Buckwheat in full swing! This cover crop is protecting our future Fall planting for us.
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.
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.
The secret frog that guards our baby ginger
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