It’s the 9th of November and the hardest work is behind us.  All of the fields are cover cropped and we’re just waiting for it to rain now.  All the Garlic is in, as of last week.  250 lbs!!!  Quite a bit.  We planted a little later than optimal, but, hey, it’s in, it’s growing and there’s no stopping it now.  It added up to about 1/2 acre and we applied 12 tons of compost to that area to ensure a good stand of Garlic.  In fact, 150 lbs are for seed garlic for, who else, Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply.  2 varieties: Dujansky and Capathian - both are beautiful, striped red hardnecks.

Story time…

First a huge shout out to Pilot Peak Winery for loaning us 18 MacroBins to help out with the winter squash harvest a month ago.  That saved us, big time - thanks a ton you guys!

On friday, Logan and I had to harvest for the co-op and the Saturday Morning market.  We thought it would just take a few hours and somehow we put it off and put it off.  We were resorting garlic, taking trash to the dump, cleaning bins and delivering bins - everything except for harvesting.  I guess we had started to take our employees for granted!.  Finally, we started harvesting - a large list: radishes, beets, carrots, peppers, winter squash, shallots, strawberries, celery, lettuce, potatoes.  We had to leave on the early side also, to get our co-op delivery in.  So, we ended up not even harvesting mustard greens, turnips, arugula, nor spinach.  oops.  Moral - if it’s not a pressing need, don’t do it on harvest day.  We learned - we’ll be on top of it this week.

Let’s all hope for some rain, okay.

Andrew

Our veggie-share season is coming to an end.  This is the last week - week 22.   We’ll continue to attend one farmers’ market per week, and sell to the coop, as well as having our members to the farm once/week to buy some produce. We’re heavily considering changing the format of the CSA next year.  We will continue to offer the “box of the week” - pre-packed and everything.  This lends itself well for those who are voracious veggie-eaters, without any veggie-reservations.… Read the rest of this article »

Today we were at 3 markets, just as it has been the last 20 weeks or so.  We only have one more week of that schedule, and then we’ll be down to 1 market/week - Saturday mornings in Auburn.  The markets went well - about 50% better than last week.   The crops are still plentiful, the offering diverse.  I felt like the grocery store this morning - beets, carrots, radishes, turnips, spring mix, arugula, celery, potatoes, winter squash, peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, strawberries.  That’s… Read the rest of this article »

Our CSA members are coming out this afternoon to glean a couple pumpkins from the patch.  I think it’s a nice perk of being a member of Four Frog Farm.  We’re thinking of other ways to include our members in the farm.  Little by little I think we’ll have more interaction and a sense of mutual responsibilty.   Isn’t that important for a CSA?  I mean, honestly, if it were about fresh veggies, you can go and shop at the market, and get EXACTLY what you want.  That, for… Read the rest of this article »

It got wet on Tuesday, and Wednesday, and even thursday (a little bonus surprise!). We were expecting it.  Actually, we were expecting a lot more, although 2+ inches at a time is enough.   The unexpected thing, and this points to my nascent experience as a farmer, is that the strawberries all pretty much rotted (the fruits, not the plants).  Bummer, but not really a surprise. Logan and I are going through a crop by crop audit and making sure it’s worth it to grow all these things.  It looks… Read the rest of this article »

The rain is here…the fields are wet…20 weeks of CSA boxes filled…I still want to catch you up on early October. The beginning of the month brought a vacation for Logan.  That was much-needed for him. We just continued the regular - harvesting, weeding, and also taking up irrigation in fields in preparation for disking and planting cover crop.   We knew the rains were coming sometime this week, so our efforts were spent preparing space for garlic (to be planted after these rains),… Read the rest of this article »

I went out of town last Saturday (Sept 26th) to backpack for 6 days with my dad.  So, to catch up… Last Friday I travelled up to the small town of Taylorsville, near Quincy.  It’s up in the high country, where the predominant agriculture is timber harvesting and ranching, then, vegetable farming (it’s cold, so veggies aren’t the best bet for most people). I participated in the workshop by being part of a panel for young farmers and ranchers. It was an informative and inspiring… Read the rest of this article »

The spring-planted (from seed, not bulb, mind you), August/September cured shallots got boxed today.  In other words, we spent the afternoon gettin our box on. It was a nice alternative to real work, like pulling up drip tape in field 2, or cultivating the carrots.  It was upper 90s today, so real work sounded pretty tough (especially after a huge lunch of fettucini alfredo and ice cream).  I usually hate not doing something in the field during the afternoons, but today was the perfect time to… Read the rest of this article »

Last year, my marketing plan was simple.  I farmed one acre.  I had 27 CSA shares.  I figured, CSA comes first and then, whatever is left-over, goes to farmers’ markets. I didnt’ have enough for supermarkets, and, therefore, no interactions with produce managers took place.   This year, we earn as much from supermarkets as we do from farmers’ markets and CSA. This brings a new level of reponsibility, organization, phone calls, and, yes, quality.  It is quality of a different… Read the rest of this article »