Creekside Farms

Meat from Creekside Farms will be available to Phoenix Farms CSA members for delivery to the pickup location in downtown Concord on Tuesdays. Get familiar with his products. Go and visit his farm.

what's in your meat?

Beef containing harmful pesticides, veterinary antibiotics and heavy metals is being sold to the public because federal agencies have failed to set limits for the contaminants or adequately test for them, a federal audit finds.

A program set up to test beef for chemical residues "is not accomplishing its mission of monitoring the food supply for … dangerous substances, which has resulted in meat with these substances being distributed in commerce," says the audit by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Inspector General.

The health effects on people who eat such meat are a "growing concern," the audit adds.

You can read the rest of the article here.

Or you can read the actual audit report here.

one hot spring

I hope everyone enjoyed spring. I can't remember such a compacted season. The redbuds, which typically bloom in late January or February are just one of the early bloomers now in full swing overlapping with all the other flowering trees and shrubs that typically bloom later; everything all at once. We've gone from extremely cold (remember?) and really wet to day time highs in the upper 80s for quite a few days in a row now. I should have known when the air conditioning system here at the house kicked on today(78 degrees inside) that it was warming up quick. I went from complaining about not being able to work the wet fields to complaining about the heat- dragging hoses all over the fields today to try and save the cold-weather transplants that do not like 80 degree weather. Which reminds me...

I was planning to bite the bullet and pay to drip irrigate my fields at the incubator farm, I just didn't think I'd need it up and running for the first week of April. I'm going to order the needed materials and then have a work day where anyone who is interested can come and learn (as I learn) about how to hook up a fairly large drip irrigation system. Sound like fun?

The upside is that it's beautiful- everything is blooming and the trees are leafing out and the wonderful colour of our region is back. I once went on a 7 day cruise and we spent several days at sea with nothing to see except blue water. We arrived back at port in the evening and drove all night from Florida to North Carolina. I woke up in the morning and will never forget walking out onto the back deck of my childhood home and seeing a forest of green that seemed to hurt my eyes with the intensity of its colour. It hadn't taken long for my senses to forget and then be shocked by the beautiful colour of this place I call home.

The good news is that much is up: spinach, lettuce, mizuna, mixed greens, radishes, beets, carrots, onions, peas, arugula and garlic are all up and off to the races. I even gambled and planted 64 tomatoes last Sunday (fingers crossed) so if it does turn out to be an incredibly short spring at least my first round of tomatoes will have a head start. We'll see how the broccoli, collards, kholrabi and kale take the heat.

There are rumblings about a local food coop that might have a brick and mortar footprint. Imagine being able to go to a store and buy local food, both groceries and prepared food restaurant style to eat with other, like-minded individuals as you enjoy a pint from an NC brewery or an NC produced glass of wine. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one; seriously if this is something you're interested in let me know. We need a small group of interested folk to get this up and running.

Don't forget the Herb Festival is April 17th. I won't be selling there but lots of other people will be. Also there are still CSA shares available with Know Your Farms. It's a multi-farm CSA to which many local growers, including myself will be contributing.

Best Wishes,

Aaron

CSA 2010 update

red russian kale

It seems to happen every year. It's too cold and wet to plant in late winter and then all of the sudden -WHAM- everything takes off. We've had relatively warm weather (much warmer temps later this week) and we've had rain in March but not too much. Most of the potatoes are in the ground. The spring greens and root vegetables have sprouted and are ready for a round of compost tea and the season's first round of weeding. It's this time of year(and this time only) when you can believe me when I say, "This year I'll keep up with the weeds!"

The cold and wet winter weather is going to cause the CSA to be delayed but that actually works out well. This year the CSA spring season will last 8 weeks and run from May through June. This will also allow me to fall in line with the Know Your Farms multi-farm CSA. They source food weekly from several local farmers. They too will operate year round with four distinct seasons. 12 families are joining me for my own CSA, but I'll also be a part of the Know Your Farms CSA.

I was in the greenhouse, looking at a small nasturtium and cursing their low germination rate when I noticed a tiny Praying Mantis on one of its leaves. I collected several egg casings last fall when I trimmed shrubs in my yard.


I put one in the greenhouse and many others throughout my fields after planting. They do a great job of eating other bothersome insects. It's a good sign that spring is here.

I've already had some help out at the farm. Stacey and her children David, Ethan and Erin have been out to the farm twice to help.

They're going to be joining me throughout the season. I also had Shelley and her son Chad help transplant some kholrabi and broccoli and collards into the field. There's always plenty to do.

I'll be taking on 50 laying hens in May in order to provide eggs for CSA members on a weekly basis. They'll be moving into chickens tractors, one of which is already waiting in the field.


Our family flock has started laying strong again after the winter season during which chickens don't lay as much. I feel confident that my 4 year old daughter Keaton won't be able to name all 50 of the new ladies, thus ensuring that they remain livestock and therefore won't qualify for the protections offered our other family pets.

I'm going to try and continue with weekly updates on Tuesdays so check back then.

Aaron

deer fencing

The Elma C Lomax Incubator Farm uses a fairly simple method of fencing as the primary way of excluding deer from the farm. Cedar posts are in place at the start of the fence and at major corners. Here you can see the electric line coming from underground. It attaches to the fence through a switch.

The rope itself is made of nylon and it has continuous strands of metal woven into it. Fiberglass rods are used to keep it at the right height. The deer have trouble with it because of deep perception.

Here you can see the fence as it runs the Northeastern boundary of the property.

veggie schedule

young tomatoes and peppers

week old tomatoes

peppers that have been "potted up"

inside the germination chamber