Heart of the Season

As you can see, the posts are getting farther and fewer apart as mid-summer creeps up on us and we find ourselves in the heart of the season. All is well on the farm. We are in the midst of planting and starting all the fall and winter crops and we haven’t even begun harvesting the summer crops! It seems strange to be thinking about eating winter cabbage in February when it is still July, but these crops get planted from now through August in order to have vegetables in October through February.

We recently gave a tour to 20 interns from various farms in southern Oregon as part of Rogue Farm Corps, an educational program for beginning farmers. We gave a farm tour as well as talked about poultry production & CSAs. It was fun to talk about the farm and share our experiences with budding farmers, something we really enjoy doing, but don’t have as much time for as we’d like. I have uploaded some pictures from the tour. They were taken by Khaliqa Rogmans.

Josh giving a tour of the greenhouse.

A nice view of our potato patch in the foreground, the tour and the farm.

Yes, we’re still here

The summer solstice has come and gone and most all of the summer crops made it into the ground except for a few more beds of melons and squash to go in Wednesday. I know, I know. We are late on planting as usual. Why the lateness? A big theme for us lately (and well this entire season so far) has been figuring out our new four-acre scale with the increased labor and water demands. And managing two properties has got Josh running in circles (literally, since we don’t have a timer on the irrigation system at the leased field). Needless to say, we’re tired and hanging in there and trying to find time for our family and relaxation. The heart of the season is upon us and we’re running to keep up with everything that needs to be done. The support from the community is what keeps us going! Thank you!

We are in a bit of a produce lull while we wait for summer veggies to mature like zucchini, tomatoes, potatoes, beans and basil, but they are just around the corner if the weather would stay warm. We are coming to the end of our small plantings of broccoli and cabbages and hopefully, it will make for a seamless transition. I know you can only eat so much kale.

Our crew planted out a huge number of transplants this past week including popcorn (our little farm experiment), peppers, eggplant and sunflowers. Plants are in a bit of shock, but should pull out of it soon. Our next big task this week is taking out all the weeds that are threatening a major beet, basil and carrot planting. Watch out weeds. Here we come.

We’re having a light market booth this week between some labor changes and our produce lull, but we will still be there with lots of green abundance, so come out and see us. Happy summertime!

Hailstorm

We had a pretty severe hailstorm come through the farm last Tuesday afternoon. None of us were there for the storm even — some had a day off and a few were coming back from market. A neighbor and CSA member came by to tell us about it. We went down to the field and were pretty devastated by the damage. We had 8 beautiful beds of spinach ready to go to wholesale markets, farmers’ markets, the CSA and the Siskiyou CSA. All of it looked like it had gone through a blender. We lost all of our chard, head lettuce, and salad mix along with kale. Most of this will grow back, of course. We spent the next day picking down all the chard, knife cutting the salad greens and spinach and pulling off bad leaves from the kale. We should be back in business with our greens again in another week, but needless to say, we had a pretty hard week recovering from the damage and assessing the economic loss.

On Saturday, Josh spent most of the day on the tractor at the leased two acres preparing the rest of the blocks for planting. Things are doing so well there! We are amazed at the difference in growth in plants between our two properties. The leased acreage down on Hwy 238 gets full sun exposure for 12 hours or more per day. Plants love it. And, our water is very  secure there and the soil is beautiful. Beans are looking good and growing quickly as well as basil, carrots, beets, parsnips, winter squash, pumpkins, cucumbers and summer squash. Wow! It really does feel like the growing season is kicking in a bit despite the freak hail last week. Our leased property did not get hit by the hail, which was a relief. Our tomatoes are all under cover so those faired well too. It was really the mature, tender greens that took the worst beating. But, diversity is stability and we still have a lot of produce to bring to markets and CSA and our spirits are back up after working through the losses. We’ve had a tough spring, but the solstice is approaching and we’re back on track. Here are some pictures of the aftermath of the storm as well as some other updates.

Our beautiful spinach hammered by hail.

Sad hailed on chard.

Happy pastured chickens

Everett, Cameron & Melissa going to market bright and early.

Part of our home field before the hailstorm.

Our sweet little farm boy observing the farm.