Irrigating and weeding. Then irrigating some more. And weeding, always weeding.
The vegetable beds are on drip irrigation, which is lovely. Everything else though, the orchard, flower beds and herbs, all require more direct attention and hose shuffling. Jeremy had a chance to attend a pasture management and grazing workshop earlier this week, you can read more about it in this week’s CSA newsletter as well as find a couple parsley-centric recipes: an eggy, cheesy chard and parsley frittata and a versatile fresh green salsa (pesto/ sauce/ dressing…) for those of you with capers and anchovies in your cupboard. 
Onions are bulbing and tomatoes are fruiting. The worms are making some luscious compost. The last of the grex seed is cleaned. These days it’s been early mornings, and water breaks, and what tasks can we tackle in the shade?
The race against the birds has begun for chokecherries. Tonight we loaded up off of our two earliest bushes, just over 20 lbs. Getting chokecherries into the CSA shares has been important to us ever since our first season on the farm. And even more so after reading through Jo Robinson’s research on phytonutrients. CSA friends, get ready – chokecherry syrup, chokecherry shrubs and gin and tonics, chokecherry sorbet.
With the proposed re-zoning of one of Spearfish valley’s most iconic working agricultural fields, we’ve been reflecting a lot this week on the contradiction between an area-wide growing enthusiasm for a local food system and the community’s apparent lack of interest in the loss of productive, irrigated farmland. A curious disconnect, lots to think about while weeding onions and shuffling the hose between fruit trees.
-t&j
Cycle Farm 