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TOMATOES drops microphone

7/26/2017

Tomatoes are here, and the day is saved

Tomatoes. *drops microphone*

Fresh from the field

Beans
Beet Greens
Beets by the pound
Fennel!
Flowers
Personal Cabbage (pint sized and delicious)
New Potatoes!
New Fingerling Potatoes (new lower price)!
Cucumbers
Swiss Chard
Kale
Salad Mix
Kohlrabi- Like a juicy vegetable apple. Try it raw with a little salt
Napa cabbage
Summer squash
Ginger transplants
Garlic-fresh
Head Lettuce
Cilantro
Whipper Radishes!
Tomatoes
Cherry 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.

Dropped microphone

Shade cloth going up on the greenhouse. Shields up!

Garlic harvest is underway

Carrots are weeded and on there way

Light as a feather fit for a bird

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Third Week of July

7/19/2017

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Disking in the cover crop to prepare for the next planting

It's the third week of July and we finally have a full staff. We lucked out again, and hired one more person this week. Now that our team has expanded we're revisiting some of the decisions we were forced to make the past few weeks and reassessing them. With more people on board we're weeding plantings that we had just about given up on, it feels good. Now that there's a reasonable hope of catching up on things around here, we're working that much harder to obtain the results that we previously thought impossible. The Dill is weeded, so is the next planting of Salad mix, same for the carrots and beets. Having learned from my mistake the other week, I'm going to try to refrain from saying anything that may jinx us (Ref: the truck incident of 2017). Without risking too much, I will say that we're feeling cautiously optimistic! I need to keep the email brief this week, as we're happily busy playing catch up this week. So to conserve time, here's some bullets from the past week.

I had a sudden medical issue this past week that kept us from attending the Dexter Farmers Market. The matter was resolved, but only after finally discovering 10 on the pain scale. I'm healing up and will be at Dexter this week. My apologies to all of our customers at Dexter, we NEVER miss a market lightly. Looking forward to seeing all of you this week!
The cover crop just got mowed and disked in preparation for the next planting
We're slowly moving forward with our plan to turn our 40ft shipping container into a walk-in cooler
Did some more work on our truck yesterday and seems we resolved a problem with ABS system. It always much less stressful doing planed repairs.
Tomatoes are happening. They're not in quantities large enough to go to market yet, but usually Helen only has one week in the season of contested tomato consumption ;)

Have a great week! Hope to see you all at the markets!

Fresh from the field

Beans!
Beet Greens
Beets
Cabbage leaves
Dill flowers!
Flowers
Personal Cabbage (pint sized and delicious)
New Potatoes!
Cucumbers
Swiss Chard
Kale
Salad Mix
Kohlrabi- Like a juicy vegetable apple. Try it raw with a little salt
Napa cabbage
Scallions
Summer squash
Ginger 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.

One last pic before we mow down the buckwheat

Uptown field in the afternoon

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Reinforcements have arrived!

7/12/2017

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The sunflowers have arrived!

It has been a long week since last we spoke, but as the title of this email suggests, it looks like more manageable times are on the way. I suppose the best place to start this weeks update would be last Wednesday, following the completion of last weeks hastily written (and embarrassingly unedited) email. As I stated last week, we have been looking for new people to work with us here on the farm. It's been clear for a little bit now that we would not survive July without more help. Last Wednesday made that crystal clear for us. You see, we try to reserve Wednesday evening as a quiet time, a time for light duty work followed by a proper meal and a long restorative shower, maybe even a few laughs around an impromptu bon fire before turning in for the night. However, this past Wednesday Helen returned from the market (around 4:30pm), stumbled into the house and collapsed on the couch. Aside from being briefly roused during a forced relocation to our bed, Helen slept straight through till Thursday morning. I stayed awake that night, at least until a more appropriate bed time. I stared out at nothing in particular and wondered how much longer we would hold out. In the past, in our only recently concluded "piss and vinegar years", the answer was always the same: we can hold out as long as we need to! That answer always arrived without hesitation, consideration or any other "ation" that might have prevented us from getting where we wanted to go, HERE. It felt good to struggle our way uphill toward our goal of one day owning a farm of our own. This year though, this year is different. Now we ARE here, but we spread ourselves paper thin for the past year and half to pull it off. So, when I asked myself that question this time, I had a very different, more measured answer: This isn't sustainable; we need help as soon as possible. When Helen awoke from her hibernation Thursday morning, we sat and discussed the situation. We resigned ourselves to finding more help as soon as possible and to press through the coming week by bearing in mind that our unsustainable situation was only temporary. Our morning meeting was abruptly concluded when Thursday came knocking at the door. He had his suitcase with him, as always, filled with a predictable slurry of tasks: weeding, cultivating, harvesting. Don't get me wrong, Thursday is welcome in our home, but rarely with enthusiasm, as he tends to overstay his welcome. The day passed over us. It felt regular, like executing a well choreographed routine, the kind that leaves you satisfied every time you perform it without error. Following that routine we checked our email in the afternoon and discovered new applicants had reached out to us! Some of them looking very promising! It felt like the desperation of being understaffed that had gripped us the week before was washing away: Help was on the way. We slept easy that night, ready to embrace our final grueling Friday routine before help arrived. However, it would not be routine.
Friday arrived, the big harvest day. Now, this part is kinda funny... in hindsight. If you read the email last week, you might remember me explaining how farmers dread July, how we sugarcoat problems that occur during all other months of the year by exclaiming "Well, at least this didn't happen in July!" In fact, I even called out the classic "Well, at least the truck didn't break down in July"! I shouldn't have said that

Not what you want to happen on harvest day

So, with 4 markets looming, one of them even occurring that same day, our primary market vehicle had to be taken out of service. An ominous grinding sound resonated through the rear wheel well... in July... on harvest day. Without all the tools and knowledge needed to remedy the problem in the time frame we had, we knew it would be an uphill Friday. I couldn't help but laugh to myself a little about the irony of having just mentioned this potential disaster the week before. It felt as if my big mouth had somehow created this test that we were now faced with. As I educated myself about the problem through a combination of internet research and calls to my mechanically minded brother-in-law, I couldn't help but think there must be some link between success in this repair and success in the working interviews which we had scheduled for the following week. Irrational as that was, it proved to be a powerful motivator: "Fix this truck Jim, and the interviews will go well". It was a tense time trying to complete the harvest while also repairing the truck. Thanks to help from family and friends, we pulled it off. Test passed (turned out to be broken pads on the shoe for the e-brake, in case you were wondering). We finished out Friday night gazing up at the moon, enjoying a cold beer. As the long weekend of markets rushed by us, I took comfort in the baseless fact that I had accepted as being the truth: we passed the test, the interviews will go well. Thankfully, that baseless link turned out to be rather base-ful. We already hired on one of the applicants and are looking forward to a more manageable week to come. Thanks to all of the Lake Divide Farm team for helping us get through Friday, and to friends and family for the tools and knowledge. We're finally HERE, and now, we're a little more sustainable.

Fresh from the field

Arugula
Beet Greens
Beets
Cabbage leaves
Flowers
Personal Cabbage (pint sized and delicious)
Cucumbers
Swiss Chard
Kale
Mustard- Spicy like wasabi
Mizuna
Salad Mix
Kohlrabi- Like a juicy vegetable apple. Try it raw with a little salt
Napa cabbage
Scallions
Summer squash
Ginger transplants!

Awesome bee picture (just for fun)

Flowers are coming into their own

Official tomato teaser pic, they're almost here

Squash is in full swing!

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Preparing for Fall with plants and people

7/5/2017

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Salad Mix in all its glory

It happened. It's July. This is the month we think about all year. We think things like "Well, at least the truck didn't break down in JULY!" or "Well, we can think straight now, but JULY is coming". A lot happens this month, some great things, some exhausting things... a LOT of things. Many crops that we've been tending for months will begin to produce, potatoes, beans, tomatoes to name a few. New Fall fields need to planted, while existing crops will holler for our attention, "pull these weeds!" "Irrigate us!" (vegetables are very noisy this month) Our weekly routine will change so frequently that it would be silly to call any of its iterations a routine. July = Triage, plain and simple. You have to allow some small things to go wrong so that some big things go right. This year though, we're being faced with too many tough calls, more than we should be. It's clear that we need to find more people to work with us. We've been investing time the past two weeks doing phone interviews and work interviews. Inevitably some don't work out, and instead of expanding your ability to complete projects you detract from it by investing available time chasing leads that turn out to be dead ends. Such is July though. If you do know of anyone interested in a position, send em our way! Speaking of investing time... I think this is all the time I am allowed to invest in this weeks email! The celery is yelling pretty loud right now "Stop typing and weed me!" Sorry guys, this is gonna be a short one. Talk to you all in greater length next week! Hope you all had a good July 4th, and we hope to see you at the markets!

Fresh from the field

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

Tomatoes are on their way

Fall plantings are looking good

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TOMATOES drops microphone

Third Week of July

Reinforcements have arrived!

Preparing for Fall with plants and people

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TOMATOES *drops microphone*

Third Week of July

Reinforcements have arrived!

Preparing for Fall with plants and people

Farm News

Archives

Categories

TOMATOES drops microphone