The alarm went off at 4:45 Friday morning…harvest day!

We loaded the coolers and baskets into the quad trailer and zipped on down to the field. First item: Kale. This was our last kale cutting. It’s been a long greens season due to the rainy spring and it isn’t selling very well at the market anymore. Time to dig it up, feed the stalks to the hogs and plant a quick summer buckwheat cover. We load our greens into coolers right in the field so that the heat is removed as quickly as possible. We try to cut them before the sun hits to avoid bitterness and get them in the icy water fast.

Next up was green beans. We had heard from other small farmers that harvesting green beans can be a time consuming process (read: not worth it) but I enjoy the hunt for the slender tender beans. We are growing french rolande, tendergreen and yellow wax varieties. Not enough plants to really sell at the market, however, we are eating them with most meals. I am hoping the yield will increase with the season. Either way, We will need to increase bean production dramatically to make it worth growing next year.

Then came squash. Squash is our biggest producer at the moment and is flowering like crazy. Everyone who has ever grown squash knows how quickly they grow. One minute you are sure you have harvested all of them and the next time you walk by the plants, there are five 2lb zucchinis laughing at you! I am really loving the summer squash. My favorite is a patty pan variety, called “Green Bennings Tint”. Super delicious and a beautiful pale green. Raspberries are starting to come in strong with about 3lbs a week. We are selling some of them wholesale, making jam, and saving *some* for market. They line the fence as you enter our main field and it sure is hard not to sneak a few *every time* we walk by.

Salad Greens this time of year are hit or miss. Last week, we had a decent harvest and this week they barely grew back so we are waiting a week in hopes for some 3” leaves. We also direct seeded and shade clothed a few more beds of lettuces. We would really like to grow salad greens year round. They are our best seller and a good niche market. They are also the crop we have received the most positive feedback about.

Then we stared at the tomato plants for bit. We even found ONE almost ripe Stupice to eat with breakfast. I know, I know…once tomato season starts we will be up to our ears in bushels. I am just so excited for tomatoes! (I prefer to not eat tomatoes out of season and every summer I am so ready for big juicy treats.) I think I was a bit zealous and planted close to 800 plants (18 different varieties). Tomatoes grow well here. I also hope they sell well. Eggplants, peppers, cucumbers, melons, and more strawberries are not far behind.

Our biggest project lately has been cold storage. We wanted to build a 6x8 “cool” room in our garage that we could keep at about 45-50 degrees Fahrenheit. However, this provide to be out of budget. We were hoping to be able to keep the room cool with a regular window air conditioner. Unfortunately, that just doesn’t work. A/C units aren’t built to go that low. There is a coolbot converter unit but that pushed the project into the $1500 range. If you have a couple of grand lying around and are expecting 1000’s of pounds of produce every week- check out this study done by the University of Kentucky, “Low Cost Cold Storage Room for Market Growers.” So instead we will be trying out some various evaporative cooling techniques involving wicking, fans, and burlap. We will keep you posted! In the mean time, good ol’ fashioned refrigerators  are doing the job just fine.

Well we just had another spring soaker, but before the rain I managed to get a bunch of ground work done and begin the regular outdoor plantings.  This spring has been warm, but its been wet.  My field was just barely dry enough, but I new there’d be more rain coming, so I went for it.  I started by mowing and disking the ~4.5 acres of cover crop and spreading lime over everything.  With only a few days for cover crop breakdown, I spread rock phosphate, some azomite, cow manure, and chicken… Read the rest of this article »

I never knew farming would involve so many trips to the hardware store. Our first purchase was a table saw. Matt and I moved down to Penn Valley in the middle of January at the beginning of a 10 day rain storm. Coming from Portland, OR we decided that the joke was on us. Luckily, we had plenty of planning, reading, and painting to do to get our new home ready. The minute the sunshine peeked through the storm clouds, we headed outside for some bare root planting. The property that we are farming on… Read the rest of this article »

The calendar has turned and we are happy to call our straw bale field shed project complete.  Of course, things are never complete, and the interior walls still need to be finished, but the building is winter-ready and is sound and stable.  In addition, we’ve got a 2400’ vegetable field and two orchards planted with cover crop and some additional unplowed field sown with mustard seed, part of our ongoing efforts to amend and improve our soil and improve drainage by breaking through… Read the rest of this article »

That’s a little dramatic, especially for a community that actually likes to watch the grass grow. But yeah. We had some trouble locating OMRI approved gypsum. My dad, who works alongside us, rolled his eyes at this. “Organic calcium? You have got to be kidding.” Peaceful Valley used to carry OMRI-listed gypsum, but the manufacturer no longer packaged it in bags. Our dear friends there special ordered a pallet of the Righteous Powder and we were very grateful. We rented a BCS walk-behind tractor… Read the rest of this article »

Among the things I love about farming is the seasonality.  Though there is much work to do throughout the year on my farm, and I can definitely feel run through the wringer at times, I feel lucky to not be doing the same thing day in and day out. Next week marks the end of our mainseason CSA, and our winter CSA begins the following week.  We will shift from two CSA harvests each week to just one.  In the fields, cover crop is now germinating on all the crop-free ground, our overwinter crops are… Read the rest of this article »

It’s been one full year now since I began preparing ground for fruit trees, blueberries, and raspberries.  In time these perennials will really help to round out my CSA offering, and I have close to an acre to devote to these crops.  I’ll probably write about the varieties I’m planting in another post, but I wanted first to talk about the ground preparation that has gone into it. When you’re starting out with thick sod, it takes a lot to get to the point where those grasses… Read the rest of this article »

What a month!  On top of the still-abundant harvests, there is so much to do to get ready for winter.  The crew, the interns, and I have all been working hard and making serious progress.  We’re almost done digging potatoes, the winter squash is in, all of the outdoor fall/winter crops are planted, the garlic is in, beds are ready for next  year’s strawberries, mulch & drip lines are out of the field, old crops are under, aisles are tilled, row-cover is on… But we’re… Read the rest of this article »

[slideshow id=102] A 100 lbs. of Peaceful Valley’s Soil Builder cover crop is planted in our farming rows…. and now the rains are here. GO GO COVER CROP! Two good reads for me on cover crop were ‘Feed the Soil’ and PVFS Cover Crops Technical Bulletin Read the rest of this article »