Hi,
Happy Winter! It's snowing as I type, which is nice to see. We need a good snow cover to insulate the strawberries, moisten the soil at spring thaw and, strangely, snow (and rain) provides a level of nitrogen. We're hoping you're all cozy and eating healthy winter storage crops through the winter.
CSA Sign-Up
And now, it's time to start thinking about Spring! For all you returning and potential/new CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) members, you can find the Sign-Up forms on our web-site using this link.
http://www.riverberryfarm.com/about/community-supported-agriculture/
If you can't just click on this, you may have to cut and paste it on your search bar. Then print out, fill it in and mail with your check for $250 to River Berry Farm and we'll load a member card with $275 credit for you to shop for anything we sell at our Farm Stand from May 1st through Halloween. We will also be having the CSA flyers in Fairfax stores (Minors, J&L, Steeple Market and Nan's) soon. There is no deadline to sign-up, but, of course, earlier is better for us. That is the community-supported part. This will be our 9th year of the CSA and 21st year of River Berry Farm.
Tomatoes Started:
The tomatoes have germinated and looking good. We'll start grafting the tasty tomato varieties plant-tops onto the disease resistant variety plant-bottoms in about a week. It's a bit tricky to get the moisture and light level just right to get a good survival rate, but when we get it right, we can get healthy, yummy tomatoes ripening in our greenhouses by end of June.
Bedding Plant Seeding Soon:
Meanwhile the bedding plant seeds have all been organized by seeding date and their desired germination conditions. The seeding starts the second week of February. We have a pretty cool system set up in our basement for the first planting, so we don't have to start heating up the greenhouses until the second seeding on March 1st, when things start really escalating. Flower seeding comes first, then the more rapid growing vegetable seeds. We'll be using our wood pellet heater in the greenhouse attached to the stand and we're in the process of installing a new outdoor wood boiler to heat our two main greenhouses by the barns. Very exciting.
Native Plants for Pollinators and Birds and a Potential Landscape Design Workshop Series:
We're trying out a load of new shrubs and perennials this year. I'm getting enchanted with planting for gardens that are alive with pollinators and birds, and gearing many of my selections toward native plants. I'm hoping to develop a landscape design series for people who are interested in developing a design for their homes which would not only be beautiful and functional for us humans, but would be truly alive with the activities of all those birds and insects. This adds an amazing 4th, maybe that would be the 5th dimension to the garden. The 4th dimension is how the garden changes with time and the 5th is all that action: hummingbirds gathering nectar, bumblebees buzzing inside flowers, ladybugs munching up aphids. Shoot me an email if you think you may be interested in this Landscape Design Workshop Series. It would likely be at least 6 classes, once a week in the fall. (I'm a professional landscape architect with piles of experiences and degrees to boot. Jane here...)
OK. Congratulations to you who have waded through all this. We look forward to a great 2012 season and to seeing you at the farm.
As always, thanks for all your support,
Jane and David
along with our kids, Huck and Ada
and our dependable and hardy crew at
River Berry Farm
191 Goose Pond Road, Fairfax, VT 05454
802-849-6853
email:
riverberryfarm@comcast.netweb-site:
www.riverberryfarm.com 
