Freshman Farmer | New Organic Farms Set Roots

Posts Tagged ‘broccoli’

2 Days and the Camera

April 29th, 2009
Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm | Blog

Here is the breakdown for Tuesday and Wednesday.

**ALERT**

Our Kodak M883 is down. 2nd time this year. Looks like this 3 year old digital dude can’t handle being in the hands of a farmer. Stinks. We will see what comes of this. Sorry for the lack of pictures, now we need to research how to fully use the Flip video device Peaceful Valley loaned to us. Please be fore warned, I have footage!

Tuesday is the day that we take a mini break from farming and go do landscaping ($) in near by Bainbridge Island. We weeded, we pruned, it was alright. After a yummy lunch break, we head over to our farmers market manager’s neigbors to help them put in 15 raspberry plants. Good times. Now, off to pot up tomatoes!

Well we made it to the propagation house at roughly 9pm and turned off the light and tucked them in at 11:30. Got home and crashed.

Wed. 7 a.m. start. FLOWER DAY.

Fed the chickens and ducks.
Went to pickup bulk feed from another local chicken farmer, Harley. He runs a great business of purchasing large one ton quantities of different sorts of Organic Feed for local farmers. Price per lb. is fourty cents.
Bought lumber for our badly needed 1st foraging chicken tractor!
Kelped and weeded the Broccoli.
Prepared a new bed for transplanting of more Broccoli. (till, cultivate, rake, fluffy till up… it was a bit chunky)
Transplanted Broccoli, that makes 300 row feet! 5 varieties: Calabrese, Nutri-bud, De Cicco, Atlantic, Purple Peacock. 3 of those are new to us this season.
Got a load of topsoil in the pickup.
Started preparation for tomorrows big transplanting day during the biodynamic cycle of LEAF. We got loads of lettuce still in trays, hating on us right now. They’ll forgive us tomorrow. (we hope!)
After cleaning out the topsoil I took the pickup over to another local farm and picked up a row maker/disc tractor attachment as Roger (our tractor man) is coming out. Three days ago I called him in crisis of needing to get 600 strawberries and some blueberries in the ground— tomorrow he comes to till and row up what little ground is left. Having Roger make up rows forces us to work with 4’ wide beds. Last year we made them up by hand and went with 4’ wide beds as well but mainly created 30” wide rows. I’m fearing not being able to plant all that we need for the market and the CSA.
Got home from getting the row maker and mowed the property. I do this in exchange for a discount in rent…. A tough job to do (and enjoy) when your trying to farm.
At about 8:30 pm we arrived to the propagation house and the tomatoes. We potted up more one gallons around 80 or so and turned the lights of at 11pm. Now I blog and sleep. 6 am start tomorrow.

Tags: broccoli, tomatoes, feed

Posted in: Videos

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A bonus to say the least

April 1st, 2009
Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm | Blog

This is an amazing year for us at Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm. We’ve been blessed with a great many of new experiences this year. One that comes to mind is the experience of farming daily with my lovely and beautiful wife. I am privileged to have a farming partner who works extremely hard, is fun to be around all day, happens to be cute, and doubles as my wife. Last year Sara worked her final and eighth year as a full-time nanny and helped the farm at every other single moment. This year she’s by my side everyday and kicking butt. It’s awesome to start to learn each other’s strengths in farming, business, and life. I think I’ve learned more about my wife in the last three farming months then in the last three years that I’ve known her. She keeps me on my feet and guided when I doubt or over think things, works extremely hard on the farm, is a great planner, fantastic cook, and can multi-task, unlike me. I appreciate and cherish the chance to be farming healthy food with my wife. I’ve always dreamed of a family farm and I think we have one now!

Here in the slideshow we see:

The planting process for broccoli, yes that funny looking row cover is our attempt to helping those plants get a little boost and protection in this cold and wet spring. I do hope it’s not too hot in there for them. We put the plastic on and then slit down the sides of the row cover. (Note: we will no longer be doing all of our rows so darn close together. 12” just ain’t enough some times.) That tool she’s using is a great one! It’s a Bed Preparation Rake, we do all of our rows so far with this. We should have a second one on order!

Then we see the ducks as they discover foraging.

And finally, Sara is in one of our Lincoln greenhouses planting lettuce.

Tags: broccoli, lettuce, Bed Preparation Rake, ducks

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Planting Broccoli

April 1st, 2009
Four Frog Farm | Blog

We are planting broccoli now. It’s the first vegetable that we’ve planted in the field so far. All said we’re transplanting about 1/3 acre. Right now it’s all going in by hands and knees. We hope to get an automatic transplanter for the tractor, but that is down the road. The fields look so much bigger after they’ve been tilled and beds have been shaped. It’s striking how much larger the 10 acres are looking now. In fact, it’s a little bothersome.… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: broccoli, camera

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WA Weather - Wet

March 26th, 2009
Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm | Blog

bed prep for onions/leeks transplants under agribond (notice the plastic is blown off our row cover) snow in March Farming in the wonderful Pacific Northwest is a good way to become mental. We love it; the weather really keeps things interesting and your “plans” ever changing. Here in Washington State it rains in spring. We are hunters and hopefuls for a mildly sunny, dry day. Last season in a single day we experienced sun, rain, sleet, and snow. This year back in February we experienced… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: arugula, cabbage, cover crop, garlic, heirloom tomatoes, leeks, lettuce, march, onions, peas, radishes, spinach, Kales, Salad Greens, Pac Choy, Tatsoi, Bok Choy, Broccoli Raab, row covers, 5 row seeder, eliot coleman, early spring

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Almost Started

March 16th, 2009
Four Frog Farm | Blog

We wanted to start discing a couple of acres today. Instead it rained yesterday and today, so we’ll wait a little longer until it dries out again. I’m itching to prepare some land right now. The spring crops are ready to be planted. We’ll try for 1/2 acre each of broccoli, peas, and potatos. And in addition we want to seed a slew of leafy greens, lettuce mixes, spinach…the works. Have you seen all the other freshman farmers. I’m a face in a crowd now. I won’t… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: broccoli, peas, spinach, spring, potatos, freshman farmers

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Last Market finito

October 29th, 2008
Four Frog Farm | Blog

I went to the last Tuesday market in Nevada City today. It was a busy market. So many people came out. We haven’t had such a busy market all year. It was nice to end it with plenty of shoppers. For my part, I brought lots of kale, chard, eggplant, peppers, lettuce mix, winter squash, cherry tomatos, peas, basil, celery and broccoli. It was a nice close to the season for me. Although, I have a solid week of work before the season is over for me. Honestly, these last two months have… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: basil, broccoli, celery, chard, cherry tomatoes, eggplant, farmer's market, kale, lettuce mix, peas, peppers, winter squash

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August Report

August 3rd, 2008
Four Frog Farm | Blog

After 2 long months of hot weather, it appears that we are in store for more hot weather. That means, more irrigation, more aphids, more tomatoes, and less salad mix. My season started in February, full on. I just completed month 6 in the season. The CSA still has 2 more months, while the markets go for another 3 around here. If I had more space I would be a little more excited about the fall, but as it is, there isn’t much room for a huge fall thing. I am making… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: aphids, arugula, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, daikon radish, hot weather, irrigation, lettuce mix, peas, salad mix, tomatoes

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A Transition

June 13th, 2008
Four Frog Farm | Blog

So much has changed in the past 5 months. Of course the physical layout of the farm has changed dramatically…going from virgin meadow to cover crop to intense/intensive vegetable cultivation. Alike, my mind is wrapping around and becoming comfortable with the ever-changing dynamic of the farm. We have completed six weeks of the CSA, a quarter of the season, with 18 more weeks to go. We have had broccoli every week, buy now that we are approaching consistent mid-90 degree temps at… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: basil, broccoli, cucumbers, eggplant, green beans, kale chard, lettuce mix, potatoes, summer squash, tomatoes, yukon gold

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Pharm Updayte

May 27th, 2008
Four Frog Farm | Blog

The broccoli has been great and in full effect for the last few weeks. We are doing heavy pickings from the main heads and side shoots, with lots more coming. The first two plantings of cauliflower have failed, due to (a) gophers (b) freak super-cold snap at the end of april (c) freak super hot spell (100 degrees for 5 straight days) in mid May, which caused the curds to separate and be no good. The third is looking good and hope to have that. In the future I don’t want to grow… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: april, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, cold snap, cucumbers, daikon, farm update, gophers, kale, may, peppers, potatoes, radish, tomatoes

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CSA Week 4

May 27th, 2008
Four Frog Farm | Blog

We are now entering week four (of 24) for the CSA. Today we had our drop-off/pick-up for our 10 monday members. We have 23 members in all - 10 on Monday and 13 on Wednesday. We are going to add members when the summer stuff really picks up, but for now, that is our max. Let’s see what was in the boxes: 1 lb Sugar Snap/Snow Peas Zucchini/Yellow Crookneck Summer Squash Romaine and Black-Seeded Simpson Lettuce Heads Broccoli Basil Parsley Radishes Garlic Scapes Lacinato Kale Rainbow Chard… Read the rest of this article »

Tags: basil, beets, broccoli, chard, cilantro, eggplants, garlic, kale, lettuce, parsley, peas, peppers, radish, time off, tomatoes, zucchini

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Two farms are starting from scratch.

They are turning the dirt and hoping to be successful enough to turn a profit, and to become a valuable part of their communities as suppliers of organically grown food.

Peaceful Valley is giving them a head start by offering them special pricing as part of this Freshman Farmer program.

The Farm Blogs

Freshman:
New Farms Coming Soon!
Sophomores:
	Laughing Duck Farm Newcastle, CA
	Starbright Acres 12575 Polaris Dr, Grass Valley, CA
Graduates:
	Coyote House Farm Palermo, CA
	Daily Grace Farms Crescent City, CA
	DeepSeeded Community Farm Arcata, CA
	Driftwood Farm Fort Bragg, CA
	EarthDance Farm St. Louis, MO
	Ellwood Canyon Farms Goleta, CA
	Freestone Family Farm Vernal, UT
	Hand Sown Homegrown Heritage Farm Poulsbo, WA
	Home Plate Organic Farm Orleans, CA
	Honey in the Heart Farm Nevada City, CA
	Willow Springs Farm Penn Valley, CA
	Wise Moon Farm Redding, CA