This time of year I am always getting asked, “So are you about done at the farm?” or “Everything is pretty much done, right?” Well people, I will tell you what I tell them. It feels like we are just starting and getting cranked up for a whirlwind of extreme harvest. I feel like this big end of the season push is what I have been training for physically all season.

Yesterday began the first week of our transition into what I call “the end of season push”. We are now able to use a whole day’s worth of time dedicated to harvesting and packing summer shares towards filling up our root cellar.

With the predicted weather, we have decided this week that we are going to start with the potatoes. Our first planting looked great and was harvested as needed for shares and our wholesale orders. As we began unearthing our second planting we started crunching the numbers. We are predicting 20 tons of potatoes this year!

Janaki has charged this year’s staff with the challenge of harvesting 20 ton of potatoes this week! We worked out all the glitches in the new machinery yesterday and we are ready to accept this challenge.

Stay tuned as I post a photo journal of our week out in the field and keep you updated with our endeavor.

For the crew,

Jeanne

In the peak of the season we find ourselves extremely busy. Here is a look at what is happening at the farm right now.

Our greenhouse tomatoes are just beginning to ripen.

Greenhouse cucumbers are as lush as ever!

Basil is starting to mature.

The first planting of potatoes are in blossom and flourishing.

The leeks are ready to be hilled and this year's garlic is very promising.

The fifth and sixth planting of Brassica.

The squash are starting to vine out and blossom.

As always we hope this finds you all well and stay tuned for more updates as the farm season progresses.

For the farm crew,
Jeanne

Hello everyone,

I’m sorry it took us so long to update our blog… you know how summer can get. Between all the weeding that needs to get done, the swift increase in harvests, and with all the other things that summer entails, we haven’t been the best communicators lately. Shorter updates are posted more often at facebook.com/pages/Food-Farm/86869408561 for those who are interested.

When I saw the tomatoes starting to ripen this week I began to get the sense that we are about to enter the height of the season.  The delivery boxes are loaded and then I realized we are half way done with our summer share deliveries! Now that it is halfway through the season, I guess it is a good time to reflect and I guess it also means some of us on the farm should start to consider what we will be doing over the winter. Eeek!

This year’s crops have been a spin of the roulette being so variable in production. We had a poor stand of peas, and the tomatoes are abundant, but are ripening late this year. The zucchini are behind schedule and the squash are slow growing. We have also lost a lot of our storage potatoes.

On the flip side, as I am sure a lot of you may have noticed, the broccoli has been fantastic, abundant, and large! The cauliflower has been following right along. The first planting of potaoes are large and we’ll start sending them soon. The peppers are moving right along and the carrots are promising. I am definitely not seeing as much asters yellow as last year.

We are all excited to start to harvest our onions. Our early variety should be in our delivery shares soon and our storage crop has about another 3 weeks until harvest. The garlic should be coming out of the ground to cure soon. John pulled a couple last night to check on their progress and they look and smell fantastic!

While weeding and thinning last night I just had to take a moment to look behind me. I realized sometimes we only see the weeds in front of us and as you’re weeding, all you see is all of the millions of weeds in front of you that still need to be weeded, and you feel like a) it’ll never end and b) that you haven’t made much progress.

However, if you look behind you, you see all that you’ve done so far and how far you have come. It is quite impressive.

This season has been kind of like that for me. During the farming season there is always going to be weeds in front of us and there will always be more to do. It can be completely overwhelming, but sometimes all it takes is just a moment to glance back from time to time,  to realize how far we’ve come. Thank you for all your support.

I really do enjoy this time of year as the foliage looks so fresh and full of promise!  I always find it far easier to appreciate the early stages of plant development during Spring. The beauty of the foliage is so obvious at this time of the year; I am reeling in amazement at how differently things can look so quickly!

It is truly astounding how the greenhouses can feel empty one moment and overwhelmingly full the next. The permanent greenhouse is loaded with a few different types of lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, beets, and spinach.

The tomato tunnel is also beginning to fill out with both the first and second planting of tomatoes in the ground. The third and last planting of greenhouse tomatoes should be in by early next week.

Our transplant greenhouse is pretty much completely full with all of our pepper, outside tomato, leek, fourth and fifth planting of brassica, and newly germinated squash plants.

 John thought it wouldn’t hurt to mention that there should be roughly 100 extra greenhouse tomato plants for sale if anybody is looking to fill out their own greenhouse with our choice variety that is bred for prolific production and does very well in our climate.

Since the snow has melted, we have been able to work the ground and as of now have three plantings of brassica in and under row cover in the field. In other fields we have early potatoes, as well as onions, peas, and the first planting of carrots and kale.

With the cold weather, rain, and clouds, the plants are small and could definitely use some more sunshine. Since we’ve been unable to “get in the field” there has been time to work on more projects! One of them has been converting one of the tractors to electric. By taking off the motor we are taking another step in becoming a more sustainable farm and putting the solar panels’ energy to good use.

The chickens are braving the weather and to my excitement their replacements as well as this season’s meat birds have arrived!

So, all we need now is warm weather, a nice breeze, lots of sunshine, and moderate rainfall and the season should be incredible.

For the farm crew,

Jeanne