Tag: growing

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2019 CSA Produce Guide!

For those who have signed up, thank you for choosing to eat local, fresh and chemical free food by being a part of our CSA!

It looks like Spring may have started to arrive after an excessive winter here in the Midwest. It has been wonderful to see the chickens out and about the last few days because they haven’t left the coop in months! Not exaggerating one bit.

So we wanted to go over our expected crops for this year. This list is a general estimate based on years past, but we’re (mostly) confident in it’s accuracy. The intention is to give our CSA customers a general idea of what to we’ll have available each month.

If you prefer a visual, please scroll our Instagram feed to see all the yummy stuff from last season: https://www.instagram.com/archiesacres/

April & May

Asparagus, arugula, spring onions, radishes, spinach, leaf lettuce, Swiss chard, herbs, rhubarb

June

Peas, garlic scapes, kohlrabi, beets, green beans, tomatoes, Swiss chard, lettuce, kale, herbs, eggplant, raspberries, zucchini, cucumbers, snap peas, snow peas, asparagus, arugula, spring onions, radishes, spinach, leaf lettuce, Swiss chard, herbs, shishito peppers

July

Garlic scapes, kohlrabi, beets, green beans, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, zucchini, cucumbers, radishes, mulberries, bell peppers, shishito peppers, ground cherries, Mexican sour gherkins, tomatillos

August


Onions, carrots, tomatoes, shishito peppers, bell peppers, hot peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, sweet peppers, beets, herbs, onions, potatoes, green beans, garlic, zucchini, cucumbers, mulberries, ground cherries, Mexican sour gherkins, tomatillos, peaches, apples, pears

September

Onions, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, hot peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, sweet peppers, beets, Swiss chard, kale, lettuce, herbs, onions, potatoes, green beans, garlic, zucchini, cucumbers, Mexican sour gherkins, apples, pears

October

Delicata squash, butternut squash, carnival squash, spaghetti squash, beets, carrots, Brussels sprouts, potatoes, Swiss chard, kale, lettuce, herbs, onions, carrots, green beans, garlic, tomatoes, hot peppers, sweet peppers, pumpkins

It’s not too late to sign up!

If you’re in Northern Illinois and would like to join our 2019 growing season, we still have a few CSA spots left. Please check out our previous post: https://www.archiesacres.com/our-2019-csa/

And/Or complete this form:

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Farmlife is a busy life!

Yes yes, I realize that it’s been forever since we’ve posted an update. So I’ll do a top 10 list of things that we’ve done since I last checked in.

TOP 10 THINGS WE’VE DONE ON THE FARM…

    1. Those blue egg layer Cream Crested Legbar and Whiting True Blue eggs finally hatched! We have 7 beautiful new chicken babies! I’ve been actively humanizing them by relentlessly picking them up, so they’re a friendly little crew.
    2. Our windbreak has been massively added to on the West and North sides of the farm by planting 25 arborvitae trees, 10 plum bushes, 10 serviceberry bushes and 10 nannyberry bushes. They’re all only about 2 feet tall, but seem to be doing well. Now we just have to wait 5 years…
    3. We tilled our entire 150′ by 35′ garden. Since we don’t own a tiller yet, so we borrowed our neighbors. Geez, tilling is hard work!
    4. We planted over 150 potatoes. Many many radishes, onions, peas, carrots and Brussels sprouts seeds went in the ground too….
    5. We re-potted over 150 tomato, pepper, cauliflower, flower and broccoli seedlings. Some of the rarer tomato and peppers seedlings will be sold at the Rockford Green City Farmer’s Market this summer for the first few markets anyway. We’ll be there every 2nd and 4th Friday until the end of September.
    Here’s the link to find out more about the market:

http://www.rockfordcitymarket.com/

    6. We built a deer and rabbit fence around the entire garden. The rabbit and deer population is impressive out here. When we come home in the evening, there are always at least 8 baby rabbits running across the driveway. And we learned last year that they are ferocious eaters!
    7. We weeded, re-roped and trimmed back our Centennial and Chinook hops plants to get them ready for Spring.  This is the 2nd year for these hops so we should get an even better crop this summer! Last year we only got enough to do 2 batches of beer. So this year we’re hoping for at least 4 brewing sessions with our own hops.
    8. We just started hatching quail eggs! Last night, in fact. We have 20+ cortunix quail eggs in our incubator. So far 3 have hatched. They are so cute! And surprisingly loud. We plan to sell quail eggs this summer. Quail develop surprisingly fast, they’ll be fully grown and laying in only 2 months!

Baby quail are so cute and tiny!

    9. We have moved all of our Iowa hatchery chicks out to a pen across from the chicken coop to get them acclimated to life outside. They’re all over 7 weeks now so they have all of their feathers and can survive the elements. Happy to report that all are doing well!

The teenagers are loving life outside.

    10. We have finalized our farmer’s market paperwork with the Rockford Farmer’s Market. We’ve bought all of the licenses that Illinois requires for every single thing they can think of. And it’s a lot. We have an egg license, I have my ServSafe food handling certification, a food handling permit and our individual licenses to sell in each county where we plan to sell. Plus our LLC insurance, FEIN and sales tax ID requirements are all squared away. We have all the required packaging and labeling materials to sell in Illinois, it was tedious and over-the-top, but that’s finally done. Phew.
    Life is good here at Archie’s Acres. Spring has the trees and flowers blooming, the grass is green and the woods are coming back to life! It’s so fun to watch nature do its thing every spring.

For daily picture updates about Archie’s Acres, follow us on Instagram! @archiesacres

https://www.instagram.com/archiesacres/

 

A beautiful Spring day at Archie’s Acres.

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