Fall Harvests are Underway

It’s been a little while since I posted to the farm blog, most of our updates and communication are sent out though email these days. But I feel like it’s time to come back to the blog and share a bit about how much our farm has changed and evolved over the last few years, and why.

Above you can see a moment for yesterday’s bulk carrot harvest. After a couple weeks of above normal temps and sunshine it felt really nice to have a couple clouds roll in and cool things off. We purchased an undercutter this summer to help with Garlic Harvest and we were excited to try it out on the carrots this week. Happy to report it worked beautifully and made carrot harvest a breeze.

Oh carrot harvest… such a seasonal task that is now so meshed into how I think about fall. The sweet smell of freshly dug carrots may be enough to encourage anybody to try growing their own… along with the simple and repetitive click of carrot tops getting snapped off to prep the crop for storage. It’s all such a sensory experience, but that is true for most tasks and days on the farm. The sights, sounds, smells… all so unique to each crop, I love it. I noticed and shared yesterday that while sitting in the field, topping carrots on an October afternoon, it felt so right and was a good reminder that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

The last couple weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind, filled with so many tasks and deliverables and so much beauty. Packing and shipping out The Grasshopper Collective Seed Garlic orders with our farm co-op members, harvesting Bulk Flower buckets for a wedding, veg and flower harvests for our farm stands in both Telluride and Mancos, creating Floral Garlic Braids, cleaning lots of Culinary Garlic, and so much more. It’s Fall… and the farm is keeping us on our toes.

We are taking a week of our farm stand schedule to tackle the bulk fall harvests, dry flowers and catch our breathe.

One of the new products our farm creates and offers are Floral Garlic Braids. I wanted to create these for years, but it took some time to get our garlic and flower production to the place where we had all the ingredients. They’re such a wonderful creative outlet for my brain… and it’s so fun to watch the various ingredients (garlic, herbs and flowers) come together to create these lovely pieces of artwork! And it’s extra satisfying knowing that all these ingredients are seeded/planted, irrigated, weeded, cared for and then harvested right here on our farm.

In the photo above you can see the ingredients being prepped for braiding, and below is the completed Floral Garlic Braid. I love them! And they make such wonderful gifts for family and friends for birthdays, weddings, house warming, etc.

We recommend hanging them in a location that doesn’t receive direct sunlight to help the flowers hold their colors. You can enjoy the Floral Garlic Braid for a couple months as artwork, and then slowly start cutting out a garlic bulb here and there for cooking. The garlic should hold until February (and maybe longer) depending on the temperature and humidity of your home.

We have Floral Garlic Braids instock at the moment and I am hoping to make 1-2 more rounds of these before a hard frost arrives. They’re currently available locally at our farm stands but we can also coordinate shipping within the continental US and/or orders for pickup at the farm in Mancos, CO. You can see some of the different options in our Farm Store. Please reach out to me via email for more information and to place your order: mindy@mountainrootsproduce.com

That’s all for now, but much more to come.

If you want our more regular updates, please join our Mailing List. During the main harvest season (June-September) we send out a weekly email with our harvest list, a couple farm updates and where to find us and our produce/flowers. It’s a great way to stay in the loop and to know when we’re harvesting.

Have a beautiful day!

Mindy

Spring Is Near...

The prop house tables are slowly filling up with seedlings, the first round of carrots and beets have germinated in their tunnel and the early tomatoes are almost ready to be potted up. We’re in the last stretch of winter… and it feels really good to see the green glow of young plants again.

We’re slowly organizing all the things, scheduling out the spring projects and noting what needs repaired before May arrives.

LET THE CSA COUNTDOWN BEGIN!

CSA Members - the first 2021 CSA Harvest is only 8 weeks away!

Sending out a BIG THANK YOU to all of our new and returning members this season. We’re blown away by how quickly the CSA Membership filled up this year!

Our Telluride CSA Shares are sold out and we only have a handful for Mancos CSA Shares remaining. So - Mancos folks, sign up ASAP to reserve your veggies for Spring/Summer.

Fun news! We adopted this sweet puppy in January from the Telluride Humane Society. Meet, Piper the farm dog! She’s an adorable fluff ball and such a joy to have around.

Piper is a mega mutt, but we joke that she’s half polar bear and half fox. She is always on the lookout for snacks, finds vole holes very exciting and loves our long morning walks.

For those of you who know Mike well, she may or may not be named after a Phish song…

We’re grateful for the moisture the region has received over the last month! It was feeling really scary in early January. The latest storms have definitely helped the snowpack and our upcoming irrigation season, but it’s important to know that our region is still in an exceptional/extreme drought. Our irrigation season isn’t looking great, and we’re expecting it to be a pretty short.

Below is the current US Drought Monitor Map of Colorado. Fingers crossed many more storms/moisture are in our future… come on spring rain/snow!

And I must say, I’m dreaming of a real monsoon season this summer. We haven’t had steady summer rain at the farm since 2017. Mmm, that summer was wonderful and SO GREEN. I’m hoping this summer brings lots of afternoon cloud cover that showers us with rain. Followed by bright, you can’t help but smile rainbows. Pretty please!

AND - I’m excited and oh so grateful to report that Mike and I received our first dose of the Moderna vaccine on Friday! Colorado Dept of Agriculture, thank you for helping to make sure that essential agriculture workers were high on the priority list for vaccinations. It feels like we are one step closer to normalcy… and less worry. I’m looking forward to spending time with family and friends this year, to holding my youngest nephew, to hugs, to holidays to dinner parties, to connection. I think we’re getting close…

Summertime + Soaking Rain!

Holy moly… it’s already the end of July. AND… it RAINED!

This weekend brought cool overcast days and plenty of rain to our farm and the region.I lost count of how many times I said ‘oh my gosh, I love this weather’ since Friday morning. The rain was gentle, and lasted for hours on Thursday and Friday night. We haven’t had rain like this since 2017… which feels like ages ago.

It feels good to be locked out of the field and unable to weed for a few days. There’s mud on my boots, a grin on my face and I feel calm in a way I haven’t all season. Five days of cooler temps, cloud cover, bursts of rain, and a moment to slow down and catch up on sleep feels incredible.

I used the lack of field work and wet weather on Friday to catch up on our accounting/quickbooks file. This is definitely a task I grumble about during the season, but at the end of the day I love numbers and it feels really good to have this up to date and to have a better grasp of where we are financially at this point in the season. Farming is not all planting and harvests… we spend a lot of time on the computer with excel sheets, emails, running numbers, etc. We try to figure out all the details in the winter but… most of the time our plans change a lot on the fly, this year especially.

Trays of fall crops were seeded on Saturday morning, as red-winged black birds flew around, singing/chatting and hopefully snacking on grasshoppers. It sounded like one big Bird Party happening at the farm, I think they were enjoying the weather too. I love looking ahead and planning for the upcoming season. While we wait for tomatoes to ripen, it’s time seed and plant for harvests in October and November. I seeded trays of kale, chard, collards, lettuces and more to fill the high tunnel with fall/winter crops in early September. And I’m finalizing our outside seeding/planting schedule so once the soil dries back a little, we can seed fall beds of spinach, arugula, cilantro, etc.

GARLIC - Mike and our Farm Crew harvested the garlic last week! Garlic is a fun storage crop because it’s schedule is different. We plant garlic cloves in October and mulch the beds heavily with straw to keep the garlic cozy and the soil protected. The plants make an appearance early in the spring and then around mid-July they’re ready to be pulled. This year’s garlic is gorgeous, and sized up beautifully. It is now hanging in the barn curing as we speak.

I mentioned in last week’s CSA Newsletter that one of the best lessons farming has taught and continues to teach me is patience. I enjoy observing the various crops grown on our farm, as each season they mature and ripen at different times. Some years it makes sense if a crop is slower to ripen as the spring was cool but other years we wait, anxiously as the tomatoes take their sweet time to ripen while I cannot pinpoint why they seem behind. In all honesty, they’re right on time… and I just need to stop assuming I know when they will be ready. The tomatoes are coming and I think they’ll go bonkers once they start, but we’ll just keeping waiting, patiently for them to ripen. Maybe it’s time to start giving them sweet pep talks in the morning…

The many flavors of summer are near and we will soon have broccoli, beans, fennel, cabbage and zucchini to share. And, the tomatoes and peppers won’t be far behind.

Watching these beauties grow from seed, and waiting for them to ripen has made me appreciate them so much more than I did before I began farming. Spotting the first broccoli head or noticing when the zucchini has started to bloom makes my heart skip a beat and I squeal with excitement.

Who doesn’t love a double rainbow?! Growing up in Ridgway, we used to have plenty of rainbows (and rain) during July and August. I feel like we’ve been low on them the last couple years and was excited to see this one a couple weeks ago.

Rainbows feel so special and make us stop and soak in the beauty unfolding in the moment.

Grasshopper update - they’re still here in very high numbers but the clouds and rain have definitely slowed them down, at least for the time being. They act the craziest and do the most damage when it’s hot, so hopefully we continue to see afternoon clouds. We have leased additional water for the remainder of the irrigation season and are now able to irrigate the pasture next to our production field. We’re hoping this helps keep them ‘happy’ and out of the vegetable field. Time will tell.

The photo above is from late May when they were itty bitty, and we had just started to notice just how many grasshoppers were around. They’re definitely driving me a little bonkers and have caused stress at the farm this year, but Nature’s doing her thing. And, just look at how cool they are!

Potatoes! The potato field is lookin GREAT. We finished a second weeding on them over a week ago and they should be pretty set for the remainder of the season. We dug up a few plants last week to see how they were looking underground, and I was happy to see plenty of potatoes setting and starting to size up. I may have enjoyed the first breakfast potatoes of the season yesterday. Mmm… so delicious! We look forward to sharing these with you all soon and hopefully throughout the fall/winter months.

Alright… I need to go finish the first batch of pickles of the season and be ready to get after if with our crew in 30 minutes. Wish me luck!

Enjoy this beautiful day.

Farm Update + CSA Harvests Start This Week!

And just like that…. it’s June!

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of seeding, planting, weeding, irrigating, building, repairing, harvesting and… the list goes on. May Madness. It happens every year and kicks us into shape for the season ahead. Here’s a quick recap of what we have been up to.

We planted the first round of field brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and kale) a couple weeks ago, and plan to plant the second succession later today. Getting the first round planted was a late day push on a hot Friday afternoon, but our crew here rallied and stayed a little late to make it happen.

On that note… quick shoutout to our stellar Farm Crew! Emily has returned for a second season (wahoo!) and Abby Fox, a good friend whom I farmed with 10 years ago, joined the team in May. We are blown away by how awesome these two are - they show up with smiles, all the sarcasm and dedication to this work day after day. Be sure to give them a big THANK YOU at CSA Pickups because they’re helping us with everything here (seeding, planting, harvesting, wash/pack, and of course weeding, so much weeding) and we couldn’t do it without them.

Earlier the month we planted the potato field! Potatoes are fast and pretty fun to plant - Mike preps the field and marks trenches with the tractor. We fill buckets with Colorado grown seed potatoes from Rockey Farms, and drop them about 12” apart in the trenches. Then Mike covers them with the tractor, irrigates and we wait for them to make an appearance. They’re up, and ready for their first weeding later this week.

We also dug up onion starts in one of our moveable tunnels and transplanted them outside. This takes 2-3 days and is always exciting to check off the list. The onion beds are looking great and Mike did the first pass with our basket weeder last weekend. I’m in LOVE with this basket weeder and these freshly cultivated onion beds.

The high tunnel is about to burst at the seams. The early planted kale, chard and scallions are looking great! We set up trellis for the snow peas a few days ago and I’m excited about the trial bed of scarlet runner beans we have growing in this house.

We built a couple more caterpillar tunnels (which may have involved a little grumbling) to make way for more cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes to accommodate our larger CSA Membership this season. These houses are all planted (wahoo!) and will be ready for their first weeding soon.

The last big planting push is happening this week. We are seeding the fall carrots, beets, turnips and rutabaga later today. Followed by the winter squash, beans and zucchini on Thursday morning.

We are ready to switch gears and kick off the harvest season this week. CSA Members, I hope you’re all ready for spring greens, herbs and roots, because they’re growing beautifully and will be coming your way in abundance this week! Be sure to check your email, as we have sent out details on the various pickup locations/times.

Last but not least… we are having PLANT SALE. You can order starts for your garden in our online farm store for Pickup at the Farm in Mancos on Saturday, June 6th. Order online here:

Ok… that’s all for now. I need to get a move on!

Have a beautiful day.

Cold Snap, Seeding and CSA is SOLD OUT

Hello Everyone,

It’s been over a month since I posted here… and whoa, a lot has changed since then. I intended on posting weekly updates with photos on what’s been unfolding at the farm but honestly, it’s been hard to figure out what write, what to share?

The farm feels strangely normal, at least on the days when I can turn my brain off and just focus on the tasks at hand. Seeding trays, prepping beds, setting up irrigation, etc. But other days… you probably know the ones I’m talking about, I definitely feel overwhelmed with stress, anxiety and am having a hard time accepting all the uncertainty.

So, I’ll write about what I do know. Local food production has always been important, but it does feel more important now than ever.  I wake up every morning knowing that one thing is for sure - we will continue to grow and harvest produce for our local communities. And, we will continue to put our hearts, minds and bodies into this work.

Our Summer CSA is SOLD OUT.

We hit our target and have sold 150 Summer CSA Shares! WOW. We are so inspired and humbled by how quickly the Summer CSA filled up. As most of you know, on March 24th, we announced we were doubling our CSA from 75 Members to 150 Members due to the challenges we are facing with wholesale sales. To be honest, I was unsure if we would be able find an additional 75 members… especially not in less than 3 weeks.

THANK YOU for helping us spread the word about our CSA! Most of our new members were referrals from friends and co-workers. This CSA Community is incredible and we couldn’t do this without YOU.

Now… onto the Farm Updates

We have been seeding the many trays of kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, chard, scallions, head lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, herbs and so much more. These starts are all tended to with care in the propagation house until it’s their time to move to the big field and greenhouses in May.

We seeded the first beds outside with salad mix, baby kale, arugula, mustards, cilantro, spinach, carrots, turnips and radishes. These babes are all germinating and covered with multiple layers of row cover (aka, farm blankets) to keep them cozy while we still have cold nights. And I might add… it was a crisp 9 degrees here this morning. Brr!

We filled the high tunnel beds with kale, chard, scallions, snow peas and more carrots last week. We designated this tunnel as an early spring and late fall production house last season and I love it. These plants are already settling in to their new space and have doubled in size.

The soil moisture was dreamy last week so Mike spent couple days on field prep. We had a cover crop of triticale, pea and vetch growing in both fields. Mike disced in the cover crop and now the plant residue will have a few weeks to breakdown before we start planting in early May.

In addition, Mike has been reaching out to farmers/ranchers across to the region to see how everyone is doing and what people need at this time. He put together a survey with the Four Corners Farmer and Ranchers Coalition asking these very questions. Over 35 responses came in over the course of a week.

Our region did not have a regional producer directory, and most everyone who took the survey said they would be interested in being listed on such a directory. In collaboration with RMFU, CSU Extension, NYFC, La Plata Farm Bureau, we created a website with a robust directory of regional producers.

We are hoping the Southwest Producers Directory with help connect consumers with their local farmers and ranchers. Check it out!

We are taking lots of steps to make sure your produce is safe. We have a beautiful wash/pack facility that we are able to sanitize before and after harvests. We will be making changes to our CSA Pickups once we have more direction from CDA, CDPHE and our Local Health Departments.

We are a small farm crew. Mike and I (Mindy) run the farm with our rock star employees. These ladies are onboard with the updates we are making to our food safety plan, and are ready to help us grow and harvest food for our local communities.

Please know that we are here for you! Agriculture has been deemed CRITICAL and ESSENTIAL in the State of Colorado. This means we are able to continue this important work and will be able to get our produce to you, one way or another.

Stay healthy, eat well and take care of each other.

Spring, here we come!

I have been thinking more about all the little things that spark a surge of happiness inside of me on the day to day, and making sure to really appreciate them. Everything from the green glow of cover crops waking up in our fields, the sweet sound of the yellow warblers singing as they perch from our fence posts, to the recently sown seeds sprouting and pushing up through the soil. Mmmmm. This beautiful place we call home fuels me on so many levels and excitement for the season is growing by the day.

Spring, here we come!

So many wonderful things have happened over the last couple weeks. Here’s the recap:

We organized and hosted our first annual Lady Farmer to Farmer Conference in Ridgway, Colorado. A dear friend, Laura Parker of High Desert Seed + Gardens, and I had been chatting about starting this conference for years after visiting several Oregon farmers in 2015. We gathered with an incredible group of women farmers for two days in February and shared knowledge, discussed challenges, tips/tricks and made wonderful meals with the best ingredients around. Add in a soak at the hot springs and farmer slideshows… what more could you ask for? I came home feeling so inspired by this amazing group of women. Wow! So much strength, wisdom, love, intelligence and passion. Thanks ladies!

Rocky Mountain Farmers Union Delegates, Staff and Board Members at NFU Convention

A day after I returned from this Farmer to Farmer Conference, Mike headed to Savannah, Georgia for the National Farmers Union 118th Annual Convention. Mike went as a delegate from Rocky Mountain Farmers Union with 15 other elected delegates, staff and board members. NFU members from close to 40 states and charters attend the annual convention and they spent 3 days networking, debating bylaws and policy, and listening to speakers like USDA Ag Secretary Sonny Purdue and presentations on the 2020 elections, climate smart farming, and farmer mental health. The policy they debated and voted on will be used as the platform for NFU for the rest of 2020 in all policy and advocacy efforts on the federal level.

Mike Nolan and Roger Johnson, former NFU President

At the farm we have been experimenting with winter seeded greens in our tunnels. We are collecting data on various greens this season (salad mix, spinach, arugula, mustards, baby kale and cilantro), seeding/harvest dates, yields, etc. Having this data will help us decide if late winter/early spring greens production makes sense at our farm moving forward.

Our 2020 Summer CSA is filling up quick and we are almost SOLD OUT.

If you have been thinking about joining us this season, do so soon as we only have 5 spots remaining in our Mancos CSA and 4 spots left in our Telluride CSA. We are excited for the growing season and would LOVE to share the harvest with YOU. Please reach out if you have any questions or would like to know more about our farm.

Summer CSA Crops are being sown! We seeded the early season carrots in one of our moveable tunnels with the Planet Jr. Seeder a couple weeks ago. If all goes well, these sweet treats will be ready for our first CSA Harvest. Fingers crossed!

And, we are prepping the High Tunnel for early spring crops - think snow peas, more carrots and the first planting of kale and chard. I’m excited about this house. We transitioned it out of summer tomatoes and peppers last season and into being our shoulder season house. Meaning, we will can fill the beds with crops early in the Spring and late in the Fall, and use the mid-summer months to grow a cover crop. We grew a cover crop of triticale, peas and vetch in here over the winter. It felt so good to walk in this house over the past couple months and see such a vibrant green. Mike flail mowed this cover crop with our neighbor’s tractor on Saturday. Now, all of that material will be incorporated to nourish the soil and have a couple weeks to breakdown before we start seeding.

Thank you for reading and have a beautiful day!

Farm Update + Join Our Summer CSA Today!

I'm looking out towards the neighbor’s frosty field this morning. The sun is up and the field shimmers like glitter, before the frost melts away. The ample amounts of sunshine and warm temps have been lovely the last couple weeks and are starting to give me a bit of Spring Fever. I have to keep reminding myself it's only February. I'm curious to see when Winter will return, as we're hoping for more snow (lots of snow!) between now and May.

In the meantime, we are slowly and steadily preparing ourselves for the growing season ahead. The propagation house is getting a clean up and reset today so it’s ready to house our seedlings in the coming weeks.

One of the moveable tunnels was seeded with alliums (onions/leeks) plus a mixed bed of greens for the farm in mid-January. I’m happy to report the alliums and greens are UP and looking really good. Every morning, I now head out to uncover these plants as they’re tucked under a layer of row cover (aka a farm blanket) each evening to protect from frost, and then uncovered during the day so they get max sunlight and good ventilation.

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Later this week we’ll be prepping beds in the other moveable tunnel to make way for the first carrot seeding of 2020! We like to have carrots early for our CSA Community, and try to get them seeded in February/early March in our of our tunnels. If all goes well, they’ll be ready for harvest in June.

And after plenty of procrastination… I finally did our seed inventory during a couple overcast and freezing cold days earlier this month. Seed inventory at our farm involves me covering our entire living room floor with all the bags and packets of seed remaining from previous years. Then, I create a simple excel sheet and enter what we have instock. Once we have this information, we can proceed with our seed orders. I think the folks who put together the beautiful seed catalogs/tempting descriptions know all my weaknesses. I lack restraint and want to order everything, from the unique cabbages and cucumbers, to the flashy tomato varieties. Sometimes I wish I had a large trial farm, where I could spend years just trying the many varieties that catch my interest in the depths of winter. Which of course sounds dreamy doesn’t it, but is not necessarily the best idea on our production farm. So, to keep me from adding too many random seeds to our orders, I make sure to have Mike involved before I hit the PLACE ORDER button. We go over all the new varieties in my various carts. Most of my random ideas get vetoed BUT a few make the cut because it’s important for us to trial a couple new things each year and make sure we’re growing the best for our customers.

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Our seed orders are now arriving in the mail, boxes and envelopes packed full of seeds. The many seeds that will fill our hearts with excitement and our fields with produce to feed YOU!

Seeds are small and oh so powerful. It is always amazing to me, what a collection of seeds can turn into in the fields, with the right amount of sunshine, irrigation and nurturing from the farmers, the soil life and the many beneficial insects that spend time here at the farm.

Sending out a BIG THANK YOU to our wonderful CSA Community! Thank you for trusting us to be your farmers and to grow your produce this season! We put our hearts, minds and bodies into this work and we’re excited to share the harvests with you.

If you haven’t joined the 2020 CSA yet, hop on over to our Summer CSA Page to learn more and sign up TODAY!

Always Learning - I think that’s the name of the game in the world of agriculture and it’s one of our main attractions to this work. We are constantly learning from other farmers, making observations in our fields and sharing what we're experiencing from week to week, season to season. We will never have it ‘all figured out'. And I’d say question anybody who acts like they do.

Nature has so much to teach us... but only if we let ourselves slow down, observe, research and learn. And with that… I should probably put on my boots and head outside.

Enjoy this beautiful day! Hope to see you all very soon. xoxo

2020 Summer CSA Registration starts NOW!

WINTER AT THE FARM is such a beautiful and restful time of year. We have spent the last couple months visiting friends and family, catching up on sleep, resting our bodies and selling storage crops to our local and regional communities on a weekly basis.

Our fields are cozy under a layer of snow, and I must say, it is hard to describe how comforting it feels to look outside and see a blanket of white. Mmmmmmm. Keep it coming!

We prepped beds in one of the moveable tunnels over the weekend and will be sowing the first seeds of the 2020 growing season this afternoon -- the onions, leeks and scallions. Yea! It feels good to have our hands back in the soil.

We are excited for the 2020 growing season and are launching the Summer CSA Sign-Ups TODAY! 

We would love to have you become a part of our CSA Community this year! Join us this season, for 18-26 weeks of freshly harvested produce grown right here on this beautiful piece of land we call home.

Let's do this! So how do I sign up for the CSA?

• First, review the Summer CSA and Fall CSA details and options.

• Second, go to the CSA Sign-Up page and select a payment option.

• Third, mail a check or Pay Online to reserve your CSA Share for 2020 as follows:

  • If Paying by Check: Complete and submit the CSA Sign-Up Form online. Then make your check out to Mountain Roots Produce and mail to 41095 Road G, Mancos, CO 81328.

  • Online Payments: Go to the farm store, select the CSA Share you would like to purchase and proceed to checkout. When you add a CSA Share to your cart, a CSA Sign-Up Form will pop up and need to be completed.

By joining our CSA and investing in the farm, you're supporting a couple of passionate farmers (that’s us!) and helping us to plan and grow and get better year after year. We want to thank you for all the support, appreciation and encouragement over the last few seasons. Last season had some challenging moments, but I feel like we managed them well and that we were able to roll with the ups and downs and switch gears when needed. Part of this is because we have a stellar Farm Crew helping us run this beautiful farm but the other part is we truly feel the love and support from our CSA Community, and it reminds us why we’re doing this work. THANK YOU! We are looking forward to a wonderful growing season in 2020 and would love to share it with YOU! 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us via phone or email.

Have a beautiful day!

Wild Spring + Harvests Start Next Week!

May has been pretty exciting around here. I love farming and working with the seasons, and experiencing how different they can be from one year to the next. Last week we had several storms roll through that dropped a lot of moisture - including a heavy 5” of snow on Monday morning. It was fairly warm and the snowflakes falling from the sky were some of the largest I have ever seen. This round of snow stuck around for 24+ hours and forced us to slow down for a few days.

While the fields were saturated we kept busy inside as much as possible - everything from potting up starts, seeding lettuce trays, transplanting cherry tomatoes in a moveable tunnel to scrubbing down all of our harvest bins and the wash/pack room.

We finished building the frames for two 12’ x 100’ caterpillar tunnels (which we’ve named Thing 1 and Thing 2) and we were able to attach the plastic on Friday with our Farm Crew. The snow and rain last week made the soil dreamy for transplanting in these tunnels yesterday. Thing 1 and Thing 2 are now filled with tomatoes, shishitos, cucumbers and a section of sunflowers. Grow babes grow! My paper calendar says we’re a little late planting these tomatoes, BUT based on the recent weather, I think they’re actually going in right on time. We will shower these beauties with love and tomato harvests will be here before we know it!

I went for a walk two nights ago and took this photo. In the distance you can see our greenhouses/farm. Sure, it’s been snowing and colder than we might prefer in May, but the sunsets have been incredible and everything is so lush and green. Take that drought!

Before the unsettled weather arrived, we spent a day planting out our southern field. We planted and covered the many potatoes that will keep us and hopefully YOU fed for months on end and Mike seeded the rest of the field with a multi-species cover crop mix. We plant cover crops to protect and feed the soil.

Healthy Soil = Healthy Plants = Happy Farmers

The soil was warm and perfect when these potatoes went in the ground. The snow definitely cooled the soil and slowed things down a bit but they should be up in no time. I love potatoes. They’re such a fun crop to watch grow and bloom and equally enjoyable to harvest - until it’s time to lift the 50# sacks onto the trailer. Not my favorite task. At least we have a whole growing season to get our bodies in shape for that!

With a spring like this one, I am grateful for all of the greenhouses and tunnels we have on the farm. They provide a nice layer of protection from the many elements, wind, snow, rain, hail, etc and allows the crops to continue to thrive regardless of what’s happening outside.

The high tunnel is bursting at the seams and ready for us to begin CSA Harvests. We filled this house up with early bunching greens (kale, chard and collards) in April and they’re now huge and gorgeous. We also have two beds of snow peas, which just started to bloom, and a couple beds of carrots in this house. Having a space dedicated to CSA crops under cover takes the stress off getting things seeded early outside, which makes a difference on a year like this.

CSA Harvests start NEXT WEEK. We are excited to harvest and start seeing our CSA Members on a weekly basis. Get ready for sweet roots, tender greens and delicious herbs!

Ok, we need to get a move on here. The planting push continues with the main field block of brassicas going in this morning.

Have a wonderful day and enjoy the sunshine!

Planting Season is in Full Swing!

Dark storm clouds filled the valley this morning. Thunder is rumbling and rain drops are falling! I’m excited to have the weather slow us down this morning, give us a chance to catch our breath and to post a quick update here. To be honest, the last couple weeks feel like a blur but luckily I take photos along the way to jog my memory!

Our farm crew started last week, wahoo! We have two full-time employees working for us now through the end of October and we couldn’t me more excited. Working with folks who are interested in agriculture, super fun to work with and excited to learn is the best! I I feel like 2019 is shaping up to be a great season.

Onions are always our first big field planting in the spring. We spent the first half of last week digging up our allium starts in one of the moveable tunnels and then transplanting in the field. The weather was cool and overcast, prefect planting weather!

We widened our planting beds this year to 60” centers so accommodate the cultivating equipment we purchased last fall/winter. We planted these onions at the appropriate spacing so we can come through with the basket weeder to help manage the weeds (amaranth, lambs quarter, canada thistle, bindweed, etc). I am happy to report, we took the basket weeder our for it’s first spin on Wednesday and are pretty happy with the results It even knocked back small canada thistle plants in between the onion rows - which had us shouting with joy in the field!

Season extension! The high tunnel is filled with spring greens (chard, kale and collards), early carrots and snow peas this year. We took the plastic off of this tunnel last fall and let it enjoy all of snow that fell this winter (so much snow!). We are taking this house out of summer production for a little while and will focus on spring cash crops followed by a summer cover crop in hopes of rebooting the soil - the soil felt a little tired after a few years of production. Good reminder that we need to let the soil rest, especially in the greenhouses, and make sure we’re giving back more than we’re taking.

Last week, before the rain, we pulled both moveable tunnels to their summer plots! This involved a lot of coffee, me stressing out and Mike reminding me everything would be just fine. I always worry when we move these tunnels, that the wind is going to show up at any moment or that something on one of the tunnels could break. Luckily neither of these things happened.

We disconnect these tunnels from their t-post anchors, pull the t-posts, raise the frames up enough to attach wheel barrow tires at the front end and then strap to the tractor/truck and pull to structure to their future plots. The weather remained calm and we successfully moved both in one morning. Whew! Check that off the list. We shaped beds in these tunnels this week, so they’re all ready for tomatoes, peppers and basil, aka summer flavors!

And, I need to give a shout out to my younger brother, Jim. He has been a rockstar/farm angel over the past month. It’s been a crazy spring around here and Jim has jumped in, showed up and helped us in so many ways. He helped Mike assemble tractor implements (they’re working on the strip tiller in the photo above), he helped us plant onions and apple trees, assemble caterpillar tunnels, pound posts, lift all the heavy things and even watch the farm for a few days while Mike and I were out of town. He helped me get caught up on the Marvel movies and motivated us to leave the farm in the middle of the day to watch the new Avengers movie… and has had us laughing and joking about the silliest things. Thanks for jumping in to farm life for a few weeks Jim - we love you!

Have a beautiful day!