CSA Harvest - Week #5

Hello there!

I hope everybody had a wonderful Fourth of July! We spent most of the day weeding... and then visited with friends and watched fireworks in Mancos. 

It's July and dragonflies are everywhere. I just finished up harvest and as I walked back from our wash station there were gorgeous dragonflies flying every which direction and then a beautiful yellow butterfly flew right in front of my face. It was good reminder to slow down... 

Friday and Saturday were lovely and brought cool temps, low clouds and RAIN. And I couldn't have been happier. I used the stormy weather effectively and spent most of Friday in the greenhouse pruning and trellising tomatoes, which was much over due. Now they're all trim and have some direction. Happy to report they're setting lots of fruit and are covered with flowers. Hoping we are all enjoying tomatoes by the end of the month. Tick tock, tick tock. 

We have been a couple weeding fools around here. The rain was amazing, and I think the weeds are in agreement as it feels like they doubled in size overnight. So we're tackling one section at a time and hoping the crops begin to take over choke the weeds out a little. 

Potato block is blooming! Cabbage heads are forming. 

Garlic harvest starts tomorrow afternoon! 

This week's CSA share includes:
Head Lettuce
Salad Greens
Mustard Greens
Kale
Chard
Bok Choy
Carrots
Scallions
Snow or Snap Peas
Cilantro
Basil

CSA Harvest - Week #4

Hello Everyone, 

It's a beautiful Summer morning here. I was out early today and as the sun was rose our neighbor's sheep were all entering the field and excited to scratch their backs on the side roll, so funny. 


I'm happy to see clouds, a chance of rain and a little cool off in the forecast. It is much needed! I think I forget how demanding June is every year. The days are long, the temperatures climb high, the to do lists are endless and trying to determine what to prioritize first is tricky as everything is time sensitive. We found ourselves working a few too many hours this week and I may have had a couple melt downs. Whew! But it's Wednesday, the harvest is complete and I'll be heading to Telluride this afternoon with produce for our wonderful CSA Members. Yes! 

Everything is growing beautifully and so fast right now. It's amazing. I'm really excited about our onions and potatoes this season. Mike gave the potatoes a second hilling yesterday. Grow lovelies grow! 

We spent most of the week weeding and had a few rescue missions. The beets and carrots were completely swallowed by thistle and bindweed, but not any more! 

I discovered the first tomato horn worm last night... seems a bit early? I was out weeding the latest succession of greens when I looked over at the tomatoes and noticed a couple leaves were chomped... and right next to them was this little trouble maker!

Harvest details for Week #4:
Head Lettuce

Bok Choy
Salad Greens
Arugula
Kale (new variety I'm trying, Madeley, let us know what you think!)
Chard
Carrots
Turnips
Snow Peas
Snap Peas
Cilantro
Garlic Scapes

Have a wonderful day and I will see you all soon!

Heat Wave

Hello Everyone! 

It's officially Summer! And the early mornings and late evenings are oh so beautiful and perfect. I love being able to walk outside at 5:30 with a cup of coffee and wander through the garden before the sunrises. 

The middle of the day is a different story though, the heat this week has been intense. I think we've been in the mid 90s for a few days... and that's a little too hot for this farmer! 

Mike has been great about keeping things irrigated so the veggies are growing FAST. I think they're loving the heat. The tomatoes are starting to load up with fruit, whoop whoop! 

We harvested quite a few snap peas this week and the snow peas are just getting started. Fava beans are sizing up and peppers are forming. Grow veggies grow! 


Weeding has been our main focus this week. We have some amazing friends helping us, thanks guys! 

OK, I'm going to leave you with harvest details for the week and this beautiful photo of a Two Tailed Swallowtail butterfly... 

Head Lettuce

Salad Greens

Arugula

Kale

Chard

Cilantro

Basil

Carrots

Turnips

Garlic Scapes

Snap Peas!

CSA Harvest - Week #2

Good morning, 

It has already been a week since our last harvest, time is flying by. It was so wonderful to see all the old and new CSA Members last week! Seeing you all and you're excitement about the produce made my week and reminded me why I'm doing this, to feed people the best produce we can grow. Thanks for being so wonderful and supporting our farm and locally grown food. I'm excited to have you with us this season!

I spent Friday morning trellising tomatoes and it felt so good. They have been growing quickly and had turned into these wild bushes that were falling all over the place, now their trimmed and standing up straight. Thinking in a month or so we'll have walls of tomatoes. Grow beauties grow!

The snap peas have started producing, and they taste like candy. I'm hoping we'll have enough for the CSA next week. 

We enjoyed a few overcast mornings that we heavenly. Perfect weather for weeding and I kept catching myself letting out these appreciative sighs and mmmm noises. Yea clouds! And on Monday afternoon we had thunderstorms and some rain, which felt amazing. 

It looks like a heat wave is coming though, they're saying we're going to be in the 90s this weekend... eek! 

This week's share will include:

Spinach

Salad Greens

Mustard Greens

Kale
Head Lettuce

Carrots

Beets

Turnips

Garlic Scapes

Cilantro

Have a beautiful day! 

Harvest Time

Wow! It's been a hot couple of days around here... I think the veggies are handling the heat better than I am. 

We're just about planted here, minus a second round of beets and carrots scheduled for Sunday and successions of various greens throughout the season. We seeded the winter squash and pole beans on Tuesday, so now it's time to just irrigate, weed and harvest. And... I set up the tomato trellis this morning and we need prune those beauties! They're growing like weeds, flowering and about to set fruit.

I set up the pea trellis a few days ago and was working next to the blooming fava beans, the smell was intoxicating and the buzzing of bees was beautiful. 

Wednesday marked the first CSA Harvest of the season. Wahoo! It felt really good to harvest and I loved seeing all of our CSA Members. This week's share included the following:

Spinach

Salad Greens

Baby Kale

Mustard Mix

Carrots

Turnips

Green Garlic

Herbs (Tarragon, Oregano or Lemon Balm)

Asparagus from Banga's Farm next door

Have a great day! 

Sunshine!

Good morning, 

The last couple days have been amazingly gorgeous. Sunshine, light breeze and warm temps. Woohoo! Summer here we come. The lows this week climb into the mid 40s and even high 50s, ooo ooo ooo. It looks like we will stop covering the tomatoes up a night, which will save us some time. And something about heading outside in sandals first thing in the morning makes me a very happy person. 

It was a pretty great week here, we seeded, planted, watered, weeded, made repairs, organized, and started prepping the wash station for harvests. 

A large block of roots was seeded on Friday and should start germinating in in the coming days.  Carrots, beets, parsnip, turnips and rutabaga. Here are the rutabaga seeds waiting in the seeder. I'm always amazed that these itty bitty seeds grow into such large and beautiful plants. Magic! 

I transplanted jalapeños and basil and seeded sweet slicing cucumbers in the greenhouse for the CSA a couple days ago. And we transplanted parsley, celery, celeriac and a pepper trial in the field yesterday. Mmmmm PEPPERS. I'm curious to see how peppers do outside here, we'll know in a few short months ;). 

And we have started the never-ending task of weeding. I love looking back at a freshly weeded bed, it's so satisfying! The weeds are coming up thick in spots and I'm determined to keep them in check. Watch out thistle... it's on and I intend on making you struggle this season. 

Have a great day!! 

Brassica Focus

Good morning! 

It's the last week of May and it's still feeling pretty cool around here. I was outside earlier and the grass around the house was frosted. It looks like we're going to be in the 60s most of the week with temps in the 30s at night. Brrr, I'm ready for a warm up! 

We have been focusing on brassicas most of the week and are going to finish transplanting them today. Woohoo! So many less starts to take care of on a daily basis, yes! I love this time of the year, when everything moves outside and makes it's way into the soil. The red and green cabbages, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and kohlrabi have been transplanted. Today we're wrapping up with broccoli, kale and collards. My legs will be happy when we're done transplanting, so many squats... 

The greenhouses are looking good! I spent Saturday morning weeding the new house and it looks awesome without thistle popping up everywhere. Grow maters grow! We have had some vole issues though... they'e eating/destroying peppers and cherry tomatoes along with some of the early beds outside. Little stinkers! They're driving me crazy. 

We have been watching this sweet little nest of kill deer eggs in the onion block for weeks! Mike noticed them when we were preparing beds and worked around them. We have been checking on them off and on and last weekend they hatched and now there are four adorable, teeny tiny kill deer babies running around. Super cute.

Two weeks until harvest time! 

Spring Green

Hello Everyone, 

I'm loving how green and rich things are this spring! The temps have been gentle and not too cold at night (knock on wood) and with the weekly storms everything is growing. Looks like one more day of rain here... then it starts to break up tomorrow and we'll see some sunshine?! One evening last week after a pretty strong hail storm this amazing rainbow popped out and made my day! Magical. 

Last week flew by! We finished planting the greenhouse and filled a few beds with peppers and tomatillos to keep the tomatoes company. The tomatoes are looking great and starting to grow fast! When I planted them they were starting to look a little rough and were over being in their 2" pots. I was pretty worried (per usual) and gave them a pep talk and told them they had a week to grow out of it before I pulled them up and replanted... luckily within a week they had put on tons of healthy green growth and started to bulk up. Woohoo! 

Late in the week we planted potatoes! So. many. potatoes. That was a big project and it feels good to check it off the list! 

I spent the last two days in Ridgway helping my Mom weed and seed her garden, my former garden. The cover crops are higher than my hips, and it's overflowing with overwintered spinach, cilantro, scallions and lettuce and the herbs are all coming back very healthy and strong. Mmmm Spring!

We're going to start transplanting cabbage and alyssum tomorrow, followed by all the kale, collards, Brussels sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower. Excited to get all of these starts in the ground! 

Countdown to CSA harvests starts... NOW. First delivery to Telluride is in 3 weeks, whoop whoop! Sign up now to become a member of our farm, join us for a wonderful season of bountiful harvests and support local agriculture. Check out the CSA page for more details and contact me if you have any questions.

I cannot get enough of the garlic field in the evening light... dreamy.

Have a wonderful day! 

Planting Frenzy

Rainy morning! The low clouds and cool damp air feels so cozy... mmm morning coffee never tasted better. It rained off and on for most of the night and everything is pretty soaked outside. Looks like the perfect day to catch up on emails and paper work, which isn't my favorite task but needs to be done... 

The past week was wonderfully productive! We completed the greenhouse with the help of our amazing friends. Thanks guys! Feels so good to have this project complete so we can start to focus our energy elsewhere. We tilled and built beds in the greenhouse, set up the irrigation and planted a few beds of tomatoes on Friday in the midst of the first real wind test. Wow, the wind was crazy, strong and relentless. The first round of tomatoes are in the ground, which has me psyched! Come on maters, do your thang! 

I'm suddenly having dreams/nightmares about the temps dropping way lower than expected. My oh my, calm down brain, it's 40 degrees outside not 15. Relax. 

We also completed the allium planting! All of the onions, leeks and scallions are transplanted and adjusting to their new space. I imagine they're loving all this rain! And, we ordered a new seeder this Spring and I took it for a spin on Wednesday and seeded more salad, spinach, arugula and radishes. It's awesome and speeds things up tremendously, love it. 

The early greens are growing (slooooowly). I spent yesterday weeding, thinning and getting excited to start harvesting CSA shares in a month! 

Enjoy all the moisture, looks like sunshine and heat are arriving later in the week.  

Once things dry out a little we'll be planting potatoes... for days! 

May!

The month of May has arrived, and it's go time here at the farm. So much to plant in the next 30 days, woohoo! The rain over the last few weeks has made everything so green and gorgeous, it's wonderful. But I must say, I'm excited and oh so ready for some warm sunny skies. 

We took advantage of the nice weather last week and got the tractor in the field and turned in the triticale and winter rye cover crops that have been protecting the soil. The rye needs a couple weeks to breakdown before seeding the next crop. The soil looks, feels and smells amazing! I remember helping my Dad plant trees around our house when I was a little girl. As we were filling the holes back in I grabbed a handful of the soil, pushed it to my face, inhaled deeply and proceeded to say, ' mmmm, that's good dirt'. Ha! Should've known then I would be a farmer and in love with soil. 

We tilled a block for the onions and a section in front of the almost complete greenhouse (which needs a name...!) where we will be growing greens and herbs for the CSA. So, we're digging up the gorgeous onions, leeks and scallion starts that were seeded back in February this morning and planting them outside in the coming days. Yes!


All the brassica starts are looking strong and happy. If I'm stressing or frustrated about something I can go peak at these babies and instantly feel better. They'll be moving outside in a couple weeks. 

The carrots are starting to size up and should be ready for the first CSA harvest, which is only 5 weeks away!! We seeded a variety of greens and roots outside a few weeks ago and with all this rain everything is up and growing.

Tomorrow morning we're hoping to finish the other greenhouse! We're working on the last door and side walls today and rallying an amazing group of friends to help us skin it with the huge piece of plastic tomorrow morning. Yay! So ready for this project to be complete. And the tomatoes are looking anxious to be planted so it will feel good to get the plastic on so we can prep beds and PLANT later in the week. 

Enjoy the sunshine folks!