It's been another long week on the farm. Weeding, seeding, irrigating, cultivating, mowing... the list could go on. Moving into this week, I thought that our weeding progress would have been the obvious highlight. Truly, we are breathing a momentary sigh of relief as we turn the tide in the on going struggle to control the weed population in this first critical year of production. Satisfying as the results have been, they've have to play second fiddle to some news that arrived in the mailbox this week. We have just been preapproved for NRCS assistance! 
The NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) is an organization that provides both technical and financial assistance to farmers and landowners. They work together with farmers to develop responsible land management plans, and through financial assistance they help turn those plans into reality. We initially contacted them back in the winter, at a time when our schedules were more flexible and our minds were focused on the future rather than the present. At that time an agent came to visit our farm and assess our situation. Since then, we've had periodic emails back and forth with him, slowly moving the process closer to completion. As the season marched forward though, our focus shifted, as it seasonally does, from forwarding long term plans to surviving the day to day urgency of the weekly farming cycle: weed, plant, harvest, seed, market, weed, harvest, markets, sleep, repeat. Now that we're officially into the market cycle routine, our to do list for the week adheres to a field oriented template. Seeing an item on our list like "respond to NRCS agent" looks out of place, decorative almost, disconnected from what it represents. But, it's on the list, so it gets done.
With our notice of preapproval in our hands, all those curious, decorative "to do" items suddenly reconnect to the tangible results that we had hoped for! Our plan includes assistance with cover cropping, planting a wind break along our borders, brush clearing and cost sharing for a NEW HOOP HOUSE! This assistance is going to keep us moving forward in the right direction in the coming years. I better wrap this up right here, as the day to day urgency of the week is trying to pull me away from my desk. Hope you all had a great week too, and we hope to see you at market!

Fresh from the field:

Arugula
Beet Greens
Beets
Cabbage leaves
Cucumbers
Swiss Chard
Kale
Mustard- Spicy like wasabi
Mizuna
Salad Mix
Tatsoi
Garlic Scapes
Kohlrabi- Like a juicy vegetable apple. Try it raw with a little salt
Napa cabbage
Scallions (limited)
Summer squash
 
*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. ​

​What has happened since we wrote last? Oh man, I barely know! This is the time of year that life flies by in a blur. I only see snap shots or a ribbon of colors. It is hard to know what to do when the list gets this long. I do know one thing though, it rained TWICE! It is like someone suddenly started doing part of my job! We have still had to run the irrigation a touch here and there to tide us over, but we have been gifted with a glimpse of regular rain, and everyone- people, plants, and animals- love it. 
 
On that long list there are two major competing tasks: planting and weeding. In order to have vegetables constantly ready for harvest, we have to be constantly planting, especially for those crops like lettuce, beans, and such, that have a shorter harvest window. We could invest all of our energy in planting along, yet, if we just leave our vegetables out in the world to fend for themselves they will be consumed by weeds! 
 
When I asked Jim, "Should we plant or weed?" he said "Spend some time cultivating a  relationship with the crops you have!" I laughed and then we all put our shoulder into it.We have been weeding for what feels like all eternity. Our weeding yoga is strong and our weeding muscles buffed. We can hold fifty pounds pinched between a thumb and forefinger, we can squat for hours, we float down rows of vegetables neatly picked clean of weeds. While this is the fantasy of a woman weeding too long (what is the mind to do during endless hours?), the beds that we have cleaned up are looking crisp and free. We haven't finished the onions like I wishfully predicted last week. Instead we skipped around to rescue some of the other crops. We pulled weeds from the sweet potatoes, which are putting on growth, from the peppers, flowers, carrots, some brassica greens and some basil. We freed up a little of our Swiss chard and gave the cucumbers and squash a little breathing room. And even though the weeding is endless, we crammed a little planting in there too, tucking the second round of squash,cukes, melon, and watermelon into the earth. And then, back to the million weed challenge! 
 
It is clear that all of our hard work is paying off, with vegetables becoming harvest ready on the regular. Why just this week the Napa cabbage came in. I am going to try my first batch of Kimchi. I have never made it before and am very excited. I am using this recipe, but of course, the recipe will be modified match the ingredients on hand. But the main point is that it will have our delightful cabbage in it, shredded and fermented. 
 
I have been hearing more and more that fermented foods are wonderful for you. A quick google tells me that fermented foods do the following: add probiotics to your diet, improving digestion among other things; help the body absorb food better by helping to balance the bacteria and enzymes in the gut; are easy to make; and offer a fast and easy way to preserve food. I love the invigorating bubble and flavor of fermented foods and am excited to start trying it out. 
 
Fermentation takes a bit though, and if you don't have time to wait, you can try our quick Kimchi recipe: 
 
Quick Kimchi

Ingredients:
          3 Cups shredded Napa Cabbage
1 tablespoon of sriracha
3 tablespoons of rice vinegar
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
½ to 1 teaspoon of salt
 
All you need to do for this recipe is mix all the ingredients together and place the mixture in the fridge over night. The next day it’s ready to eat!
 
You could also add ginger, scallions, radishes and pepper flakes to suit your tastes!
 
And a nature note: We are discovering so many types of ants in our field. There were three, distinctly different types withing a five foot span in one onion bed. I really would like to take the time to identify them and learn more about them but in general, we like ants. They eat pests- larval stages of flies, aphids, and other insects that would love to enjoy our produce. I like them less, when after I rudely disturb their home, they attack me. Incidentally, it also causes me to like them more. How admirable to be willing to attack me, a giant that is approximately thirteen and a half million times its size, in order to defend the colony. And I am just bumbling along, weeding onions.
 
Look for us at market!
 
 
 
Produce showcase: Salad Mix!
Four flavorful kinds of lettuce, mixed and pre-rinsed. It keeps for at least a week in the fridge, if you can stop yourself from eating it! 

Fresh from the field:

Greens galore!
 
Arugula
Beet Greens
Bok Choi- limited
Swiss Chard
Kale
Mustard- Spicy like wasabi
Mizuna
Salad Mix
Tatsoi- limited

Other Delights:
 
Beets
Cilantro- for limited time only
Garlic Scapes- Try garlic scape pesto!
Kohlrabi- Like a juicy vegetable apple. Try it raw with a little salt
Napa cabbage- check out our quick kimchi recipe. Or if you have more patience, try the real deal. Fermented foods are so good for you.
Radishes
Summer squash- It is just getting started so it will be limited.
Coming soon...

Cucumbers

​Like the subject says, we are attending all markets now! Next one coming up, Ann Arbor tomorrow! It will be our first time at the Wednesday market and if the folks are anything like the crowds at our other markets, we are bound for a great time.

Back at the farm, the balancing act continues. Although we haven't gotten enough rain to alleviate the irrigation grind, we did get a 0.04 inch splash on Friday, which was enough to germinate our buckwheat cover crop. The primary purpose of a cover crop is to improve overall soil health as well as manage weeds and pests. We seeded buckwheat in the fields that we will be planting during July, August, and September to prevent erosion, suppress weeds, and add organic matter until we are ready to plant there. Buckwheat is particularly competitive, with its broad leaves and vigorous growth so it is a great cover crop to use in a weedy field like ours. It is also wonderful because beneficial insects that consume pests like aphids and mites love its nectar producing blossoms. We are hoping to use buckwheat to deplete our Canada Thistle hoard but for now, it is preparing the ground for all of our fall eating.

Regardless of the weather, we are getting a lot done out here in the heat! Our onions are getting weeded, bit by bit. We still have a ways to go but we think we will be done by the end of the week. We laid down ground cloth to plant our final tomato, eggplant, and peppers into. We hilled the potatoes again! They are looking pro and are even flowering, indicating the first potatoes are forming under the soil. And, although this isn't something we did, the first squash and cucumbers are manifesting on the plants. 

All good things heading our way! Come out and get some goodies at market this week! 

All the best,

Helen & Jim plus the Lake Divide Farm Crew

​It was wonderful to meet all of you at market this past weekend. From here on out, expect to find us at all our markets every week. 

There hasn't been appreciable rainfall at the farm for 15 days. That is a long time for our vegetable crops that prefer 1.5" of rain per week in gentle conditions. Add to that the wind, sunny days, and higher day time temperatures, and you know our plants are hurting for some H2O. The rain forecast doesn't look promising either, with no real rain on the calendar for another 15 (please let that forecast be wrong). While we are expecting just over a tenth of an inch tomorrow, that is far from the soaking rain we need to get back to neutral. To all that I say "Thank goodness for irrigation!" Thank goodness, thank goodness, and thank our CSA members. 


This is a financially tight time of year on many vegetable farms, especially in a cold, wet spring like we had. It is years like this that members participating in community supported agriculture programs can feel really proud. Much of the money that was made during the the heavy production times of the previous year has been spent on seeds, field supplies, maintenance, and labor and the remainder is being stretched to meet the beginning of the income this season. Those CSA members are bridging the gap for farms across the country and they should feel good about that.

Because we are getting established this year, the soup is particularly thin and without our CSA members we would not have the necessary irrigation equipment that we need right now, right now. Thank you for taking a chance on us. Being a new farm, we know you've never really seen our stuff, and we appreciate the vote of confidence. So, despite the dusty conditions, our crops are thriving. The tomatoes in the hoop house are growing by the foot, the salad mix is puffed out like popcorn, and the beet tops are reaching for the sky. Although we don't have a full veggie line up this week, the vegetable armada growing in numbers. 

We are also raising an air-fleet this season. So many bird babies! We the ducklings booked it before we could take a peek, we watched/are watching the redwings fledge, we are waiting for the robins in the potatoes to hatch, and there two young killdeer roaming the field, guarded by their persistent parents. All these birds (along with other wildlife-toads, snakes, insects et al.) are living in our fields and it got me thinking about our effect on them. We mow, plow, disc, till, all of that is very disruptive yet those actions aren't something we can stop if we want to keep producing food at scale. We also have a load of field work coming up if we want to get our fields cover cropped and ready for next season. We have been waiting to mow because of the baby birds, but how long should we wait? 

Fortunately, there are lots of researched agricultural practices for wildlife conservation and thanks to the internet, all I had to do was search online to find suggestions. I was pleased to find that we are already taking a few of the suggested actions such mowing from the inner field toward the edge, leaving safe spaces, and delaying mowing. And I was relieved to find that I can begin field prep for our cover crops at a reasonable date (July 15th) that I can put on my calendar.

I am also coordinating with my mom, Sally, who has participated with the Audubon Society performing field surveys of bird populations. She is going to identify the birds present in our field. This will enable us to learn more about the patterns and timings our birds lives (life history) and allow us to offer them a safer and more complete habitat that they can successfully complete their life cycles in.