CSA friends and Shareholders, 
 Another big week on the Heikes farm. Ideal growing conditions… I think
the sweet corn grew a foot…. hoeing, cultivating, watering fruit trees, 2 new
flower beds with more gladiolas! Some replanting on week rows. My whole family
comes in from Montana, Minnesota, and Rapid this weekend so you won’t see much
of me or Heidi. I’ll be buzzing around with the grandkids. Greenhouse is done
and tilled so Saturday share distribution is all outside production: Romaine
Lettuce, Spinach, kale, Swiss chard, nice broccoli, some radishes, unique garlic
scapes (growing point with flower bud)



See you Saturday 10-2pm

Sam and Heidi

                                                                                                                Dear friends and shareholders, 
 
Another intensive week on the Heikes farm! Our vegetable crops are
growing dramatically! As is appropriate for the “summer equinox”, tomorrow 6/21
is the longest day of the year, the most amount of daylight! With the heat,
humidity, and wind we now need rain! We started irrigating melons yesterday… by
hand! The well driller is inundated with work and has not come to drill our well
yet… Our melon crop recently had a slight set back do to hungry little “13
striped ground squirrels” that ate all our seeds… we’ve fixed that
problem now, and replanted all our melons, cantaloupes, squash, and pumpkins.
 Nearly 1 acre of our 7 acre
production set back 3 weeks. Our crew of 4-6 workers have been very busy daily,
weeding, and cultivating our crops. We are now in the upsurge of outside
production, should be a good harvest for Saturday: old and new salad greens,
romaine lettuce, baby turnips, Radishes, rhubarb, kale, dill, herbs and new
field spinach.


See you Saturday 10-2pm
Pray for rain!


Sam and Heidi

Dear friends and shareholders,

Nice rain last week from Saturday AM to Sunday PM 2.5”! Lots of work done on the farm since it dried out… cultivating, mowing, pulling weeds, and spraying Canadian thistles, a primary noxious weed in South Dakota! Last year I didn’t spray them… they spread rapidly, invasive! Our food Crops look great.. This week still from the greenhouse we will have some lettuce, spinach, kale, carrots, and new crop from outside 2 varieties of Radishes:  Cherry Bell and my favorite French breakfast…mmm

See you Saturday
10-2pm


Sincerely,
Sam and Heidi
Heikes

PS we do give birthday rides on my John Deere tractor…

    Dear friends and shareholders,
Sorry to be late on our weekly email, we were In Sioux Falls today wedding planning for our daughter Ashley… Yes we will have a pickup on Saturday. We have very nice greenhouse carrots, some lettuce, and last of the spinach, some new crop stevia leaves (natural sweetener) and also some new herbs. See you Saturday 10-2pm… meet our new turtle…
After 2 months of planting we are finally done! We planted over 7 acres with over 30 different vegetables, many different varieties. The 3rd planting “Ambrosia” sweet corn was finished Wednesday as well as ½ acre of melons: cantaloupe, watermelon, squash, pumpkin and gourds with about 5 varieties of each. The old 4 row JD “go-devil” has been refurbished and re set to cultivate everything that’s big enough… it’s doing really nice job!
Some of the 2012 gladiolas are coming back up, new bulbs will fill in, and multicolored sunflowers have been planted. A few more herbs will be planted to stagger our harvest longer. 
The well driller should be here soon… Thank God we have had enough moisture for a good start on most everything.
Thank for your continued community support of our “Fresh Local Produce”@ Vermilions CSA Heikes Family Farm

Sincerely, Sam and Heidi