A Long one...

I will start off by saying that those who follow Cross Creek Farm on facebook. I am sorry it took me so long to post this. I know I have been saying I was going to post it for a while.

Our big helper!

To start, we went through the tomato field after the torrential rains and flooding that happened in our area to salvage what we could. We actually thought we would have lost more than we did. When we started picking we were thinking that we had a lot. Well as we kept going we noticed that there were still a ton of green ones.Which means we will end up picking a lot this week.

Now for those of you who have been our customers for a while know that a couple years ago we had an early frost. It affected a lot of the farmer's tomatoes. Not ours. The year that everyone had blight, we were one of the last to get it. This year when everyone in or around our town has some sort of disease and lost all their tomatoes, we have not.

Eric and I have been trying to figure out what we have been doing. Or shall I say lack thereof. As a small farm with a lot going on, 2 children under the age of 3 and to many different projects, the weeds tend to grow very quickly and out of control. Now I am not saying "do this at home." But that is the only thing that we can come up with that has protected our tomatoes. The year of the early frost, the weeds around the tomatoes got frosted on the tips but the tomatoes remained untouched. The year of the blight the weeds were tall and we were one of the last to get it in our area. This year, Stoughton's farm lost their tomatoes, Iron Kettle farm lost theirs, our neighbors tomatoes have some sort of disease and ours "Thank God," remain ok.

Heirlooms, 4 Mt fresh and 4 Romas on the bottom

Now this is not scientifically proven, it is just our "theory!"

With that being said, if you are looking to order tomatoes and/or fruit get your orders in now. The season is starting to wind down and things will go fast! We go to Cornell Orchards to pick up our fruit for market every Friday. Get your orders in by Thursday and we will get it for you.

On to HERBS:

This is where our great news begins! I guess I talked it up a little bit too much on Facebook. People at market were asking what it was. At least I know you are paying attention! : ) So here it is and I hope you are not all disappointed.

As you all know, our dried herb shakers have taken off. We decided to go wholesale with them this year since they went so well at winter market. We first approached Cornell Orchards and they are now carrying them in their store. Their order was for 120 herb shakers.

We then talked to Stoughton's Farm in Newark Valley about carrying them. Now I had finally got some of our stock bumped up thinking, it's only Stoughton's I don't think that they will order a ton. Well I was wrong. They ordered 212 herb shakers. So all week we were going crazy trying to get their order together. But the good news is is now you can get our Herb shakers at Stoughton's Farm.

I am also hoping that by next week I will have enough so that we can take them to Iron Kettle Farm which has already agreed to take them.

We have been taking some to Ithaca Farmer's market. I have not been able to keep up with the shakers to be able to bring them to Otsiningo farmer's market.

We also have finally released the first of many to come seasonings! We released our Italian Seasoning and our Lemon Lime Fish Seasoning. I will have a poultry seasoning and a Thai seasoning that I will hopefully be getting out within the next couple weeks.

CHICKENS:

We will be sending our next batch of chickens to the butcher on September 29th. Which means we will have them at market starting on October 1st. Please feel free to order your's ahead of time.

Our next batch of little ones are starting to get bigger. It is starting to get colder, which is not very good for little ones. The power went out on Friday night at 10pm. Of course it was one of the colder nights we have had so far. Eric had to run down to the barn and get the generator and bring it up here so we could hook the heat lamps up so they would not be cold.

So needless to say it has been a long busy week. We have not had to deal with as much as some of you have with the flooding and all but we are crazy busy. But the kids are in bed, I am exhausted and I am going to head to bed. I hope you all have a great weekend and thank you to those who came out and supported the Otsiningo Farmer's Market and it's vendors.