It’s been a strange spring in terms of weather. We started out with an exceptionally warm February and early March. Our first crops seeded in the hoop house germinated in about half the time we usually expect at that point in the season. However, the weather cooled off significantly in the last few weeks. Usually, we are beginning to plant summer crops this week, but with nighttime temperatures forecast to be in the 30s at the end of this week and into next week, it looks like we’ll be holding off until things warm up a little. This can be a hassle as the transplants are quite big and ready...
Changes to online store & welcome to new readers!
I know lots of new people have signed up for the blog recently and wanted to welcome all of you and thank everyone for your support of our farm. For those of you who are new to the blog, I wanted to give a brief introduction to what you can expect. We post to the blog every week, usually on Mondays, and you can expect a short update on what is going on on the farm as well as a full harvest list of what will available through the online store (and eventually at the farmers market once that resumes). We also want to thank all of you for bearing...
Week 3!
After our first two weeks working with our new online store and delivery system, we’re getting the hang of things and starting to see what works and what doesn’t. As you may have noticed, the change we’ve made this week is that our online store is now going to open on Tuesday mornings and close at 4pm on Thursdays. We realized that it was just too crazy for us to try to do a full walk-through of the farm and analyze harvestability of crops (as we always do on Monday mornings) and then immediately try to launch the online store for that week. By pushing the opening time back and...
Windy
It’s been a stressful week on the farm with the multiple high-wind incidents we’ve experienced over the past few days. This morning, I was about to start working when a series of intense wind gusts rolled in. Row cover was blown off, bins were blown around, tree limbs fell, and I could see the entire hoop house shifting. It was scary to say the least. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that we make it through today damage-free, that the hoop house stays intact, and that the big pine tree that fell in one of last week’s winds and is leaning against another tree continues doing that and doesn’t fall the...
Welcome back!
Welcome to the start of the 2020 farm season. As always, we hope that you and your loved ones are safe and healthy. We’re happy to be able to offer this direct delivery service to help everyone stay home and stay healthy while still having access to great fresh produce! Our online store is officially open. Click here to go to our web page with all the details about placing and receiving an online delivery. There will be a Shop Now link on that page that will connect you to our store! Because we are a seasonal farm, our product variety and quantity always starts out small, but quickly...
Direct-to-door deliveries!
As we welcome everyone back to a new season on the farm, I first want to send our sincere thoughts out to everyone affected by the COVID-19 crisis. I know that it has had an impact on nearly all of our lives and I hope that you and your loved ones are all as safe as can be hoped. In light of the developing situation with COVID-19, we have decided to temporarily suspend our farmers markets and instead run our business as a direct-to-door vegetable delivery service until we feel that the situation is safe enough for us to return to our markets. We will be offering our delivery service in...
First snow, last market
It’s hard to believe that the 2019 season is truly reaching its end. This Saturday will be our last farmers market of the year and we want to thank each and every one of you for making this season more of a success than we could ever have imagined. Our sales at each of our farmers markets far exceeded our expectations and, in addition to our newly-added local CSA, have helped move our farm from a start-up venture to a successfully-operating business. Even as we wrap up our 2019 season, the season ahead is already underway in some senses. Today, I’m finalizing our order for next year’s seeds and there...
Thanksgiving recipes
It’s the market before Thanksgiving and we hope you’ll take the opportunity to pick up some organic veggies for your Thanksgiving dinner! With potatoes, cabbage, and turnips still aplenty, we’ve been searching through recipes to find some good options to incorporate these ingredients into our Thanksgiving dinner and wanted to share some of our finds with you! Mike is a serious cabbage lover and, as a result, we decided to increase our cabbage production this year. We eat cabbage in tons of different ways, from traditional cole slaws, to topping for tacos, to stir-fries. We’re always looking for new methods of incorporating it into meals, so are really looking forward...
Extending the harvest
With overnight freezing temperatures and morning frosts becoming more and more the norm, the farm is really starting to move into winter mode. Only the hardiest crops remain in the field, among them several of the baby greens, kale and collards, turnips, and the extremely cold-hardy spinach. But even these we have covered in floating row cover, a product that acts like a mini-greenhouse, maintaining a slightly higher temperatures underneath than what is reached outside. And more and more of our harvest is coming out of our hoop house. Also known as high tunnels, hoop houses have become very common on small-scale farms like our’s in the last few decades...
Garlic time!
Garlic is a unique crop in that the heads that you buy were actually planted in the ground the previous season. Every year, we put the next year’s garlic in right around Halloween and for me this always feels like both a beginning and an ending. The garlic needs to be planted late enough that it doesn’t begin growing above ground before winter sets in but early enough that it is in before the ground is too frozen when the soil is still workable. As a result, garlic is always the last crop we put in each year, marking the end of the huge task of planting that takes up...