Spring has Sprung, and Lots of Crops are Coming!
Spring has certainly arrived, though in typical New England fashion, some of these early-May days still feel like March. At this time in the season, pollination has occurred on the stone fruit trees and the apple trees are showing their incredible beauty with pretty white blossoms. They continue to keep the bees very busy! The bees are back in the farm stand in the observation hive where they are acclimating to their new home.
We continue to add more fields of produce, and we are planting an additional acre of strawberries in Boxford to add to the two acres we currently have that will bear fruit this year. Pick Your Own Strawberries should start around the 15th of June! We are implementing the recommended safety policies developed by The Mass Department of Agriculture for our Pick Your Own offerings this year.
A new project that we are launching this season will be growing potatoes at Small Oxx Farm in Boxford. We will use some of this crop in our CSA, and the rest for a new program, Pick Your Own Potatoes. If anyone has ever dug their own potatoes, you know how very delicious a freshly dug potato tastes. Speaking of Small Oxx Farm (our property just down the road in Boxford), we have 15 acres of cleared land there that we are planting with a combination of grasses. Soon the brown earth will turn into a beautiful green landscape and the soil will be stabilized. We are in the process of planning what crops will go there, and the current possibilities include more PYO crops like chestnuts, Christmas trees, and maybe even some additional berry crops.
Some Additional Updates for 2020, and Many Thanks
Our CSA is nearly full for the 2020 season! We’d like to say a huge thank you to those participating as this is a very welcome source of income for the farm at this time of the year. Thousands of seedlings are growing in the greenhouse and planting continues.
On May 12, the farm pond is welcoming 50 Large Mouth Bass and our hope is that they will thrive in this environment as it should be ideal for them. As part of the ecosystem, they will help to keep the pond healthy. We use some of this water in our drip irrigation system so it’s an important part of how our farm operates.
We look forward to our friends in other businesses reopening and joining us in serving the public, and starting to get back to more of a sense of normalcy. To our loyal customers, a very humble and sincere thanks for helping to keep our farm in business and helping to keep us as an asset to the community. A big thanks also to our new Town Manager, Melissa Murphy Rodriguez, and her staff in guiding North Andover through this period.