​I'm afraid that this week there's no time to rhyme. The days are getting noticeably shorter now (by an hour and half so far), but our work load remains constant, if not expanding. On the plus side, we've finally justified the purchase of rechargeable batteries for our headlamps haha. The Fall greens are ramping up, this week we'll have our newest green, Yukina Savoy, at market. It's a relative of Tatsoi and Bok Choi. It is an excellent salad green, and a pleasantly toned down flavor from its cousins. Arugula, salad mix, radishes, kale and swiss chard should be back on the menu very soon. Some next week, and some the week after.
Helen has been plowing the field outside of our production fences in preparation of our largest cover crop planting of all time! It's taking a while, as we need to sneak this project in in-between harvesting, markets and cultivating... and the numerous tractor repairs that have presented themselves from the increased usage. Once its completed though, it will be a huge boon to our soil health and future plantings. I better wrap up for now, but here's a few extra bullets to let you know what we've been up to this week.

• Repaired our main tractor, twice, or is it thrice? 
• Mowed the field outside the fence a second time
• Plowed a large section of the same area, more to come
• Greenhouse seeding is up to date
• The new shipping container/walk-in cooler is complete. Plastic curtains now divide 2 climate zones, and the coolbot I mentioned previously is now installed as well. Its been making our lives a lot easier.
• Working our way through weeding the new Fall crops

That's it for this guys! Hope to see you at the markets this weekend. 

P.S. Helen i going to have to leave the Ann Arbor Wednesday Market at 2:00pm this week. She's got a hot date with the plow ;) Sorry for the inconvenience, we desperately need to get the field ready for cover crop seeding. 


TOMATO SALE CONTINUES!

12 pounds of delicious, pre-selected red tomatoes for just $20

5+ pounds of tomatoes of your choice $2.50 per pound
10+ pounds of tomatoes of your choice $2.00 per pound

3 pints of Cherry Tomatoes for only $8

Fresh from the field

Beans
Beet bunches!
Carrots by the pound!
Cabbage!
Eggplant! (limited)
Flowers
Potatoes
Fingerling Potatoes
Peppers
Shishito peppers!
Ground Cherries!
Dill flowers!
Summer squash
Garlic
Tomatoes- lots of heirlooms
Cherry Tomatoes
Yukina Savoy! delicious new green!

*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. 
All the best!
Helen, Jim, Exie the dog, and the Lake Divide Farm Crew!
Markets, always rain or shine!
(we begin attending on dates listed above)

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 from 7 am to 3 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 Dexter
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 Dexter Farmers' Market is located in lovely downtown Dexter, at 3233 Alpine St, Dexter, MI. The market 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.

​Harvesting and markets leaves little time for cultivation
but our field needs cover crops to enhance plant maturation
The harder we work the more we crave relaxation
rest will come soon, but not before more subluxations

As tradition dictates, I counter your farm poem
With one of my own, I think you see where I'm goin'
Fix the seals on the tractor
hurry BACK to the chiropractor

Finish the new cooler as soon as you can
wait, never mind that, now we've got a new plan
The truck needs front brakes,
You're a surveyor no longer
trade in your oak stakes, there's a fresh field to conquer
Conjure new skills, now your life is on the line
better wrap this up, I'm almost out of time 

Helen,
don't you know better than to engage me in rhyme? 

The days are getting shorter, while our lists are getting longer
please tell the sun it's okay to saunter
Every week we survive, brings us closes to safety
pay the bills on time or incur dreaded late fees 
Life is far from routine, certainly that you can count on
it's a simple rhyme scheme,
and it's one I can't seem to dismount from
unless I force it to end, because there's more work to do
Jim, just click send, that being said
now I'm through

Hope to see you all at market!

TOMATO SALE CONTINUES!

12 pounds of delicious, pre-selected red tomatoes for just $20

5+ pounds of tomatoes of your choice $2.50 per pound
10+ pounds of tomatoes of your choice $2.00 per pound

3 pints of Cherry Tomatoes for only $8

Fresh from the field

Beans
Beet bunches!
Carrots by the pound!
Cabbage!
Eggplant! (limited)
Flowers
Potatoes
Fingerling Potatoes
Peppers
Shishito peppers!
Ground Cherries!
Dill flowers!
Cucumbers (limited)
Kale
Summer squash
Garlic
Whipper Radishes
Tomatoes- lots of heirlooms
Cherry Tomatoes
Melon

*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. 
All the best!
Helen, Jim, Exie the dog, and the Lake Divide Farm Crew!
Markets, always rain or shine!
(we begin attending on dates listed above)

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 from 7 am to 3 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 Dexter
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 Dexter Farmers' Market is located in lovely downtown Dexter, at 3233 Alpine St, Dexter, MI. The market 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 will keep this short and sweet, 
there is so much to eat in the August heat.
Tomatoes of all shapes and sizes
plus crunchy peppers and other surprises.
Like the pineapple tasting ground cherry,
And heirloom melon so good they are scary.
Potatoes and flowers, the squash and the beet,

We've a diverse selection to make any meal complete
Come out to market, if for no other reason,
than to enjoy the bounty of our first Michigan season.

I know, I am a dork.


There is so much to report that there is almost nothing to report. I felt like we got caught up last week and now I feel like we are slipping behind. The timing of the farm is dynamic and only very loosely tied to the regimented schedule we pretend to follow, and only very mildly in our control. Despite my feelings, I think we are floating along at a quick clip, doing the work an seeing it thread through time producing abundance.

And here is a change up: it rained. This is the first time it has rained any significant amount for the month of August. Almost three quarters of an inch! And it wasn't a hammering onslaught, but a gentle shower. We are grateful.

We are also grateful for the tidal wave of tomatoes we are experiencing. It is a great time of year to put food by. In that spirit: TOMATO SALE!

12 pounds of delicious, pre-selected red tomatoes for just $20

5+ pounds of tomatoes of your choice $2.50 per pound
10+ pounds of tomatoes of your choice $2.00 per pound

3 pints of Cherry Tomatoes for only $8

Reminder, Sunday, Howell market is having Melonfest. We will be there, but not even close to our usual spot, so please look for the bright yellow stripe on our market sign.

Fresh from the field

Beans
Beet Greens
Beet bunches! (they're back!)
Beets by the pound
Eggplant! (limited)
Flowers
Potatoes
Fingerling Potatoes
Peppers (limited)
Shishito peppers!
Ground Cherries!
Dill flowers!
Cilantro
Cucumbers (limited)
Swiss Chard (limited)
Kale
Salad Mix
Summer squash
Sunflowers
Garlic
Whipper Radishes
Tomatoes- lots of heirlooms
Cherry Tomatoes
Melon

*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. 
All the best!
Helen, Jim, Exie the dog, and the Lake Divide Farm Crew!
Markets, always rain or shine!
(we begin attending on dates listed above)

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 from 7 am to 3 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 Dexter
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 Dexter Farmers' Market is located in lovely downtown Dexter, at 3233 Alpine St, Dexter, MI. The market 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.

Helen here! This is the first chance I have gotten to sit and think. It is a busy time of year for any vegetable farm and ours is no different. We have all the irons in the fire! Within the last two weeks we have direct seeded an abundance of crops for the fall, including favorites like spinach (hopefully it germinates well), salad mix, and arugula, along with delectable roots like sweet turnips, carrots (attempt four, with attempts 2 and 3 enroute to your bellies soon, but not yet) and a flavorful variety of radishes. We planted our fall cabbage, kale, and chard. And more and more. 

We weeded, we got all our garlic out of the field (small this year, but pungent), we hilled the ginger, and we kept up with harvesting. We are finally starting to see an abundance of crops like tomatoes and cantaloupe, meanwhile, the peppers and eggplant are just coming onto the menu.

And while we keep up with this, we are always looking to the future. This is the time of year that fall plans need to be firmed up and goals for winter production need to be decided. Although it feels like summer only just hit shore, the days are already getting shorter, meaning less daylight hours for our vegetables. By the time November hits, plant growth slows to a crawl so we rely on careful planning. Our goal is to get those fall crops seeded and planted before October rounds the bend. So we scheme. 

We are also solidifying our garlic plans. This year, sadly, we will not be using our own saved seed, so we have to source and purchase it. Fortunately for us, there are a lot of awesome garlic farms to choose from! We are planning to plant a quarter acre, and that ground needs to start being prepared now. Once the sparrows and blackbirds were done nesting, we mowed down the scraggly grasses and plowed them under. Next step, we will disc the site and plant a cover crop of Sudan grass to hold the soil and nutrients in place until we plant in November.  

Along with the ground prep for the fall, we are prepping the land to be planted next year. This will decrease the weed pressure next year (although it will be far from snuffed) and, among other benefits, increase the workability of the soil in early spring. This prep follows the same sequence as the fall prep: mow, plow, disc, cover crop (yet to be selected), but at a much larger scale. Between the farm roads, buffer zones, and the fields, the acreage edges towards 10. We won't be planting all of that, but it is wild to think that we went from working with 4 tillable acres last year, to all this land now. Which brings me to more whimsical farm thoughts.

What a great responsibility and honor it is to work with this land and to know that in my lifetime, I will get to know the plant and creature community that lives here. And how the water moves through it. And where the wind comes from. And where the big rocks are. I have been thinking about how this farm, left for only a few years, has returned to wild so enthusiastically, and how that is something I really want to maintain. Timing mowing for the birds is great, but how can we make wild spaces within our activities so it won't be a matter of habitual eviction. And how can we make spaces for the wild things that I don't even know are there. 

One thing I know will help are perennial areas that are not planted every year. That has got me thinking about fruit trees, asparagus, berries, herbs, and flowers. I am so looking forward to designing a land where we can all work together and eat as much fruit as we want. No plans yet, but we certainly have some hills that I don't want to work every year, for the safety of both the soil and myself. And there are some wet spots that would definitely best be left to themselves. For now, I will just watch and listen. Oh yeah, and grow vegetables in the other spots.

It also got me thinking, and this is a short and sweet 5 am drive to market revelation, that all the organisms in our ecosystem are important. The revelation comes not in the acknowledgement of their importance but in thinking about explaining why. I believe that they have intrinsic value and that they don't have to offer something to humankind to earn the title of importance. But slathered on top of that, our ecosystem is in dynamic and elaborate balance, and all the parts are important. I would not take apart a machine that I didn't fully understand and upon putting it back together, decide which parts could be eliminated. And so, assuming none of us fully understand the complexity of our ecosystem, none of us should casually decide the importance of one piece or another in our gigantic, organic machine.

And to close it out, all the baby birds aren't gone! I came across some adorable barn swallow babies still in the nest. Good thing I don't have to mow the ceiling!


Hope to see you all at market!


Fresh from the field

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

*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. ​

Well, we made it through all 172 days of July. Decoupling from this temporal variation we have arrived more or less intact in August, a month that mercifully spans a meager 124 days, a real cakewalk compared to July. We spent the past month adjusting to most of the major changes that occur to our routine in the height of summer. Our bodies have strengthened to withstand carrying heavy crates of squash, cucumbers and melon. Our Friday nights have switched from bagging greens to making flower bouquets. Rotating the irrigation is now a daily concern, fall behind and something dies. Even though the new routine is starting to feel manageable, it’s still encumbered by the remnants of July’s task list. The team has been working extra hard the past couple weeks to help us get caught up with daily pressures of cultivating, planting, bed prep, irrigation, and as a result we’re starting to tackle some of the projects that July kept sliding down last month’s priority list.
This week we began construction of our new dual zone walk-in cooler. A couple years ago Helen and I purchased a 40 ft long insulted shipping container when we still lived in NJ with the intention of converting it into a produce cooler. With our westward move looming we decided to hold off on the project, it did at least get utilized for its intended purpose when we packed up our NJ farm (Whistling Wolf Farm). During that eventful maneuver, it acquired the nickname “Farm-in-a-box”. It fit our greenhouses, 8x10 walk-in cooler, wash station, field supplies etc. It’s got some history and some literal mileage. Let’s get back to cooler talk: The container actually has a refrigerator unit built into it, but it requires a business-crippling amount of electricity, so we’re using our own instead. We purchased a 24,000 btu window AC unit which will receive an override chip called a coolbot. The window AC unit will be permanently mounted on the sidewall of the container and with the overdrive chip it will be more than enough to keep our produce and cut flowers happy. This week we took the first step in the project by cutting the hole in the container wall to receive the AC unit… IT WAS FUN! As soon as we finished this, the farm promptly took us off the job so we could tend some time sensitive flame weeding and direct seeding. Through the week we’ll keep pushing this boulder up the hill with whatever time the farm will let us have.
Back in the field, the team has been planting out the rest of the ginger and the new cabbage. We’ve almost emptied the greenhouse at this point! Weeding is… being appropriated dispensed, but as far as weeding goes, that’s a pretty positive statement. Harvesting and market prep is becoming a larger production with each passing week. It’s been hot long days for a while now, and we’re all feeling it, but it’s working. This whole crazy farm plan is working. Great job team! Hey all, I better cut it off there. Exie the dog just started staring out the window, which typically means Helen is about to return from market… and she’s here. Hope to see you all at the markets this week.  
P.S. My folks are visiting from NJ this week (which of course means that they’ve been working all week, it’s a farm after all), and I want to send them a special thank you for all their hard work. A lot of tasks that I had to give up on are now completed. Thank you.


Fresh from the field

Beans
Beet Greens
Beets by the pound
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
Summer squash
Garlic-fresh
Cilantro!
Whipper Radishes
Tomatoes
Cherry Tomatoes
Melon!

*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. ​