturday, drop-in volunteers wowed us once again by planting over 3,000 leeks (pictured below) and then rescuing some spring onions from a scary patch of weeds. All the volunteer help we received this week illustrates one definition of sustainable farming at Drumlin: we provide the opportunity for others to learn about what we do and to help us, and their generosity sustains the farm.

Meanwhile, strawberries. They’re coming! But slowly. Strawberries have been a crop that have been affected by the rainy spring we’ve had. We’ve moved our annual Strawberry Day ahead one Saturday to the 22nd so they have more time in the sun before harvesting.

Snap peas are also starting–and are so sweet! If you close your eyes while eating one this image might arise: green chocolate milk!

See you in the field,

Your Farmers

Crops Update: Help from Volunteers

Posted on June 5, 2019 by Kelly R.

A chilly 46 degrees for Tuesday morning’s restaurant harvest. The lettuces and turnips are growing beautifully in this extended spring, and it’s nice to harvest greens without the crops or the team getting overheated. Here we are in the wash station cleaning and organizing produce for the chefs (pictured): from left to right that’s Veronica, Maddie. McKenna and Erica.

This past week was a blur of planting. It started on Memorial Day with eggplant and cantaloupe. The following day we planted out the first round of tomatoes, unfortunately in the rain and mud–ugh! Our thanks to volunteer Fred for joining us in the field and grabbing a post hole digger to make deep homes for hundreds of plants.

On Thursday, we really enjoyed working with employees from Care Dimensions—hospice care providers. They made a donation to help us purchase perennial herb plugs such as lemon balm, sorrel, and chives. We planted those together (pictured), then weeded in the perennial garden, transplanted sunflowers, removed flower clusters from the new strawberry patch, and finally planted a bed of basil. The group went from one end of the field to the other checking off jobs with ease.

On Friday, employees from Axial Benefits helped us plant popcorn and rosemary. They made a donation to help us purchase the rosemary, and we are looking forward to harvesting it for Iggy’s Breads. Iggy’s uses our rosemary on focaccia and pizzas at their Fresh Pond location. Thanks all for your generosity and help!

On Saturday, an amazing group of drop-in volunteers showed up, and, Voltron-like, assembled themselves into an incredible sweet potato planting machine. Some focused on sorting and dropping plants, others planted. It normally takes us a long time to get all 2,500 plants set deeply in the ground, but thanks to theses great volunteers, we finished in about two hours. Thank you!

See you in the field,

Your Farmers

Crops Update: Preparing for the Summer Season

Posted on May 29, 2019 by Kelly R.

We had a beautiful Memorial Day on Monday: sunny, dry, and high 70s. Thanks to the Crops Team for planting cantaloupe and eggplant and harvesting lots of greens and radish for the schools, all on a holiday. Many crops got cultivated with the flex-tine (weeding tool) for the fourth, fifth, or even sixth time, in the case of the potatoes and strawberries. We want to keep stirring the surface of the beds to keep them dry and to uproot small weeds, which the flex-tine helps with. It’s basically a large metal rake that attaches behind the tractor and gets pulled right over the crops (pictured below). The goal is to keep the crops clean so they’re not competing with weeds for water and nutrients, and so we can harvest them more easily.

The hoop house installers were ready to finish the job last Thursday, but heavy winds made it unsafe to work with the sheet of plastic. Saturday morning was calm, so they pulled one piece up and over the peak and attached it at the vent, and secured the second piece on the north side (pictured below). The house has roll up sides and a ridge vent, so can be cooled without running fans. We chose this design so we wouldn’t need to use electricity, and there are no outlets at the house. The next step is to install the drip irrigation system, and then we’ll be ready to plant come fall.

It was a busy week in the fields as we began planting out the summer crops. We wanted to plant peppers on Tuesday with volunteers from Dassault Systemes of Waltham, but the high winds changed the plan. Instead, we chose crops with little foliage (scallions and eucalyptus), and did our transplanting in the front field where the trees offer some protection from the wind (pictured below, volunteers taking the eucalyptus out of the trays). The volunteers then pulled weeds in the perennial garden. This is the fourth year in a row that Dassault has helped us, and we really enjoy working with such kind and attentive folks.

On Wednesday, the Crops Team planted the peppers (pictured below). And on Thursday, seniors from Middlesex School weeded peas and planted cucumbers and broccoli. They worked so well and so quickly that we needed to sprint to keep ahead of them—putting water down with the transplanter and dropping plants for the students to put in the ground. In all the hither and thithering, I forgot to take a picture of this fabulous group. Thanks all for advancing the field work!

On Tuesday we’ll begin stocking greens in the display fridge at the admissions area. The containers holding the greens are compostable. If you don’t have your own composter, we’ll be collecting used containers and adding them to the compost pile in the field. You can drop off your used containers at the admissions window. Thanks for your help with this!

If you haven’t registered for our seasonal CSA programs yet, there are still spots available for the summer and fall. Or, stop by and visit us at the Union Square Farmers Market in Somerville.

See you in the field,

Your Farmers

Crops Update: Hoop House Discoveries

Posted on May 21, 2019 by Kelly R.

Two more downpours Monday, and then the temperature hit 86 degrees when the sun finally came out! Before that, during the cloudy morning, we harvested close to 100 pounds of greens for the Cambridge and Somerville school systems. We’re looking forward to Wednesday when we’ll be harvesting the first Japanese white turnips of the spring for the second CSA pickup. Now that we’ve had a few sunny and warm days, spinach, salad mix and head lettuce are ready for picking and the first scallions are not far behind.

This past Saturday, we planted out the first round of summer squash (pictured below), and we plan to put in the majority of our peppers tomorrow with the help of a volunteer group. In other words, we’re betting that the danger of frost has passed, though we know that we’re not truly safe in Drumlin’s frost pocket until the first week of June.


The squash plants appear white because we dip them in a chalk slurry to keep cucumber beetles off them while they are young and without much foliage. After a few heavy rains, they’ll look green again.

Over the weekend, Veronica, with the help of Maddie and Jill, ran our first farmers’ market of the year in Union Square, Somerville. They sold out of all the veggies we brought except for five individual potatoes, and in the process set a new earnings record for opening day! Way to go and thanks to the volunteers who helped fill bags of greens as customers whisked them off the display!

Back at the farm, volunteers from medical device makers Boston Scientific helped us weed rhubarb and plant a round of lettuce and sunflowers this past Thursday (pictured below). It was our first corporate volunteer group of the year after a couple of rain outs, and we were grateful for their assistance.

We’re well under way with the the construction of the new hoop house and the installers expect to finish by Wednesday. The only hitch in the process so far was on the first day when they ran into hardness driving the posts at an even 18 inches of depth along the entire length of the house. When they went to excavate to a depth of 26 inches for the concrete footers, they discovered the hardness was caused by a gravelly material that Adam (the head installer, pictured) described as what’s found beneath a lake.

Because of the evenness of the hard pack and the composition of the material, he hypothesized that Boyce was a lake at some point in the distant past–something we often say by way of explanation for how we get by without irrigation: water wants to be there, and by building soil organic matter, we encourage the moisture to linger in the soil’s network.

Those interested are encouraged to get their hands a little dirty by volunteering in the field with us–we could always use more help! And if you haven’t registered for your Summer CSA yet, shares are still available.

See you in the field,

Your Farmers

Kicking off the 2019 Season: An Update from Farmer Matt

Posted on May 8, 2019 by Kelly R.

After a long winter, it’s time to get back in the field, with thousands of plantings and a few new additions!

Amazingly, April brought us 6.5 inches of rain, falling over 20 of its 30 cloudy days, with an average temperature of 52 degrees. It’s been challenging just moving around the sodden fields and working with the saturated soil. We’re identifying with the turtle, working within our shells of layered shirts and sweaters, all wrapped-up in our mud-covered rain gear; turtling along, we seeded the first greens and carrots of the season on March 28 and have been seeding and transplanting every week since. We’ve harvested over-wintered spinach for Henrietta’s Table in Cambridge, and greens and radish for our first delivery of the season to the Cambridge and Somerville schools.

Despite limitations of weather, all spring planting projects are on schedule thanks to the dedicated work of this year’s Crops Team. During the week of April 15, we pulled back the straw and weeded the half-acre of strawberries we’ll be picking this summer season, then planted 4,000 new strawberry plants for next year’s harvest.

Do you know the natural indicator to plant potatoes? In early April, 2,500 pounds of potatoes arrived from Maine. We hauled them into the barn loft and arranged them on trays in front of the windows for green-sprouting. By the last week of April, they had sprouted leaves. We cut up the largest potatoes to multiply the seed and planted them on May 1, just a few days after we noticed the first blooming dandelions of the season—our signal to plant.

We were thrilled to learn of the town’s approval for our plan to construct a hoop house
by Boyce Field to provide year-round, protected growing space. The potential for increased program offerings and more veggie sales with the help of the structure will be a boon to the farm. Thanks to our staff and our neighbors for working together to identify a suitable location for the structure; construction is scheduled to begin at the end of the month.

By the end of last week had about 40% of the onion crops (24,000 plants!)  in the ground–only 33,000 plants to go! Thanks to volunteers Anne, Sheila, Francesca, Sandra, and Anna for seeding the majority of what’s in the greenhouse—especially those onions, where they do not scatter seed, but rather place one seed at a time through a grid, 650 seeds per tray, 88 trays–57,200 plants! We’ve also been using volunteer Fred’s new cold frame to harden-off those onions before moving them to the field. Fred’s design is sturdier than previous iterations and the shed roof design allows us to roll and perch the plastic on the high end, simplifying the process of covering and uncovering the plants on cold or rainy nights—of which there have been too many!

But with a little sun and warmth, by next week we should have lots of greens to harvest for the first CSA distribution on 5/15 and the first Union Square Farmers’ Market in Somerville on 5/18.

If you haven’t secured your spot in the spring CSA, there’s still time, and we have a few slots still open. If you’re looking to learn more about farm-to-table practices and cooking, we have upcoming programs for adults, teens, and families, where you can get hands-on in the field and kitchen!

Springing Ahead: 5 Signs of Spring on the Farm

Posted on March 15, 2019 by Kelly R.

Daylight Savings Time arrived on the second morning of our annual Sap-to-Syrup Farmer’s Breakfast. Hearty pancakes topped with real maple syrup alongside Drumlin Farm’s roasted potatoes and sausage were enjoyed in sunny, snowy, and muddy weather throughout the weekend. Thanks to our volunteers, staff, and sponsors that helped make this event possible, including our premiere event sponsor Whole Foods (Sudbury), as well as PEAK Event Services, Karma Coffee (Sudbury), Market Basket (Waltham), Roche Brothers (Sudbury), Donelan’s Supermarket (Lincoln), Stop & Shop (Wayland). Now that we’ve explored and shared the joys of maple sugaring, a traditional end of winter crop, we’re looking forward to the rest of what New England Spring has in store…

1. Spring Lambs & Kids

One of the many special things that makes Drumlin Farm a unique experience is our resident livestock. If you’ve visited recently, you were probably met by the very pregnant sheep and goats still in their thick winter coats. With spring comes the arrival of the newborn lambs and kids, and watching them walk, hop, and play is one of our favorite cornerstone spring activities. Such a favorite that we’ll be celebrating all things fiber and sheep related at Woolapalooza, our annual farm, food, and fiber festival. Visit on March 30th for sheep shearing, sheep dog herding demonstrations, local wool vendors, and a chance to visit the new spring babies!

2. April Vacation Week

February Vacation Week had us looking into the science of snow and winter, but it’s warming up in April! During one day or full week sessions the week of April 15-19, children will explore the thawing ponds for amphibians, take care of the wildlife, prepare and plant the garden, and meet in the kitchen to whip up some tasty treats. April Vacation on Drumlin Farm is always alive with the sounds of laughter and amazement at the new lessons we find.

3. Leafy Spring Vegetables

The spring growing season begins with crispy leafy greens. Bursting with an array of tender head lettuces, herbs, scallions, and salad radishes, we’re excited to start making fresh salad every week. Our spring CSA program allows you to share in the bounty of harvest, and you can pick up Drumlin Farm grown vegetables every week for your own kitchen. As the fields warm, shares will fill out with the first of the season’s carrots, sweet salad turnips, and (weather permitting) sugar snap peas, strawberries, and beets. Taste the difference between store-bought and farm-grown for yourself!

4. The Start of Spring Series Programs

Pencil in Drumlin Farm to your weekly schedule with the arrival of spring Child, Adult/Child Pair, and Family Series programs so you can visit the farm every week! You can spend time with your children in a social, educational environment and explore our habitats and wildlife together with programs like Farm Family, Family Explorations, and Old MacDrumlin’s Farm (families with children ages 2-6). Learn first-hand about “where does my food come from” and experience the farm-to-table process in Drumlin Cooks (ages 9-12), Kids in the Kitchen (ages 6-9), and Cooking Together (families with children ages 3-5).

5. The Return of Vernal Pools & Amphibians

Vernal pools are temporary bodies of water in our forests filled by melting snow and spring rain. Within these muddy, murky waters live a world of life including tadpoles, fairy shrimp, and dragonfly larva that will metamorphose into adults before the pools dry up. Come see for yourself in Polliwogs & Frogs (families with children age 2), Tadpoles & Toads (families with children ages 3-5), and Afternoon Kids Club (ages 4-6).

A Note from Renata Pomponi, Sanctuary Director

Posted on February 15, 2019 by Kelly R.

The daily news doesn’t often focus on science, but for a day or two last November, scientific exploration took over the headlines as the InSight Lander arrived on Mars. The first mission designed to probe the interior of another planet, InSight traveled more than 300 million miles over seven months. Watching the livestream of those final moments, my family and I found ourselves cheering along with the engineers in the control room as they celebrated their success.

This type of “Big Science” victory is one that my kids and I will remember for a lifetime. But just as important are the “small science” moments that happen every day: a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis or a snowflake crystalizing on a mitten. When we stop to look, we start to wonder. That wonder can begin as a sense of amazement at the “magic” of nature, especially in our youngest visitors, but it can lead to more when presented as a question: I wonder how that caterpillar transformed into an entirely different creature? I wonder why that snowflake formed so differently from the one next to it?

Major scientific breakthroughs may occur only a few times in our lives, but the natural world offers up daily opportunities for us to question, to think, and to learn. What’s more, having a formal scientific degree or engineering background isn’t a prerequisite, only your own curiosity. You don’t even have to know the “right” answer to your or your child’s question; their asking is the most important part. We hope that the inquiries that start here at Drumlin Farm, whether you experience them on your own or alongside our educators, will bring discovery and delight, along with inspiration for all of us to become strong environmental stewards.

Wishing you a year of small-science wonders,

Renata Pomponi
Drumlin Farm Sanctuary Director

April-September 2019 Program & Events

Our new programs and events catalog for April-September 2019 has arrived, filled with new programs to get you and your family and friends outside exploring. Highlights include:

Crops Update: Week 26

Posted on November 14, 2018 by Kelly R.

Sounds like winter arrives tomorrow, so we’re doing our best to bring in the last of the parsnips, leeks, and brussels sprouts before the thermometer hits the teens! Last week and yesterday, we finished the fall carrot harvest (pictured below), stacking over a ton into the root cellar. Jobs that remain include: mulching the strawberries, rhubarb, and perennial garden; stowing away equipment and preparing the wash station and Green Barn for winter; and seeding micro-greens and arugula in the greenhouse.

You may have also noticed pea tendrils already growing on heat mats in the greenhouse (pictured below). Volunteers Anne, Sheila and Francesca seeded those last week. Many thanks! The last Somerville market of the season is this coming this Saturday, and then we’ll have a break before starting at the Wayland Winter Farmer’s Market on Saturday, January 19. Tomorrow is the last fall CSA distribution of the year, and it’s taking place in the Green Barn where we’ll be happy to turn on the heat! We’ll be stocking up on Thanksgiving essentials like carrots, potatoes, butternut squash, garlic and onions.

The fall’s incessant rain brings to mind the House of Usher, and how it finally dissolved into the vaporous bog it was built on. In Poe’s tale, it was the isolation of the family that led to its ruin and symbolic collapse. And while these days it feels as if the squishy ground could open and swallow all the farm’s barns and buildings, our story is different because we’re not alone. We have all of you to thank for supporting us through another successful growing season. Whether you worked in the field, sold produce to customers, shared the story of our farming methods with others, or cooked a meal with Drumlin ingredients, you took part and contributed to this solid community. We’re thankful for you, and wish you the best during the holidays!

See you at our winter markets,

Your farmers

Crops Update: Week 25

Posted on October 31, 2018 by Kelly R.

Saturday’s Nor’easter shut down the farmers’ market and gifted us a real weekend. We learned about the market cancellation on Friday, and so made use of the hours normally spent harvesting to finish planting next year’s garlic crop. We’ll try to mulch the patch with straw tomorrow afternoon and early Thursday before the next round of rain arrives. The mulch will even out extremes of temperature over the winter and hopefully will prevent weed growth next spring. There’s an art to spreading straw: too thick, and it smothers the garlic; too thin, and the weeds come charging through; just right, and come May all you see is neat rows of green garlic on a field of straw.

Today and tomorrow are the last times we’ll set up the farmstand for the season, so be sure to stock up on onions, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, squash and sweet potatoes. We will be distributing fall CSA shares twice more after tomorrow on November 7 and 14. We may move those last two distributions to the Green Barn depending on the weather, so keep an eye out for any announcements in your newsletters. Although we no longer have a winter CSA program, we’re excited to start attending the Wayland Winter Market at Russell’s Garden Center. We’ll be there on January 19 for the first time, then twice more in February and twice again in March. We’re starting to plan our microgreen and pea tendril seeding schedule so that we’ll have something verdant to bring to market in addition to our usual root crops, onions and garlic.

With the CSA season winding down, be sure to check out our other fun food education programs to continue the farm-to-table connection and learn more cooking skills. Sourdough Breadmaking and Simple Cheesemaking are favorites for adults, while Crow Brings the Corn and The Gingerbread Man are perfect to bring the kids along.

See You in the Fields,

Your Farmers

Crops Update: Week 24

Posted on October 23, 2018 by Kelly R.

Two nights in the mid-20’s ended the season for many crops and even froze some potatoes underground and greens under rowcover (pictured below). Yesterday, while planting garlic, we had to contend with icy soil until mid-morning when the sun finally rose high enough to thaw things out. So we’re in a rush to dig those last seven beds of potatoes and plant the rest of the garlic patch. Thanks to help from data analysts at healthcare company Verscend, we finished the seemingly interminable sweet potato harvest last Thursday afternoon.

We then passed through the pepper and tomato patches for the final time this season picking the last ripe fruit. That night, the temperature fell to 25 degrees in the field, and in the morning the frost on the fields looked like a coating of snow. Cold like this kills swiss chard, broccoli and cauliflower, and can also damage cabbage and Brussels sprouts. Thankfully, last Tuesday afternoon, volunteers from furniture company Wayfair helped us strip 75 pounds of brussels sprouts from off their stalks for the following day’s CSA distribution (pictured below). Normally, we distribute the stalks with the sprouts still attached because we don’t have time to separate them. Thanks Wayfair volunteers for giving our CSA members a rare treat!

On Saturday afternoon, volunteers with the Appalachian Mountain Club dug 1,200 pounds of potatoes and planted two beds of garlic all in about three hours. Each fall, we select 400 lbs. of our largest garlic heads to break up into cloves and seed back to the fields for next year’s crop (pictured below).

Now that the cold is here and there’s less to harvest, we’re saying goodbye to some of our team members. Susie Janik is starting a job in the Worcester County D.A.’s office. Susie has done a great job with sales to chefs and at the Union Square farmers’ market; we were thankful to have her help one last time this past Saturday at market. John Mark finished his time with us yesterday planting garlic. It’s a fitting end to his season as he joined our team on the day we started harvesting the garlic crop in mid-July. Thanks Susie and John for your good work and company. We’ll have to work harder without you, but that will keep our blood moving and our hands warm!

And speaking of keeping our blood moving and hands warm, this week also brings our annual family-friendly Halloween event, Tales of the Night. Stop by Thursday or Friday, 6:30-9:00 pm to meet nocturnal creatures, travel by haunted hayride, and have a few treats (and tricks!).

See you in the field,

Your Farmers