It has dried up enough on the farm that the rain expected for later today isn't entirely unwelcome. First of all, we finally planted our potatoes last Friday! Thank goodness for that. We have also been hustling to use this window to get tractor work done, along with other field work that can't be executed with soggy soils. We mowed down the chest high waist high grasses that all the rain and warm weather brought, disced crop debris in, prepared beds for planting, and most excitingly for me, seede cover crop! 

One of the best times to seed cover crop is right before it rains because we don't irrigate it and rely entirely on agreeable weather. This round is all buckwheat, a fast growing broadleafed plant that may make you think of pancakes. We don't harvest our buckwheat though. We let it grow and grow it does. It puts out its leaves quickly, shading out other plants (weeds!) and foraging in the soil to bring up nutrients that are otherwise inaccessible. Then, just before it flowers, we mow it and then turn it back into the soil, adding organic matter. Adding organic matter is one of the best ways to add stability to your soil. Because organic matter is so spongy, a soil with high organic matter content can more easily withstand drought as well as downpours. It will also holds onto more nutrients, providing better nutrition for our crops and ultimately, you! 

The best part about seeding our cover crops was using our new-old seeder! It was a hand-me-down from another farmer and Jim rigged it up so it mounts on the farmall. It was a giant step up from trudging around the field with a hand spinner, reducing our legs to rubber. We saved time and energy and I think got a more even seeding rate, however, that remains to be seen. 

We have more items at market this week, however, get those spring greens while you can. You may have noticed that "spring" turned up the heat this year. For our greens in the brassica family (arugula, mizuna, mustard, tatsoi, and tokyo bekana) this encourages them to stop creating luscious leaves and start making flowers. We will have those greens this week but I don't know how long they will withstand the temps. We should continue to be a reliable sources of head lettuce, salad mix (new this week!!), and microgreens. 

The heat should break today and I am sure we are all looking forward to it! See you at market!
Helen and The Lake Dividers

Vegetables!
Arugula
Head lettuce 
Micro Greens- Spicy mix
Micro greens- Mild mix
Mizuna
Mustard (limited)
Radishes
Salad Mix
Tatsoi
Tokyo Bekana
Tomato Transplants (limited)

*We send this email out before harvest, and although we do our very best to make accurate predictions, crops and quantities found at market may vary. 
 
Markets, always rain or shine!

Wednesday: Ann Arbor
The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm and January thru April from 8 am to 3 pm.

Thursday: Jackson
The Jackson Green Market at Allegiance Health is located at East Michigan Avenue and Waterloo Street. It runs from May through October 9 am to 2 pm

Friday: Stockbridge
The Stockbridge Open Air Market is located on the square in downtown Stockbridge. It runs from May thru October from 4 pm to 7 pm

Saturday: Ann Arbor and Chelsea
The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm and January thru April from 8 am to 3 pm.

The Chelsea Farmers' Market is located in the lower library lot along Park St. It runs May thru October from 8 am to 1 pm.

Sunday: Howell
The Howell Farmers' market can be found in the heart of Howell at State st and Clinton st, adjacent to the historic Livingston County Courthouse. It runs May thru October, 9 am to 2 pm.​

Oh Oh oh. Still raining. It has rained enough that Jim and I are making up rain songs and thinking they are delightful. (Another rainy day and its grey grey grey. Should of stayed asleep cause its always the same, but instead I woke up because I had to complain, about, the rain, the rain, the rainnnnnn!) You just give that any tune you want and wail away. 


It has rained enough that we haven't been able to cultivate much with the tractor, but when we can, we do and have done. Tomorrow we hope to move through all the sections I got done and pull clumps of determined grass, while wreacking havoc on any weed seedlings that have dared to sprout at Lake Divide! Wish us luck with this endless task. 

Also on the docket this week- planting cabbage round two, some stubborn swiss chard, preparing our wintersquash and sweet potato land, as well as planting those dastardly potatoes. I have a feeling that the water is going to recede significantly towards the end of the week. (FYI: feeling=hope=optimistic blindness to a potentially crushing reality)

In another glorious development, I don't know if you remember the crimson clover we seeded last fall that to our dismay, received no rain (ironic isn't it? always complaining about the weather :/). It is coming up now! And it is beautiful! I can't wait to seed more of it! Pyramids of orangish-red tipping bright green foliage. I was so happy to be reminded that some of the money we threw into the ground in the form of seeds did not go to waste but was added to the seed bank and is now making cavalier appearances.

Also, when did the trees leaf out? I saw a buckeye in full bloom today and was taken aback to realize I could no longer see the greenhouse from the kitchen window. 

I wish we had more for markets right now. I was mourning the lean times when I remembered that at this time last year, we weren't even at markets! Progress! The only dream worth striving for. 

And after this floaty, slightly discombobulated email, I look forward to seeing you at markets. I look forward to drier times. I look forward.
Oh! One more thing! We're going to have our produce featured at a local food event at the Grand River Brewery. Here is a link to the event: https://www.facebook.com/events/615501252123227/
Thanks to the folks at Grand River and MSU extension for putting it together!

Helen and The Lake Dividers

Vegetables!
Green garlic (limited)
Head lettuce 
Micro Greens- Spicy mix
Micro greens- Mild mix
Radishes (limited)
Tomato Transplants

*We send this email out before harvest, and although we do our very best to make accurate predictions, crops and quantities found at market may vary. 
 
Markets, always rain or shine!

Wednesday: Ann Arbor
The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm and January thru April from 8 am to 3 pm.

Thursday: Jackson
The Jackson Green Market at Allegiance Health is located at East Michigan Avenue and Waterloo Street. It runs from May through October 9 am to 2 pm

Friday: Stockbridge
The Stockbridge Open Air Market is located on the square in downtown Stockbridge. It runs from May thru October from 4 pm to 7 pm

Saturday: Ann Arbor and Chelsea
The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm and January thru April from 8 am to 3 pm.

The Chelsea Farmers' Market is located in the lower library lot along Park St. It runs May thru October from 8 am to 1 pm.

Sunday: Howell
The Howell Farmers' market can be found in the heart of Howell at State st and Clinton st, adjacent to the historic Livingston County Courthouse. It runs May thru October, 9 am to 2 pm.
​

I am going to state the obvious: So much water! We keep track of our rainfall with a gauge so I can tell you that in the last 12 days we have accumulated over six inches of rain, ugh. Too much water! Our fields were still struggling to dry out from the long cold winter. As of now, hasn't rained in 24 hours and that is exceptional. Also exceptional, water can still be seen flowing down the hill. We have streams where we never did before. Now, all of the water is running gentle and clear, letting us keep our soil. I know that during some of the more violent downpours, this was not the case. It made me glad that we have been careful to form all of our vegetable beds across the slope rather than with it, preventing the water from getting up speed. It made me grateful that some of our winter rye, seeded last October, as risen up this spring, and is the ground in place, along with a lot of volunteers that I am usually not as happy to see. Soil takes a long time to build and we don't want to give it up easily. Every rain event and wind storm that we don't have our soil covered, we risk losing some of it. This was a good reminder that what we are doing works and we need to become better at it. 

But forget what the water is doing to our soil, what about what it is doing to us! It is putting us behind schedule. We are behind on cultivation, field preparation, planting,  and hand weeding. It is so wet in our lower fields, we won't even go in them. I don't want to rut, compact, or otherwise lose a truck or a crew member to the swamp that has risen. Before all this accumulated rainfall, we got a good amount of work done. We prepared ground. We planted our outdoor tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, melon, squash, more head lettuce, more fennel, oh yes. But we still have more to go! We have just about used up the ground we preemptively prepped and anything that remains is still too wet to reach. Our wintersquash, of which we only do one, very important, very large planting, still needs to get out there, along with first outdoor pepper planting. Our potatoes, also only one important and large planting, are lingering in the greenhouse, their fat budding eyes ready to sprint to the sky. Dry weather is coming, I see it on the forecast. And when all this water drains, we will be ready with plants galore. 

Just before the bulk of the deluge, Jim fixed up our new old transplanter. Two people ride on it, and as the tractor pulls it, it creates and then fills a furrow and the people drop plants fast! We love it so much. It is nice for our backs, nice for creating straight and easily weeded rows, and wonderful for getting a big planting done quickly. We got to use this magical device once for about 10 minutes. The sky then opened up and it became clear that little good could come from our continuation and we stopped. But that is the sparkling activity that I am so looking forward to when it dries out. And we are working on ways to use this planter contraption as much as possible.

If you have any extra time this week and are interested in hearing out about how Jim and I ended up out here on the Lake Divide, check out this essay I got to write for Edible Jersey! When I was starting my farming career at Whistling Wolf Farm in New Jersey, I had the wonderful opportunity to write a column called " The young farmer diaries". I was so pleased when this spring I was asked to write a follow-up essay recounting my adventures since. It was a pleasure to write about our farm trials from a place that feels less volatile and full of potential. 

Have a great week and see you at markets!

Helen and The Lake Dividers

Vegetables!
Green garlic
Head lettuce (limited)
Kale (limited)
Micro Greens- Spicy mix
Micro greens- Mild mix
Potatoes
Radishes (limited)
Transplants! Herbs, Kale, Chard, Squash and Tomatoes!
Following today's unfortunate discovery of young and delicious, but sadly flowering cut greens :( we'll also have
Arugula
Tatsoi
Tokyo Bekana
Mustard
Mizuna
at our markets Thursday through Sunday

*We send this email out before harvest, and although we do our very best to make accurate predictions, crops and quantities found at market may vary. 
 
Markets, always rain or shine!

Wednesday: Ann Arbor
The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm and January thru April from 8 am to 3 pm.

Thursday: Jackson
The Jackson Green Market at Allegiance Health is located at East Michigan Avenue and Waterloo Street. It runs from May through October 9 am to 2 pm

Friday: Stockbridge
The Stockbridge Open Air Market is located on the square in downtown Stockbridge. It runs from May thru October from 4 pm to 7 pm

Saturday: Ann Arbor and Chelsea
The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm and January thru April from 8 am to 3 pm.

The Chelsea Farmers' Market is located in the lower library lot along Park St. It runs May thru October from 8 am to 1 pm.

Sunday: Howell
The Howell Farmers' market can be found in the heart of Howell at State st and Clinton st, adjacent to the historic Livingston County Courthouse. It runs May thru October, 9 am to 2 pm.
​

Whew! It sure warmed up. I am glad for it. Maybe it will dry out last weeks deluge. On Thursday we got pummeled with 2.5" of rain and a garnish of hail. Fields that we were able to work previously are still wet from this most recent rain event. There was so much water, I was even glad for the windy, windy, windy weather that followed. Never fear though, we are moving forward in patchy form, working what ground will tolerate it and waiting where needed. The rain wasn't bad for everything! It helped the onions settle into their beds and brought the carrots and beets out of the ground. Now we just have to take care of them!


This week at market, we have the beginnings of spring. Last week, we (that means you too) ate the last of our winter spinach and kale, so that is off the list. But we still have our delicious potatoes, some head lettuce and radishes, and the fabulous, nutrient dense microgreens. We may start having some asparagus but I don't want to promise anything. I say the beginnings of spring because we have quite the selection riding in on the coattails of winter. Salad mix, arugula, tatsoi, mizuna, mustard, tokyo bekana, head lettuce and lots of radishes and turnips are all angling to get out of the field in the next couple weeks so hang in there! We will also have transplants for your home garden, so be sure to check those out.


This week on the farm we are working on weed control. Honestly, we are always working on weed control, it is just sometimes a little more directed. All of the plants that we have put into the ground are ready for their first round of cultivation. This can only be done where it is dry enough, which is most of the ground we have planted. There are so many tools for weed control, but our budding business has only one at the center of the vortex: our trusty Farmall 140. It has bars on its belly that we can attach all manner of teeth and tines and shovels to. The tractor then straddles the bed and we ride down the line, as fast as we can go without burying our plants with soil or accidentally swerving and taking them out. We are still relatively new to this and it is generally pretty terrifying but it seems to work and we are grateful for the break it gives to our backs. Our backs aren't completely saved from the task, unfortunately. After we go over the bed with the tractor, we have to follow behind on foot and get the weeds that were hiding in the row with our crops, safely out of the path our tractor.

We are also hustling to get our first round of heat loving crops into the ground. That's right folks, we got the green-light from the weatherman telling us no more frost! GO TIME! We are really hoping that this week we will be planting the first round of field cucumbers, squash, melon, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers (and that basil and ginger from last weeks list!) Jim is keeping them looking great in the greenhouse and they are so ready to get out into the world. Hopefully there are enough dry places for them to go!

In other exciting news, we now have bees on the farm! The Sand Hill Apiaries have eight hives on the East side, tucked next to a cherry tree. I have very little bee experience, so whenever Meghan Milbrath, our local bee wrangler and owner operator of Sand Hill bees comes by, I try to make time to tag along. Last Sunday, she was over to complete the introduction of the queen bees. Initially, the queens are put into the hive in "cages" so the worker bees can acclimate to the new queens presence. It should be noted that if a queen was not introduced, the bees would make their own queen (called requeening) but because Meghan is also a scientist, she is using queens with genetics that she is studying. Meghan went hive to hive opening each of them. At each hive she pulled frames to check for rogue queen cells. She had to free the frames with a pry tool because of all the wax gluing everything together. She then set the caged queen free and as her royal highness traipsed into the hive, we watched closely to be sure that her subjects didn't turn on her. I had never seen the inside of an active hive before and honestly, although the queen looks different from the other bees, it was hard to keep track of her amongst all those other buzzing bodies. I was amazed at Meghan's ability to see the details of the bees beyond their united mass of activity. It was quite an experience. Now, I just have to stay out of there, despite my impulse to go look at them more. 

Have a great week! 

Helen and The Lake Dividers

​Vegetables!
Kale (limited)
Micro Greens- Spicy mix
Micro greens- Mild mix
Potatoes: delicious buttery gold ones and fingerlings!
Transplants! Herbs, Kale, Chard, Squash and Tomatoes!


*We send this email out before harvest, and although we do our very best to make accurate predictions, crops and quantities found at market may vary. 
 
Markets, always rain or shine!

Wednesday: Ann Arbor
The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm and January thru April from 8 am to 3 pm.

Thursday: Jackson
The Jackson Green Market at Allegiance Health is located at East Michigan Avenue and Waterloo Street. It runs from May through October 9 am to 2 pm

Friday: Stockbridge
The Stockbridge Open Air Market is located on the square in downtown Stockbridge. It runs from May thru October from 4 pm to 7 pm

Saturday: Ann Arbor and Chelsea
The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm and January thru April from 8 am to 3 pm.

The Chelsea Farmers' Market is located in the lower library lot along Park St. It runs May thru October from 8 am to 1 pm.

Sunday: Howell
The Howell Farmers' market can be found in the heart of Howell at State st and Clinton st, adjacent to the historic Livingston County Courthouse. It runs May thru October, 9 am to 2 pm.

Here we go for another busy week. The team finished planting all the onions last Saturday. Tucked into the field. That night, temperatures dropped to 29 degrees! It is a good thing onions are hardy (even so they didn't like it!). Almost everything else survived. A couple of our tomatoes and cucumbers suffered, despite being in a hoop house under two blankets. Mostly, everything survived and is on its way to greatness. And then, the temperature bumped right up. Today it is in the eighties, sunny and windy. These are not ideal conditions for plants that have been newly transplanted. They haven't yet had a chance to develop their root system, or adjust to the full brightness of the sun and the full strength of the wind. Keep your fingers crossed for our little plants and we will keep the watered.

But the show must go on! This week, in addition to getting everyone trained and settled at their markets, we will be planting celery and celery root, hopefully some ginger, absolutely some basil, and we will be preparing the field where our tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, cucumbers and squash will be going! Never a dull moment indeed.

And in the meantime, our potatoes came in! They are two weeks later than we usually like to get them. But it has also been unreasonably cold, so maybe the delay will fit right in with our ever-evolving plans. One benefit to planting them a little later than usual, we could miss the initial emergence of one of their most consistent pests, the Colorado potato beetle. But, because, many of the timings of life revolve around temperature, perhaps the potato beetles will be late too, and so just in time for our tater treats. 

All of our markets start this week. We don't have as much in the way of produce as I would have liked. In a few weeks we will be rolling in greens. This week, I can guarantee that every market will have microgreens, potatoes, and some beautiful transplants for sale. There may be some special food guests (kale, spinach, kohlrabi, radishes) but we don't have quite enough to go around so they are going to sell out fast at whatever markets they make it to. 

From now through October (and beyond for some of the markets) you can find Tony in Ann Arbor on Wednesdays, Liz at the Green Market on Thursdays, Jim at the Stockbridge market on Fridays, Helen at the Ann Arbor market on Saturdays, Jim again at the Chelsea market on Saturdays, and Brianna at the Howell market on Sundays! Whew! Come see us! Come meet the crew! Come get some lovingly grown produce!

Jim and The Lake Dividers

Vegetables!
Kale (limited)
Micro Greens- Spicy mix
Micro greens- Mild mix
Potatoes: delicious buttery gold ones and fingerlings!
Spinach!! (limited)
Transplants! Herbs, Kale, Chard, Squash and Tomatoes!




*We send this email out before harvest, and although we do our very best to make accurate predictions, crops and quantities found at market may vary. 
Markets, always rain or shine!

Wednesday: Ann Arbor
The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm and January thru April from 8 am to 3 pm.

Thursday: Jackson
The Jackson Green Market at Allegiance Health is located at East Michigan Avenue and Waterloo Street. It runs from May through October 9 am to 2 pm

Friday: Stockbridge
The Stockbridge Open Air Market is located on the square in downtown Stockbridge. It runs from May thru October from 4 pm to 7 pm

Saturday: Ann Arbor and Chelsea
The Ann Arbor Market is located in the Kerrytown District at 315 Detroit St, Ann Arbor, MI. The market runs from May thru December, 7 am to 3 pm and January thru April from 8 am to 3 pm.

The Chelsea Farmers' Market is located in the lower library lot along Park St. It runs May thru October from 8 am to 1 pm.

Sunday: Howell
The Howell Farmers' market can be found in the heart of Howell at State st and Clinton st, adjacent to the historic Livingston County Courthouse. It runs May thru October, 9 am to 2 pm.