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There is still time to sign-up for our CSA

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We have just five weeks before we deliver our first CSA share of fresh veggies and apples! So, if you haven't signed up yet, what are you waiting for? Sign-up is available online (click to CSA Information in the side menu). Or, if you prefer, you can print the sign-up form and send it to us via mail - we love getting mail from our customers!

Emma's Reasons to Sign-up

Why sign-up for our CSA? The number one reason we find that our customers sign-up for our CSA is to encourage healthy eating while supporting a local business. We also try to offer our best variety of vegetables and apples to our CSA customers at a discount compared with our market retail prices. We feel that if you are willing to make the commitment to 12 weeks of produce, we can give you a price break. Another reason you should sign-up with Buffalo Ridge Orchard is that you are able to chose your selection of apples and veggies each week at pick up. This means if you don't like broccoli, rather than let it deteriorate in your refrigerator, you can choose to pick-up more of certain items as a replacement. Likewise, you are able to pick your mix of apples each week. If you love Honeycrisp while they are in season, you can just get Honeycrisp. Also, it helps us to reduce overall waste. We know exactly how much produce to bring each week for our CSA shares, without the excess that may not sell at our weekly market locations.

Lots of Options this Year!

This year we are offering lots of options for share size and pick-up locations for both our Apple share and Apple-Veggie CSA shares. Every year we make a goal to expand our CSA shares and this year is no exception. We are now offering an Apple share at Abbe Hills Farm outside of Mount Vernon. We will also have two drop locations in Cedar Rapids to help make pick-up more convenient. We will also continue to have pick-ups available at the Dubuque and Iowa City Farmer's Markets.

Hope to see you soon at market or at our CSA pick-up!

Emma

Seasonal Positions Available!

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DSC_3802_4x6We are currently looking for two part-time seasonal workers from late August to mid-October.  Workers will be harvesting and packing apples and other produce.  Workers must be motivated, have attention to detail, be able to lift 50 lbs, and available to work week days.  Expected work schedule will be 15-25 hours per week, typically on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays.  The position will be compensated at $8.50  to $10/hour.  If interested, please email your prior work experience and references to BuffaloRidgeOrchard@gmail.com.

Mint is on the March to Market!

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Marcus showcases Mojito Mint plants.
Marcus showcases Mojito Mint plants.  It doesn’t seem to mind the rain or the cool weather.

Farmer’s market season officially started last Saturday.  We had lots of herb plants available, including an assortment of different mints.  Mint is one of those herbs that will take over the garden if you don’t keep it restrained in a container, but boy does supply the best iced tea of the summer!  It’s also great to spruce up any summer salad or tabbouleh recipe.  Of course, we also sell lots mint ahead of the Kentucky Derby to those that would like to enjoy a Mint Julep (or two) before the race.

After the markets on Saturday we had a busy Mother’s Day Sunday moving the hoophouse ahead of the predicted rain and wind this week.  We will now be able to plant our cucumbers and cherry tomatoes in the shelter of the hoophouse during this dreary weather.

A few weeks ago we had a string of cool, rainy days.  It certainly slowed the progress of some of the crops, but we were still able to plant tomatoes in the warmth of hoophouse.  Also the rainy week forced Marcus to dust off his rain suit and show us how he should get a second job as an outerwear model. 😛

We are often asked what we do on rainy days.  For the most part we spend most rainy days catching up on office work, but this time of year we find ourselves in the hoophouse weeding, or in the produce shed cleaning.  Or we are recovering from the push to plant, till, haul, or harvest ahead of the rain.  If we are lucky we are able to take the day off and can relax and enjoy some Orange Mint tea (or Pineapple Mint lemonade)!

The rainy week gave Emma time to wash tubs and prepare the washing station for the 2016 season.
The rainy week gave Emma time to wash tubs and prepare the washing station for the 2016 season.
Mary plants the tomato seedling in the hoophouse.
Mary plants a tomato seedling in the hoophouse.  It is cool outside, but the tomatoes are enjoying the warmth of the hoophouse!

 

Vern cultivates the carrots ahead of moving the hoophouse for the cucumbers.
Vern cultivates the carrots ahead of moving the hoophouse into its summer position.

Milestones Big and Small

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Success! Emma graciously accepts the Rhubarb Torch Award for the “Most Tangy [some say Bitter] During Bloom.”  She is hoping for thicker skin next year.  Photo provided by the talented Jessica Rilling.
This year marks several milestones big and small.  Mary and Vern have been farming for close to 40 years.  This will be the tenth season of apple trees in production on the farm.   And coincidentally, tomorrow Marcus and Emma will be celebrating ten years of marriage.  So how is this year shaping up on this adventure called farming?

After several cool nights that made us all have heartburn over the apple crop this spring, we find ourselves wondering why we volunteered to be in the boxing ring with Mother Nature.  We had flashbacks to 2012, when we lost close to 100 percent of our crop due to an early bloom, followed by what were seasonably low temperatures for early April.  Over the past few weeks we surveyed blossoms and estimated fruit set.  In a typical year we thin the fruit down by 50 to 60 percent to ensure a return bloom for next year and for fruit size.  However, there are plenty of other variables that can affect fruit set, including cloud cover, temperature, and pollination.  This year we estimated that 4o percent of blossoms would set fruit, which would essentially be close to a normal crop.

Funny how a few weeks can change your outlook on life and growing year.  The apple crop looks strong, the potato spuds emerged, we started the market season well, and we are almost done planting our vegetable fields.  We are already happily complaining about all the fruit thinning we need to do in the orchard.

I am not sure how Vern and Mary have survived 40 years of farming, except that they seem to have a skill that I think you only obtain after years of practice – adaptability!  Things do not always go as planned – actually that is the only thing you can plan for.  But if you are good at observing cycles and can anticipate changes that need to be made, you’ll be able to sleep most nights.

 

BRO Weather Station

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Last week our friend Jessica Rilling stopped by and took some really happy bright pictures around the farm on what was otherwise a grey and dreary day.

It has been a busy couple of weeks out at the farm.  The orchard is nearing the end of bloom and we started selling our spring greens and herb plants at farmers markets on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.

After several late nights and early mornings waiting for calmer, rain free weather in order to spray blossom protectant on the apple and pear orchard, we are pretty exhausted.  However, we are thankful that we decided this year to invest in a new weather station which allows us to keep track of weather forecast and run models for orchard diseases and pest pressure online.  Basically, we are able to make more accurate decisions on when the orchard needs to be sprayed and justify having a smart phone.

Customers often ask if we use organic practices in our orchard.  It is hard to answer this question with a yes or no answer.  We do use several organic practices such as keeping the understory clean to reduce scab innoculum from overwintering.  We use traps to monitor pest pressure and spray only when it is necessary.   We consistently prune the orchard in order to improve airflow and reduce diseases.  And we plant habitat that encourages beneficial insects.  Still even with all of these methods we still find that we need to use conventional sprays to manage our biggest problem, Apple Scab, which thrives in our wet, humid weather in Iowa.  Our primary goal in the orchard is to reduce our use of any spray (conventional or organic) by using an arsenal of tools; one of which is accurate weather information!  If we have to spray, we are spraying more accurately during the most critical times, which in most cases means we are having to spray less often.  If you are curious what the weather is doing out at the orchard, check out the link below:

Buffalo Ridge Orchard Weather Station Page

Welcome to 2015!

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Tie Tuesday Legends
BRO team representing for Tie Tuesday at ITZEN Architects Inc., DTSA, CA

 

During the winter we tend to get a lot of questions like, “What do you do all winter long?  This must be a pretty slow time of year for you, right?”  Well the answer is, Yes, things do slow up for us some after we harvest our last apples in October until we dive into full-scale pruning in March, but we’ve still got plenty of projects that keep us busy.  We’re not spending much of our time building snowmen and sipping hot tea by the fire.

There’s plenty of bookkeeping, maintenance work, and farm cleanup to catch up on that we just haven’t gotten to during our pruning, planting, harvesting, and marketing seasons.  We also take this time to update our plans for the future and order our seeds and plants for next year.  We’re updating our facilities to provide us with better service into the coming years.  We also plan to attend the Practical Farmers of Iowa and Iowa Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association conferences later in January (practicalfarmers.org & www.ifvga.org).  Mary and Vern already got to attend the Great Lakes Expo up in Grand Rapids, Michigan in December (www.glexpo.com).  These are great opportunities to meet and network with other regional farmers that have crazy notions like we do of trying to expand the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables here in Iowa and across the Midwest.  We try to learn what we can and put it to practical good use in the upcoming seasons.  We often learn about new fruit and vegetable varieties, tips and tricks for improved production, and new tools and products that help us grow higher quality produce more efficiently for our markets.

However, that being said, we do get more time to spend with family and friends (both near and far) over the Holidays and winter months.  Emma and Marcus just got back from a trip to Southern California where they visited Emma’s sister Carrie and brother Ben, as well as other friends in the area.  It was quite a shock to get back to snow and sub-zero temperatures (and even lower wind-chills), but made for some much-needed R&R over Christmas.  They helped boost morale at the ITZEN  office one afternoon by stopping by for Tie Tuesday and donning the appropriate accessories.  (*shameless plug that if you’re looking for architecture services in Southern California you should get in contact with them: www.itzen.com)  We obviously have a little fun here and there over the winter as well.

So a warm and sincere “Happy Holidays!” from our family to yours!  May 2015 bring many glad tidings and a wonderful world of produce to your table!

How do we harvest 3,200 apple trees?

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Emma harvesting Sweet Sixteen
Emma harvesting Sweet Sixteen

…By hand.  As Emma is showing in the picture above, each apple is picked, one by one and placed in our pick baskets.  Once our baskets are full, we take them by wagon to our washing station.  Then we wash, sort, and pack the apples into tubs so that they can be stacked and stored in our walk-in cooler.

So, assuming an average apple might weigh a half pound (which might be considered a bit of an understatement by anyone who’s seen our Zestar!, Honeycrisp, or Candycrisp), that ends up being somewhere between 70 to 80,000 individual apples each carefully picked, packed, and stacked to bring to our customers at markets in Cedar Rapids, Dubuque, Iowa City, and Marion.

This week we’re just reaching the peak of our apple harvest for this year.  We’ve been busy picking Honeycrisp, Sweet Sixteen, Gala, Fuji, Cortland, Jonagold, Jonafree, Senshu, Arlet (aka Swiss Gourmet), Valstar, and Crimson Crisp.  We’ll harvest more than 40 varieties of apples before frost sets in by late October.  With so many to choose from, it can be hard to pick a favorite.  But we’ve each got our own, hopefully we’ve got at least one that can be your favorite too!

Piles of Potatoes

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A pile of Dark Red Norlands
A pile of Dark Red Norlands

This year has been a fantastic potato growing year with record yields.  It looks like we will have close to three times the quantity of potatoes that we had last year.  The past couple of weeks Vern and Mary have been working hard to harvest close to 2,000 pounds of potatoes every week.  During these weeks we found ourselves cursing the extra work caused by the timely rains this Spring that provided the ultimate growing conditions for our spuds.

Finally we realized that we were complaining about success.  As one of our farmer friends from Pennsylvania stated several years back, “you have to make sure your attitude doesn’t get too farmerish!”  So this week we had to press the reset button on our attitude as we march full force into apple season with only half the potatoes harvested.  What a blessing that we have piles of potatoes!

And apple season is really starting to kick off as well; our fall varieties are finally coming on in full force!  After a bit of a meager showing last week, we’ve already harvested McIntosh, Sweet Sixteen, Jonafree, Honeycrisp, and Gala apples (and it’s only Wednesday morning).  So we’ll have all of those at market this week, plus the last of our Silkens.

Tomatoes in full swing, finally!

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Our Apples and tomatoes on display at the NewBo Farmer’s Market

We have been harvesting tomatoes for a couple of weeks but our production is finally in full swing – just in time for apple season.  We have spent several years improving our vegetable production with moveable hoophouses so that the harvest of our summer crops comes before we start picking apples.  Despite our careful planning, a cool Spring followed by a cool summer postponed tomato picking into August.  This means Mary is a busy woman harvesting the last of our summer crops of beets, cucumbers, and zucchini and now spends her free time harvesting hundreds of pounds of tomatoes.  Of course we can’t complain that we are able to have beautiful tomatoes with lunch followed by a crisp apple for dessert.

Welcoming Summer Apples

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Pristine apple blushing to the camera.
A Pristine apple blushing to the camera.

 

It is exciting to be picking our first really good eating apple of the season – Pristine.  This apple is everything those grocery store apples are not.  Including the fact that they are crisp and juicy.  Of course they are also extremely prone to bruising so we have to treat these apples as if they were made of glass.  This means each is gingerly washed and then packed rather then running them through the produce washer.  These delicious gems require some extra labor but it is worth having such a great apple in early August.