We've been having many quiet days of late looking over seed catalogs and discussing what we should grow this coming season. A few new items on our list that we plan to try out---scallions, escarole, a new dark purple carrot, padron peppers, crocosmia, a couple new asian greens for our CSA, a new red cherry tomato, romanesque cauliflower, and some new kinds of sweet corn. I'm sure there is more on that list, but that is what comes to mind. We seem to have trouble with our summer variety. This past season our winter squash all bit the dust due to the squash vine borer, which wiped out several weeks worth of winter squash for our CSA. 
We're also in the process of writing thank you notes for our Christmas gifts. Stuart gifted me with some lovely cards from Han Notes for our first year anniversary. I fell in love with the art they use on their cards when I was out in Portland in September. Wonder what an original piece costs. 
We've also had time to go to some thrift stores---found this great (albeit frilly) tank top for that rare summer occasion when we leave the farm to do something besides veggies and flowers.
8 comments:
Alica-
What are your favorite thrift stores? Looking forward to the 2009 flower CSA.
Grrr... that was supposed to be Alice
Hi
sounds like you have a good range of produce in mind for next year. W found that most of the new varieties tried fail or are disappointing, so it may worth restricting new crops to say 10% change per year. We fell into the trap of trying too many crops every year which resulted in even our reliable crops suffering due to our divided attention.
Good luck with the coming season
Meredith--I love the Nearly New Store in Durham off of Erwin Rd. They donate all proceeds to Duke medical scholarships--prices are fantastic for the quality of items even though the store is a little small. I'll also go to Thrift World off of Chapel Hill st. in Durham. It is much bigger and, unless there was a big crowd the day before, there is almost always a good find. These are the ones I'll usually go to as I've found them reliable and they are close to one another. Do you have any good ones to recommend??
Stuart,
I met you at the landfill last year, I'm Randy the Liberal Handyman. We are looking into a half share CSA for 2009. Problem is the pick up points. We are in Caudwell (Rougemont) and she works in Durham weekdays, a Wednesday pick up at the Durham Market would be great as she's a block away from the market. I travel to where ever being a handyman. I'm also looking at seed catalogs (Territorial).
Randy Emmitt
Alice- I've found some good furniture at the Habitat Hand Me Ups store/Restore http://www.restoredurhamorange.org/. Pics are on my blog http://cottageatwellsfarm.blogspot.com. I've also shopped at PTA Thrift in Carrboro and Time After Time on Franklin in Chapel Hill. Glad to have some recs for places in Durham.
Just to let you know - crocosmia are beautiful, but can really get out of hand, at least here in New Orleans and in Atlanta. They're great for areas where nothing else grows. I used them around a telephone pole, where after the flooding trash was dumped and FEMA trucks would scrap it up, about once every week or so. The crocosmia came back, despite that abuse, and at the Botanical Garden a worker told me they dug up a bed of them, pulled up most of the soil, and screened what soil was left for remaining bulbs. New soil was added to refill the bed. This was told to me while we stood next to that bed, tightly filled with crocosmia. They gave up, only thinning it as necessary. It is a beautiful native; maybe it won't be quite so expansive up there in North Carolina.
anonymous-thanks for the tip. We'll watch where we plant the bulbs. We decided on crocosmia because we need more summer variety. It reminds me of freesia, which I love. Every now and then there is a rare sighting of a DOT planting of crocosmia around here---I wish they would do more crocosmia and less daylilies! I love how they plant flowers along the highways in NC.
Post a Comment