One of the first farmers I worked for always said about garlic “plant on Halloween, harvest on the Fourth of July” and that has proven almost exactly true for us. Garlic is the rare crop that is planted the year prior and is in the ground all winter before being harvested the following summer. While it’s always exciting to finally get the garlic out of the ground, the garlic harvest also invariably falls at one of our busiest times of year. Apart from the increasing load of crops like beans, cucumbers, and zucchini that need to be harvested multiple times a week, we are also still in the process of...
Growing
I’m going to keep this week’s post short in honor of a special, non-farm event in our family- our son Caleb’s 5th birthday! Our son has the misfortune to have been born right at the peak of the farming season, so we always try to make an effort to take a day off to celebrate no matter how busy we are. It’s been fun watching our son grow up on the farm the last few years. As an almost-kindergartener, he is much more involved in the farm this year. He can identify a variety of insects, has favorite crops, and has helped with a variety of tasks from weeding to...
Update & feedback
We’ve heard from some of you over the past few weeks regarding our decision not to return to the market at this time and you’ve shared your experiences (both good and bad) at the Burke market since it’s reopening. As a result, we wanted to explain our decision to continue to rely on home deliveries at this time and would also like to solicit your feedback. We are a small-scale, family farm in the truest sense. Our farm is literally run 100% by Katie and Mike, from the farm work itself to staffing the market to the business end of things. Sick time is really not an option for us....
Red Russian Kale
Those of you who have shopped our stand at the farmers market in the past two years have probably heard us talk on and on about how much we love Red Russian kale. We grow two types of this kale, one with flat leaves and one with more frilly leaves which tends to do better in the spring-to-summer slot as temperatures heat up. Red Russian kale, with it’s purple stems and green-blue leaves has many attributes that put it at the top of our list. It is beautiful and has an upright growth habit that makes it perfect for harvesting. Originating in Russia, it is extremely cold tolerant and is...
More craziness
If we thought the bunny rescue threw a wrench in our day, we really got our fill of unexpected events this last Friday. Friday is our busiest day of the week as we work to harvest, wash, and pack all of the orders for Saturday delivery, so we always hope that everything outside of the farm work goes as smoothly as possible. Last Friday, however, our day started with a toad in our kitchen, continued with a mid-afternoon severe thunderstorm that knocked out our power, and ended with us packing orders in the near dark! Because we rely on a well for our water and our well is powered by...