Spinach! Frost sweetened and ready to be eaten-ed!

Pictures: Helen

Big foot in the melting snow spot.

Picture: Helen

Wind keeps us busy. When the weather warms and cools, the rebar and rope that holds our temporary tunnels down is loosened. That combined with the wild winds of temperature change, you better bet we learned and make sure the tunnels are still anchored down. 
Pictured here is a 18" piece of rebar that has been hauled out of the ground. 

Picture: Tyler

​We're back! And I am endlessly under the gun to get it all done. What we did this week:

• Seeded lots of cabbage spinach, beets, kale, microgreens, and pea shoots!
• Worked on cleaning up the fence line (that's right deer, we hope to exclude you.)
• Cleaned up the greenhouse a bit more fixing the benches, cleaning and putting materials away.
• Interviewed possible candidates for the field crew position.
• Machine maintenance
• Worked on a new to us piece of equipment soon to be revealed.
• Harvested and prepped vegetables for market.
• Maintained the the caterpillars against the wind.
• Clare has come out to assess the scene and start building various chicken paraphernalia.

And a couple notes 

• WE ARE HIRING! Visit our Work With Us page for more info. Please share it with people you think fit the bill. 
• Eastern and metro Detroit customers:
  • Now offering $100 CSA memberships with a $10 bonus. Please email for more info. 
  • If you shop with us regularly, consider signing up for our CSA. This is the perfect time to do it as it offers maximum support to us and the most opportunities to use your balance over the course of the year. 
  • If you love our produce, consider giving the gift of food to someone in your family or friend. We are an especially good match for people that want to eat local fresh food but don't know how to get started. I love talking recipes, environmentalism, telling animal stories, and eating raw vegetables on the spot.

Here is that list again. It lays out what we will be doing this year. I put it in last weeks email but want to leave it in here, in case some missed it. 

Our plans are this year. 

• Growing food for Stockbridge Community Outreach, a community building and support organization right in my own town. I have been trying to figure out the best way for our farm to contribute to the health of our community and this may be it. In the coming weeks, I plan on putting up a gofundme to raise the money to offer vegetables to Stockbridge Outreaches's weekly food distribution. I am still working out details. If you want to be involved, or have any good ideas, please don't hesitate to let me know.  
• We will be at Eastern, often in the winter months and always once May rolls around. We may even attend some of their Tuesday markets. We aren't heading to any other markets this year. 
• We will continue growing food for the Greater Lansing Food Bank. Last year we delivered to them every other week from June onward, culminating in thousands of pounds of fresh vegetables available at food pantries. The Greater Lansing Food Bank is an awesome organization dedicated to distributing food to as many people in need as possible. They are a food pantry for food pantries! We are proud and grateful to work with them.   
• Contribute to Collaborative CSA programs of The Farm at Trinity (Ann Arbor) and Allen Neighborhood Center (Lansing.) Both of these organizations are community minded and oriented towards health and healing through a connection to growing and eating nutritious food. We have worked with Allen Neighborhood for several years and are now adding in The Farm at Trinity.
• Clare is raising egg laying chickens, right here at the farm! I have never been involved in animal husbandry (besides these doggies haha) so I am excited and offering as much support as I can.
• Tyler and Hailey are starting their own farm! They are still figuring out where they will be selling this year but check out their website here: Turnip The Beets Farm! They still plan on moonlighting at Lake Divide, never fear, you haven't seen the last of them yet!

You can count on us to keep stewarding this piece of land, minding it for ecosystem health, while raising vegetables to feed our community, whether in Lansing, Ann Arbor, Detroit Metro, or right here in our town. Lots of love to you. Thank you for your support over the years and hopefully for years to come. 

Enjoy the beautiful snow storm!

Cheers,
Helen
she/her/hers
 
In this email:

• Generally important notes
  • Notes for members (or potential members!):
    • Find a copy of the 2025 membership agreement here.
  • Here is link to our Social Justice page on our website. It is a list of resources to keep active in effecting positive social change.  
• Member Info- 
  • Royal Oak members, please give me a little more time to send a separate email to you.

<<Your Balance>><<Balance>>
<<Special Note>> <<Balance>> Fresh From the Field- 
Greens:
Spinach

All Manner of Deliciousness
Apples: Evercrips, Gala, Pinata, Modi, and Ida Red. From Almar Orchard (Eastern only)
Napa Cabbage from Jacob's Fresh Farm
Cabbage
Carrots by Yoder
Eggs from Hilltop Greenhouses and Farms
Kohlrabi
Potatoes! Yum!
Daikon
Watermelon Radish
Rutabaga!
Sweet Potatoes from Yoder Farms
Purple Top Turnips
Fall Squash: delicata, long pie, butternut, autumn frost, black futsu

Coming Soon
Arugula
Kale
Tatsoi

Farms we are collaborating with:
When something sold by us is grown by another farm, we will always label both to support them and so that you can make informed decisions. 

Not all the farms we are working with are certified organic. If they aren't, you better bet we know them well enough to trust their growing practices. This is both because we have asked them about how they care for their land and what materials they use, but also because we are friends. We have asked each other questions and shared information and resources over the years. We know most of them well enough to have had dinner together and to call to share family news. This collection of family farms are our community and our colleagues. We are proud to know them and to work with them. 

Almar Orchard, Flushing, Certified Organic
Cinzori Farm, Ceresco, Certified Organic
HillTop Greenhouse and Farms, Ann Arbor. They supply the eggs from free range, happy chickens.
Jacob's Fresh Farm, Dexter
Sunnyside Produce, Homer, Certified Organic
Titus Farms, Leslie 
Yoder Farms, Leslie

​Here comes the sun, rising in the east, shining through these reptilian scales. Ice collects on the warmer more humid side of our greenhouse plastic.

Pictures: Helen

​Cold times call for drastic measures. We have a frost free hydrant. That means the hydrant itself doesn't freeze when the water is running or off in below freezing temperatures. However! There are fittings attached to our hydrant that aren't so evolved. Hence the creation of yet another interim solution: the ole heater and a tarp. I've used this to thaw soil, warm a tractor, keep vegetables from freezing, and here it is saving the day in this continuously below freezing winter we are having.

​Picture: Helen

​You can see our greenhouse there, down the hill. It takes two 75 foot hoses to get from there to the hydrant. 

For all its trouble, I'm grateful for the cold. Hopefully it is resetting some of the disease and pest cycles for an easier year. It sure does make a lot of extra work though!

Picture: Helen

​There is our greenhouse. You can see it is quite a ways from the hydrant. Another extra chore the winter offers is hauling the hose in and out of there every day. We drag it into the warm(er) greenhouse so that there's no ice blocking the flow when we need to use it.
​
Picture: Helen

Ahoy!

So sorry to have not sent this during the week to keep you apprised of our comings and goings. Like everyone else, we have been rocked with various virus' and this past week was no exception. We are, obviously not at market this week. It looks promising that we will be back next. We are looking forward to seeing you there. In the meantime...

• WE ARE HIRING! Visit our Work With Us page for more info. Please share it with people you think fit the bill. 
• Eastern and metro Detroit customers:
  • Now offering $100 CSA memberships with a $10 bonus. Please email for more info. 
  • If you shop with us regularly, consider signing up for our CSA. This is the perfect time to do it as it offers maximum support to us and the most opportunities to use your balance over the course of the year. 
  • If you love our produce, consider giving the gift of food to someone in your family or friend. We are an especially good match for people that want to eat local fresh food but don't know how to get started. I love talking recipes, environmentalism, telling animal stories, and eating raw vegetables on the spot.

Here is that list again. It lays out what we will be doing this year. I put it in last weeks email but want to leave it in here, in case some missed it. 

Our plans are this year. 

• Growing food for Stockbridge Community Outreach, a community building and support organization right in my own town. I have been trying to figure out the best way for our farm to contribute to the health of our community and this may be it. In the coming weeks, I plan on putting up a gofundme to raise the money to offer vegetables to Stockbridge Outreaches's weekly food distribution. I am still working out details. If you want to be involved, or have any good ideas, please don't hesitate to let me know.  
• We will be at Eastern, often in the winter months and always once May rolls around. We may even attend some of their Tuesday markets. We aren't heading to any other markets this year. 
• We will continue growing food for the Greater Lansing Food Bank. Last year we delivered to them every other week from June onward, culminating in thousands of pounds of fresh vegetables available at food pantries. The Greater Lansing Food Bank is an awesome organization dedicated to distributing food to as many people in need as possible. They are a food pantry for food pantries! We are proud and grateful to work with them.   
• Contribute to Collaborative CSA programs of The Farm at Trinity (Ann Arbor) and Allen Neighborhood Center (Lansing.) Both of these organizations are community minded and oriented towards health and healing through a connection to growing and eating nutritious food. We have worked with Allen Neighborhood for several years and are now adding in The Farm at Trinity.
• Clare is raising egg laying chickens, right here at the farm! I have never been involved in animal husbandry (besides these doggies haha) so I am excited and offering as much support as I can.
• Tyler and Hailey are starting their own farm! They are still figuring out where they will be selling this year but check out their website here: Turnip The Beets Farm! They still plan on moonlighting at Lake Divide, never fear, you haven't seen the last of them yet!

You can count on us to keep stewarding this piece of land, minding it for ecosystem health, while raising vegetables to feed our community, whether in Lansing, Ann Arbor, Detroit Metro, or right here in our town. Lots of love to you. Thank you for your support over the years and hopefully for years to come. 

Party on (and show up to 50501!

Cheers,
Helen
she/her/hers
 
In this email:

• Generally important notes
  • Notes for members (or potential members!):
    • Find a copy of the 2025 membership agreement here.
  • Here is link to our Social Justice page on our website. It is a list of resources to keep active in effecting positive social change.  
• Market Details:
  • Not at Market this week ​

Most of the crops we seeded last we have burst forth into the light! Today and tomorrow, we will seed pea shoots and microgreens (yay!) along with all the onions that we will plant this year. 

Pictures: Tyler

​Look at these little Lettuce eggs: lettuce seed coated in NOP (national organic program) approved clay. In the bottom right, you can see the difference in size between "pelleted" seed and uncoated seed. It really reduces finger fatigue to bigger units to work with. I will say, it is nice to be getting my pinching muscles back in shape. 

Pictures: Helen. 

​
Here is the reason we can't come to market this week and possibly next week: A rusted out frame on our 4 x 4 truck combined with a snow storm. I took this picture right after removing my finger from INSIDE THE FRAME of my truck and picking my jaw up off the floor. When they service department told me there was some rust on the frame, this is not what I expected. This vehicle is not safe to drive. I'm getting it sorted out, never fear. I'll add that without the snow storm, Tyler is more than willing use his truck to bring our produce to market. But with the snow storm? His truck is rear wheel drive and I don't want to send him out in that weather.

I want to assure you that in the height of summer, we would still come to market. We would rent a truck for as many weeks as we need to resolve the issue. However, this time of year, we are taking the needed time to manage this "truck problem" along with catching up on a few on farm tasks. The storage crops will hold a week and maybe we will even have greens to accompany them by the time we get back. 

Picture: Helen

Ahoy!
​
The tale is in the picture captions this week.

• WE ARE HIRING! Look for our hiring ad in the next couple days. Please send people our way if you think they would be a good fit. 
• Eastern and metro Detroit customers:
  • If you shop with us regularly, consider signing up for our CSA. This is the perfect time to do it as it offers maximum support to us and the most opportunities to use your balance over the course of the year. 
  • If you love our produce, consider giving the gift of food to someone in your family or friend. We are an especially good match for people that want to eat local fresh food but don't know how to get started. I love talking recipes, environmentalism, telling animal stories, and eating raw vegetables on the spot.

Here is that list again. It lays out what we will be doing this year. I put it in last weeks email but want to leave it in here, in case some missed it. 

Our plans are this year. 

• Growing food for Stockbridge Community Outreach, a community building and support organization right in my own town. I have been trying to figure out the best way for our farm to contribute to the health of our community and this may be it. In the coming weeks, I plan on putting up a gofundme to raise the money to offer vegetables to Stockbridge Outreaches's weekly food distribution. I am still working out details. If you want to be involved, or have any good ideas, please don't hesitate to let me know.  
• We will be at Eastern, often in the winter months and always once May rolls around. We may even attend some of their Tuesday markets. We aren't heading to any other markets this year. 
• We will continue growing food for the Greater Lansing Food Bank. Last year we delivered to them every other week from June onward, culminating in thousands of pounds of fresh vegetables available at food pantries. The Greater Lansing Food Bank is an awesome organization dedicated to distributing food to as many people in need as possible. They are a food pantry for food pantries! We are proud and grateful to work with them.   
• Contribute to Collaborative CSA programs of The Farm at Trinity (Ann Arbor) and Allen Neighborhood Center (Lansing.) Both of these organizations are community minded and oriented towards health and healing through a connection to growing and eating nutritious food. We have worked with Allen Neighborhood for several years and are now adding in The Farm at Trinity.
• Clare is raising egg laying chickens, right here at the farm! I have never been involved in animal husbandry (besides these doggies haha) so I am excited and offering as much support as I can.
• Tyler and Hailey are starting their own farm! They are still figuring out where they will be selling this year but check out their website here: Turnip The Beets Farm! They still plan on moonlighting at Lake Divide, never fear, you haven't seen the last of them yet!

You can count on us to keep stewarding this piece of land, minding it for ecosystem health, while raising vegetables to feed our community, whether in Lansing, Ann Arbor, Detroit Metro, or right here in our town. Lots of love to you. Thank you for your support over the years and hopefully for years to come. 

Enjoy the beautiful snow storm!

Cheers,
Helen
she/her/hers
 
In this email:

• Generally important notes
  • Notes for members (or potential members!):
    • Find a copy of the 2025 membership agreement here.
  • Here is link to our Social Justice page on our website. It is a list of resources to keep active in effecting positive social change.  
• Market Details:
  • Not at Market this week 
• Member Info-  Balances updated at long last!!
  • Royal Oak members, please give me a little more time to send a separate email to you.