Vollmecke Orchards & CSA

The Story of Computer Technology at the Farm

2011-03-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

Spring is approaching again, and I see that it's been nearly a year since our last blog posting. One of the challenges as we incorporate all this new technology into our business life is knowing what to use when. At this point, we have a website, a blog, a facebook page, and email has become the primary form of communication between the farm and our members.

This is a very different situation from 1998, when we started the CSA. At that time, we had only a very old, seldom used DOS based computer, no website, and hadn't even considered using email. The FAX machine was the big technological tool in the farm office, and everything was still done on paper.

Somewhere around 2001, Farmer Karen had concluded that we really needed to be using email for communication from members. Many of our members at that time (and now, for that matter) were very web-savvy individuals who liked the convenience of email. They found that email was a more efficient way of communicating, and they wanted that connection with the farm as well. Around the same time, Karen visited some friends, and came home with the idea for our domain name- csachestercounty.com. This was before SEO or search engine optimization, was popular, so our domain name was chosen to boost our rankings in search engines.

Once the website was created, we essentially went dormant on technology for a number of years. We had many projects outside, and went through several major changes in the equipment used to run the farm. During this time we also expanded the size of the CSA, and steadily moved more and more to email for our communication needs. In 2009 we started this blog with the hope that it would be a way to share more of what's going on at the farm with members and friends of the farm.

The next major technological innovation didn't come until recently, in January of 2011. After a lot of research and discussion, Karen made the decision to move to Farmigo for our CSA record keeping needs. This cloud based productivity application has simplified our record keeping, and will provide an interactive member portal through which our CSA members can order additional items to be delivered with their share. www.farmigo.com

new Peach Orchard

2010-05-12T18:17:00.000-07:00

Did I mention we planted a new peach orchard? And a few plums too. Our trees arrived from the nursery mid April and it took a little more than a week to plant all 100 or so of them. It's very exciting and quite exhausting as well. We added a couple of 5 gallon buckets of our lovely compost to each hole as we back filled them and then watered each one in so each tree is getting a good start. Now we have several years of tending and training before we get to taste the fruits of our labor. Faith, skill and preserverence are helpful fruit grower virtues. All those pictures in the catalog look so inciting. I certainly hope that the fruit is good and tasty too. Stay posted.
Karen

Springtime work work

2010-05-08T13:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since my last blog posting. Spring arrived very quickly once it decided to come. The weather extremes stepped up the orchard bloom time by about two to three weeks earlier then normal and that means I lost a bunch of time to work in the orchards. Now everything needs doing at the same time. We just got our all essential skid steer back working again after it decided to founder on the neighbors property edge at the beginning of April. I'm sure when they asked us if we could just dump a couple of scoops of compost on their garden they never dreamed they would end up with such a lovely yard ornament[ hey - it was only in their yard for a week]. We managed to finally get it back to the barn where we could rip into it. Now many, many, hours later it's back in operation with so very much to do.
The greenhouses are nicely filled with young seedlings awaiting their special time to go out to the fields. We've planted lots of lettuces, swiss chard and onions. The potatoes are up and showing their green heads to the sun. Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant seedlings look great and we'll begin planting them outside when the weather stabilizes a bit.
It's been great to see many of our work share members again this Spring. We're getting a chance to get caught up with what's been going on since we saw each other last year. Thanks go to all our work share members -you're doing a super job! Lots of hoeing, weeding and planting going on around here. Karen

Life is getting real busy down on the farm

2010-03-31T10:44:00.001-07:00

We've started working in the greenhouse seeding flats of kales, lettuces, and swiss chards. Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants are sown in shallow seed pans and will get potted up to a larger pot size when they've made some more growth. New plantings/sowings are made weekly to try to time it so each kind of transplant is at the right stage of growth when the weather is appropriate to transplant them to the field. This means waves of sometimes sequential sowings.
We have been working at creating new compost piles, turning compost piles, and spreading compost onto various farm fields as the weather permits. Even though our spreader looks like it holds lots of compost in it- it takes a surprising number of trips and time to apply compost to even one of our fields. This job must be done when it is dry enough to both load the compost and make it through the fields without making ruts or cause damaging compaction to wet soils (very bad).
Our elderly skid steer machine that we are using to create the compost piles and load compost is a marvelous machine (pictured above) but it seems to have almost daily problems. I think we have worked on just about every aspect of the machine by now- surely we are about to the point where nothing else will fall off or break on a daily basis.
We just received 1 3/4" of rain over the last three days (much better than the 2-4 inches predicted). We will likely need to wait for three or four days for the soil to dry out enough to resume our compost dispersal project. We have plenty of other projects to keep us more than busy at this time of year. Though everything needs to be done in proper order and in a timely fashion so we can keep moving forward.
We're all praying for moderation in the weather. Seasonal temperatures, sunshine, and a slight breeze during the day would be perfect. But then, how often do we really get perfect?
The first sowing of peas and spinach is beginning to peak their heads out of the soil now.
Karen

Thoughts of planting.....

2010-03-23T10:40:00.001-07:00

I thought I'd post a picture from last year- as a reminder that good things are coming. We'll soon be planting again. In the meantime, here's a picture of long rows, soon to be harvested. Everyone keep thinking good thoughts of Spring!

This is it- no more snow!

2010-03-13T07:45:00.000-08:00

We got the ladders dug out of the snow pack and the van removed from its snowy resting spot on Tuesday afternoon. The snow is disappearing quickly and we enjoyed some lovely, sunny days of pruning this week. With the use of our new found ladders we were able to prune the tops as well as bottoms of the trees. The rain we're scheduled to have will wash this snow away completely. Good riddance! We look forward to lots of sunny days with moderate temperatures and not too windy please. There is still plenty of pruning to do in the apples and once finished we can start on the cleanup. Then, there is always the peach orchard to prune and then the raspberries and blackberries after that. Oh yeah- don't forget the greenhouse work, compost application, plowing, and other field work. Spring is closing in fast.
Karen

Ahh- To Prune Again

2010-03-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

We've been pruning in the apples for the last couple of days now. How lovely to be outside and have the sun shining! The snow pack has melted substantially, but it is suprising to see that it is still a couple off feet deep where it really drifted in the orchards. Our orchard ladders, which we carefully laid on the ground but propped up on some prunings before all this snow came, have still not appeared through the drifts. As luck has it, it looks like the biggest drifts are exactly where we left our ladders. We like to prune a whole tree at a time from the bottom to the top with a person on either side of the row. If it is really windy or wet we sometimes just do the bottoms, then come back later to do the tops. It's no fun being blown off a ladder or getting your gloves wet or muddy when it is cold out. So, since we couldn't get up to the ladders we've been working on the bottoms of the trees where we can get to them. We're still walking on a fair amount of snow and have skipped over some areas because the lower scaffold limbs of the trees are still drifted over. I think we could have lost a VW Beetle in some of the deepest drifts between the apple and peace orchards this year. Yesterday I got our van stuck in the snow still left in the access road. I thought I could blast through what I thought was 5" of snow tot the bare spot 40' away. Turns out it was more like 16" deep. We'll talk up today and take a couple of shovels so we can get the van out and find the buried ladders too. I drove to Downingtown a couple of days ago and was quite surprised to see the snow was almost all gone there. With these temps and some sun shine it's just a matter of time. I bet come July and August we'll be thinking more fondly of snow piles.
Karen

Still the snow won't GO!

2010-03-01T17:18:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I tried, again, to plow to the top of the hill for easier access to the orchards. This time I managed to make it without getting the truck stuck in a drift, but I did manage to slide off the road a few times, and I couldn't make it all the way to the top. I did, however, manage to get a decent path plowed to the peaches, which will reduce the amount of walking Karen has to do to get to the apples. Unfortunately, the trees that still need to be pruned are a good distance from the plowed part of our access road, and the pruning ladders have yet to emerge from the snowbank!

Ah, well. Spring is coming (or so I'm told....._)

Jeff

so much snow

2010-02-25T09:08:00.000-08:00

It's great to see that the snow has finally melted some. We're going into our third week of solid snow cover. I never remember a winter like this before.
Izzy [the Australian cattle dog that is my constant shadow] and I went for a bit of a walk off the snow plowed path yesterday. This is the first in weeks that we ventured far from where it has been plowed. The snow is still too deep to get to the apple orchard to prune. The rows of trees act as a giant snow fence and so it can really pile up especially in the orchards. Perhaps when we have a little more melting action we will snow plow a path to the compost area. It's a short walk across a field to get to the apples from our compost spot but a rather long hike from the farm house.
We were a little overly optimistic about how much snow our truck and snow plow could handle. A few days after the last big snow we got we thought we would hasten our accesses to the orchard by plowing to the top of the hill. The drifts were way too much for the truck and plow to handle and we succeeded in getting the truck very stuck. After about one and a half hours of digging with skid steer and shovels and pulling with a tractor we managed to uncork it from its drift. I thought it wise to put my big tall boots on and go for an exploratory walk to check on snow depth before trying that again.
Thank goodness January was so nice and we made significant progress in pruning the apples. We have a lot of catching up now to do in order to finish before all the heavy Spring work begins. Apples can be pruned in the winter as well as later in the Spring but if we don't finish early enough it messes up our timing for pruning the peach orchard and all the other activities that Spring down on the farm brings. Peaches do not like being pruned in the winter. We generally prune them beginning the tail end of March through April. It would be lovely to be done with the pruning by bloom time so we can get into the orchards with our tractor and sprayer and not get tangled in all the prunings on the ground. This however, is a rarity. It is not uncommon for us to be pruning when the peaches are in bloom or shortly after. Ah- the smell of peach blossoms. I can almost smell them now. Just the thought of being surrounded by all those flowers brings a smile to my face. I'm sure looking forward to seeing the ground again.

on the ground to destroy the equipment.

Snow, Snow, and more Snow!

2010-02-14T11:39:00.000-08:00

I don't know how much snow we've actually got. I know that there are plenty of snow drifts 3' or more here.
We're all pretty tired of snow around here. Snow means a lot of extra work for us, and snow days gobble up valuable time that is needed for other projects and leaves us physically worn out.
We love our new greenhouse and red raspberry high tunnel except for times of heavy snow or icy spells. The structures are made of heavy gauge metal with a heavy mil plastic covering. Because of our high winds we made sure to add even further reinforcement to the structures when we constructed them. The fear that every greenhouse grower has is that the house just won't be able to handle the weight of even several inches of heavy snow or ice. After all our hard work putting the house up and outfitting it with growing benches and such I would hate to see a crumpled mess of twisted metal and plastic.
Snow can be removed from the top of the houses manually by dragging it off from outside or bopping it off from inside (I made a special tool for this) or in times of greater snow accumulations we heat the inside of the structures with portable propane heaters and a big diesel torpedo heater which is terribly stinky but kicks out a lot of heat quickly! Of course all of this takes monitoring to make sure all is working well. I set my alarm for every 3 hours to make my way out through 2 to 4' snow drifts to check to make certain everything was working and to possibly change propane tanks. Much to my horror the big torpedo went out sometime between 1 and 3 in the morning. The snow was coming down heavily then and wasn't scheduled to stop for another 16 hours. I knew I would never be able tot keep up without a heater. Luckily we had a kerosene heater in the barn and I had filled some kerosene fuel tanks a few weeks before. I'm also thankful to have listened to that little voice in my head that motivated me to put a kid's snow saucer in the barn just before the snow started. I realize that though typically I don't view it as being much of a walk between the barn and the greenhouse, that night, with the side door snowed in it would be a difficult walk with a very awkward large kerosene heater. I was absolutely thrilled to see the bright blue snow saucer that I had recently moved to the barn. It would prove to be just perfect in transporting the heater through the enormous drifts between the barn and the greenhouse.
It snowed so much that it mounded up around the long sides of the houses so much that there was nowhere left for it to go. Shovel, shovel, and more shoveling to keep the side walls from breaking under too much pressure.
And then there is always now plowing to break up the snow shoveling monotony. These long storms really suck. Next year we're investing in a snow blower!

Pruning the Orchard

2010-01-22T09:26:00.000-08:00

This past week member Mary Ann Vannicola and I went to the Pennsylvania Farm show held in Harrisburg to volunteer at the fruit growers booth. Each county fruit growers association takes a turn to staff the booth in the food court for the day or evening. All the monies raised from selling the cider, apples, apple dumplings, and sundaes goes to help fund research projects that in turn help us as fruit growers. We enjoyed the comradirery of fellow fruit growers and the chance to catch up with friends we don't see often enough. The more people that volunteer means everyone can take a break and walk around to see the show.
It would have been nice to attend the Farm show again on Tuesday for the women in agriculture day, but I couldn't afford to miss another work day on the farm.
We also started pruning the apple orchard. I plan to prune every day except for Sundays if the weather is good. I need to have at least one day per week to rest a bit. We'll start with 1/2 days and maybe put in full days if the weather is particularly fine and schedules permit. The apple orchard is on top of a hill and can be a very cold place in the winter.
We plan to pick up the prunings as soon as possible to allow us to get the tractor and sprayer through the isles. By spraying a deer repellent we hope to at least somewhat control the feeding damage done by the deer. Deer seem to think of apple twigs as candy and as a result do a huge amount of damage, especially over the winter when there is less for them to eat elsewhere.
The best solution is probably to put up an electric fence- obviously an expensive but likely inevitable option if we want to be able to farm in an area with such a large deer population. Our hunter friends have shot a few, but I'm afraid we are not keeping up with the deer population growth. More and more houses going up all around us concentrates them where the food is. We evidently have quite the smorgasborg!
When we're not actually pruning or repairing equipment there's lots of planning and paperwork to do. Website edits are taking place, and we expect our website to be updated by the beginning of February.

Karen

Winter Work Continues

2010-01-12T09:54:00.000-08:00

Despite the cold, we've got a few outside things happening now. Karen started pruning the apples this morning, and I'm working on swapping equipment around for some tree removal and firewood cutting tomorrow.

One of the great joys of office work is the wood stove. Especially when it's damp, cold, or bleak outside, it's wonderful to sit in the office next to a warm stove and slog through the paperwork.

It looks like the end of the week will be warmer than it has been for quite a while, so I am expecting to do some mowing in the orchards, and hopefully work on the compost piles Thursday or Friday.

Stay warm, and think good thoughts.....
Jeff

From Farmer Karen

2010-01-09T10:56:00.000-08:00

This is my first blog posting! I barely use email and here I am blogging. I guess it is possible to teach an old dog a new trick (not that I'm a dog)

Here we are in 2010. I'd love to say I've had a chance to relax since the tail end of 09 CSA but there always seems to be so much to do. The substantial apple crop this past fall was super but it certainly added much to our work load. Amongst all the farm work in the fall we pressed cider continuously from the end of September through to the end of December. Each cider pressing typically takes two people about half a day. With fewer people around after the end of the CSA season that sometimes translated to me working really fast! Having helpers is wonderful!

Cider, apples, and our many farm value added products were sold at the Brandywine River Museum outdoor courtyard weekends from Thanksgiving through to the end of the year. Because of some lousy weather on some of the market days we sold less than what I'd hoped for and expected. It is always good to see fellow marketers that I've come to know over the years and we all helped keep each others spirits up regardless of the cold temps and less than desirable cash in the pocket.

For those who haven't been, The Brandywine River Museum is a wonderful little museum tucked in along the river in Chadd's Ford PA. Artwork, landscaping, and architecture all blend in a wonderful way. There's a great train display and Christmas trees filled with lovely hand made ornaments. Plan now on visiting in 2010 and get a nice cup of hot cider while you're there- and take an apple butter home while you're at it!

So- is it really time to start pruning the apple orchard again? I'm sure glad I got a message to set me straight so we can begin the whole cycle again.
Karen

The Winter's Work

2010-01-09T09:47:00.001-08:00

Though for many people winter is a time to rest and relax, here on the farm we are still busy! During the Holidays Karen marketed our Apples, Cider, and fruit butters at the Brandywine River Museum. We have been busy working on our final cider pressing, fruit butter making, and dealing with the snowfalls. Whenever there is a measurable snowfall we have to be concerned about the weight of the snow on our greenhouse and high tunnel. We place heaters inside to help with melting it off, and then often someone has to push the snow off the roof as well, so that it doesn't collapse.

We are nearly done finalizing our 2010 CSA pricing, and soon will be updating the website with the new information.

Next week the huge winter chore of pruning the apple orchard will begin. Typically this takes about a month, working 1/2 days for two people. The peaches will be pruned in the spring, after the thaw.

We'll have more news soon, in the meantime stay warm and enjoy the winter!
Jeff

Still going strong with the raspberries!

2009-09-07T06:12:00.000-07:00

We are having a great season for raspberries. As you can see in the picture, they are still going strong as we move into September, and we expect them to be around for a while yet! Don't forget to come get yours!

New Equipment is HERE!

2009-09-07T06:08:00.000-07:00

Well, after much waiting we finally received our new to us equipment. We now have a CaseIH 685 Orchard Special tractor, a Tiger 90" heavy duty flail mower, and a Gehl 4500 skid loader. This should make a huge difference in our operation. The skid loader and orchard tractor are the combination we need for making sure that the fruit orchards get the compost applications that they need, and the flail mower will cut and shred any cover crop we might want to plant. This will help our vegetable fields a lot!

ICE CREAM IS COMING!

2009-09-03T11:43:00.001-07:00

We are having Peach Ice Cream made right now! Get ready, it should be here in a few days.

Peaches are still going strong, and the Apple harvest is in full swing.

The Apple Harvest

2009-08-12T18:22:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a few days since we picked these, but I finally got the pictures into the computer. The first picture is of Emily loading the bushel boxes full of Tydaman's Red into the truck. The second is of Emily and I putting them into our big cooler. The box she is holding is a bushel apple crate; the smaller boxes off to the left side of the cooler are 1/2 bushel peach crates. Apples are tougher than peaches, so we can put many more in a box!

So far we have picked Lodi and Tydaman's Red apples. Soon we will be picking the Rambo's and then on to McIntosh. It's going to be a busy season picking all this fruit!

For those who are wondering, yes you will see lots of apples in your CSA shares. Before we can distribute the apples, we must wash and sort them on our large apple sorting line. Thanks to this unusual season, we are picking apples much earlier than usual, and we aren't prepared to sort and wash yet. However, I expect that Karen and I will be running apples this weekend, and once we get into the Rambo's you will start seeing both apples and peaches in your weekly share.

It's also important to note that we don't always have all varieties that are for sale in the shares. This is simply to be fair; we have on 1 Lodi tree and 5 Tydaman's Red, so we don't have enough apples to give some to everyone. Instead, we make them available through our Special Order Program, on a first come first served basis. This is the best we can do for now, but we are in the process of planning a new orchard.

As always, if you have any questions, just leave them in the comments and I'll answer ASAP.
Thank you everyone for your support!
Jeff

Tractor Stories.....

2009-08-11T18:54:00.001-07:00

At Vollmecke Orchards we have 5 tractors. While that might seem like a lot, each machine has a specific purpose for us. Our newest machine is an Antonio Carraro TTR-9400, which we were able to purchase with a grant from the PA Department of Enviromental Protection. This machine's primary use is pulling our compost turner, and operating our Imants spading machine, which is our primary tillage machine. (Tractor and turner pictured to the right) It's an 87hp 4wd tractor with cab and air conditioning- by far the most comfortable of our tractors. Though new by our standards, it's still a used machine, and can be temperamental. The oldest tractor is a 1946 Farmall A- no fancy stuff on this one, but it's a very reliable old machine, and it is the one that usually pulls the harvest wagons in. It's also great for pulling a flatbed wagon that we use for removing prunings and debris from the orchard, as it is small and maneuverable. In the middle we have a 1969 David Brown 990, used for spraying the orchards and operating our plastic mulch layer, moldboard plow, and weed badger. We also have a wonderful 1982 Kubota L245H high clearance cultivating tractor. This is probably the most used tractor on the farm, as it runs our rototiller, cultivates strawberries and vegetables, runs the flail mower, and is the only tractor that can handle the boom sprayer used for spraying under the fruit trees. Last, but not least is our 1987 John Deere 2355 loader tractor. This is the only tractor we have that is equipped with a front end loader, and that in itself is invaluable. This tractor is also a great general purpose machine that can, in a pinch, stand in for many of the other tractors.
Tomorrow I'll try to get into some harvest notes and pictures...
Jeff

Peaches, Apples, Nectarines, and tractor problems

2009-08-08T19:41:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a week! I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated, but this week has been insanely busy.
We have now picked several varieties of peaches, a number of nectarines, and two varietis of apples. We have both white and yellow peaches, Lodi apples, and Tydeman's Red apples. (picture to the right)

The Lodi's are a great apple for making sauce, and they are incrediblay early as apples go, sometimes being ready around the 4th of July. In our case this year, we picked the Lodi on July 31st. The Tydeman's Red we picked this week. They are looking nice- especially after washing and polishing! (It's amazing the difference in an apples finish if you take just a few seconds to polish them with a damp cloth)

At this point, we have lots of everything, and will for some time to come. We are already planning the making of peach ice cream for the summer as well.

Please feel free to leave questions and comments. The more everyone participates, the better this blog will be!

Jeff

WOW! We have Peaches!

2009-08-03T18:54:00.000-07:00

Today we had 3 guys picking peaches all day long. We have started up our large cooler (tractor trailer size) and it is filling up! We are now into the freestone peaches (including Red Haven) and are picking some White Lady as well. In addition, we have several bushels of Nectarines.
Because we don't have a huge number of white peaches, we will not be putting those into CSA shares; rather we will offer them for sale on a first come, first served basis. If you would like to reserve some, send an email to farmspecialorder@yahoo.com to become part of our Special Order Program, or SOP. In the meantime, I've got to get some sleep- more peaches to pick and sort tomorrow! This is truly a time to enjoy the fruit of our labor. (pun intended)

Farmer Karen checks the compost

2009-07-30T19:49:00.000-07:00

Composting, like many farm tasks, requires a certain degree of precision. This is a photo of Farmer Karen taking temperature readings of one of our compost windrows to determine when the windrow should be turned.

Some of our helpers

2009-07-30T19:45:00.000-07:00

We have been very lucky this summer to have some wonderful volunteer helpers. Dan, Emily, and Peter have been coming to the farm 3 days each week, and helping us with many farm chores. The first picture (top) is Peter, the center is Emily, and the bottom is Dan, driving our 1946 Farmall tractor. Thank you all for sharing your time (and muscles) with us this summer!

Raspberries are looking good!

2009-07-29T18:15:00.000-07:00

If you look closely, you can see my hands are full of ripe and ready raspberries. This is a crop we grow in two different ways. In this picture, I'm standing in the outdoor row- we also grow several varieties in our high tunnel. The high tunnel allows us to get greater yields in a more controlled environment. We have installed irrigation tubing in the high tunnel as well, so the berries are always carefully watered. While we harvest the berries from the high tunnel, we offer most of the outdoor berries as a pick your own crop for our csa members. Ask us about it the next time you stop by!
Jeff

We need your help!

2009-07-29T09:37:00.000-07:00

We are trying to update our office, and could use some donations. Do you have an old computer that you would like to get rid of? I've listed the specs we are looking for. If you have anything you would like to pass on, please email me at farmspecialorder@yahoo.com. Thanks!

Mac G5 or Intel processor, with monitor, keyboard, mouse. 1gb ram, OSX 10.4 or better.
PC Running Windows XP 1gb ram
PC Running Windows Vista, 2gb ram

(For those who are interested, we are currently operating with a Pentium III 450mhz running windows 2000 professional.)

Sometimes things just break..... and then you fix them

2009-07-28T11:37:00.001-07:00

A few days ago I went to turn the compost piles for the first time this year. Oops, flat tire on the compost turner. At first we thought we would have to get a tire service out to repair it, but, thanks to Sonny, we were able to get the tire and rim off the machine and into the pickup truck. I took it up to Martin's Tire in Churchtown, and then was able to pick it up this morning. As of about 11am it's back on and the compost turner is ready to go as soon as things dry up a bit. For any of you live near the farm, I have to reccomend Martin's. They are the least expensive place I've found to buy tires, and their service is great! Shoot me an email if you want their number.
Jeff

Where do the #3 peaches go?

2009-07-27T14:23:00.000-07:00

Well, sometimes we just put them on the compost pile, but lately we have been feeding them to the chickens! We have a small pastured laying hen operation, and we often feed the girls vegetable scraps, and now peaches, in addition to the grass and insects they normaly enjoy! Though we do feed them a daily ration of layer mash from the feed mill, these fruit and vegetable treats really make the difference for these girls. And when it comes to the eggs, well, you can Taste The Difference!

Sweet Corn and Apples

2009-07-27T14:05:00.000-07:00

The sweet corn is up and growing well!(A little weedy though) It recently "tassled" and "silked" meaning that we are not far from picking. This is an exciting moment for us! Also, we recently picked our Lodi apple tree, giving us 3 bushels of great sauce apples. Let us know if you'd like some, they won't last long!

Day of the Peaches

2009-07-25T04:17:00.000-07:00

Today is a peach picking day. We generally pick peaches every other day, then sort them into first quality, second quality, and third quality. The thirds are usually sent right to the compost pile. Firsts are the peaches you see in your weekly share, seconds are peaches with some blemish that we will sell at a greatly reduced price. The seconds are also the peaches we make our peach butter and peach ice cream from.

At the begining.....

2009-07-24T20:30:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is. The very first post of the soon to be famous Vollmecke Orchards & CSA blog. It's 11:30pm (I can't sleep tonight) and I thought I'd just get this going. Tomorrow is a peach picking day, so I am going back to bed.
Jeff