With DeepSeeded Farm’s 1st ever internship session over and another one beginning, I’m feeling really fortunate.  Fortunate to have the extra help, and also fortunate to be able to provide this experience to members of my community.  Learning to garden is an intimate process.  To acquaint ourselves with the needs of various crops; to teach our hands to handle them ...these things come primarily from exposure; from time spent in the garden.

Through my farm internship I can take some of the experience I’ve gained over the past decade of farming and use it to jump-start the learning of others.  Although so much of what I’ve learned has come from having to make all the decisions myself, I still flash back almost daily to the training I received as an apprentice at Live Power Farm in ‘99.  Though my program is not nearly as intensive as theirs, I do require a commitment from my interns: two 3.5 hour shifts plus 1 hour of lecture each week for 15 weeks.  During this time I make an effort to involve them in as many of the garden tasks as I can, and also try to spark discussion about the various plants we’re working with.

This past session I got to work with 8 awesome interns (who I already miss spending time with).  This session the farm internship has 11 new participants! (plus 4 from the last group continuing with 1 shift a week).  It’s a great group of folks, and I’m really looking forward to getting to know each of them, and to helping them become more accomplished gardeners.

Interns Returning from the Field

DeepSeeded Farm’s 1st-Ever Intern Group

Sorry for the departure.  We’ve been working sun up till sun down and it’s been above average temps here in the pacific northwest.  All the farmers around here have a glow of joy about them as we’re actually getting a summer (and a tan!).  Our csa has enjoyed our heirloom variety tomatoes now for three weeks.  Although that’s great news and we’re stoked to be filling our CSA shares with those vine ripe goody balls, we’ re missing the income… Read the rest of this article »

Jared here, reporting from my European tour.  So far I mixed the Fleet Foxes at these two festivals.  I feel like I’ve taken a trip to the moon.  Touring is so vastly different then my usual day to day life on the farm.  I left on Wednesday but before doing so I was able to help harvest the 24 CSA shares that we deliver that day. After a mere two hours of sleep I awoke to harvest beets, turnips, radishes, chard, kale, garlic scapes, cabbages, peas, broccoli, and spinach. … Read the rest of this article »

Today we received the help of a lovely woman named Tammie.  She works at a bicycle shop and visits us sometimes on one of her three days off.  She’s worked on other farms before and it shows as she’s a hard worker.  We’re thankful to have gotten her number from another local farmer and from the great folks at Kitsap Community & Agriculture Alliance. Today I planted some blueberries at home while Sara and Tammie did some work over at Lincoln.  They prepared… Read the rest of this article »