This image, made just this Friday, was on Johnnie’s last day. He’s off, back to Minnesota to start his own farm, and the entire crew (Mary, Noah, Alexis, Sabrina) staying on will miss him. We are excited to see what farming operation Johnnie does next, and we look forward to supporting him however we can. Sabrina is our first year-round team member, and we are both excited and daunted about this. The winter farm membership supports this, and the winter farm has more than enough to keep all of us busy. Alexis Vai (center) will finish the farming season sometime here in late November. She’s done everything from help keep us straight at market, to harvests, planting, and even arranging farm flowers. It’s our secret hope that we can keep her as long as possible.
It’s hard to believe the image above — with our full farm crew (except Lynn, who managed much of the farm irrigation and farmstore while we were at market on Saturdays) was made just this past Friday. That was the day we got our garlic in and both tractors were running endlessly as we prepped ground for next spring before another freeze. Inside our tunnels, though, and our moveable caterpillars, greens continue to thrive. During most nights they are under the very heavy frost cloth, which we remove each day to help airflow and temperature and help them grow —taking advantage of even that little bit of light during these shortening days.
Although Mary and I did finally make it to bed before 9pm a couple nights ago, the winter farm is filled with projects, from harvesting, to working on another moveable chicken barn (the big push for the next two weeks), to breaking ground for our packshed, to all kinds of resource gathering trips (our packshed, like all our farm buildings, will be made largely from reclaimed building materials, gathered mostly with 100 miles but some materials from 1000 miles away), and there are tools we are building for systems we’ve been working on. There’s a lot of learning and development we do behind the scenes, and we look forward to sharing some of that this winter as we try and take some days off from the packshed project ahead of us.
Yesterday, though, we peeled back one of our tarps that has helped break down crop residue from summer cover crop and we planted our first ever bulbs — mostly daffodils and tulips — that assure our commitment to spring, another year of farm, and the faith that no matter what, spring will come and we will be ready.
Our farmstore is loaded, and last night we made a stir fry with cauliflower, onions, garlic, and one bunch of asian greens — all ingredients from the farm. Breakfast was tortillas, eggs and salsa we made from one of our last batches of tomatillos. It seems fitting, in this time of the pandemic, and when many say our entire country is in crisis, we can all eat locally, hunker down, and dig in. We have so many of you to thank for an incredible summer season; and we think one of the best ways to do that is to just keep going — there’s a lot in store here all winter. We’ll keep crops and the letters coming. There’s about 6 spaces left in the winter farm membership (our second winter of growing but our first winter membership) and although that doesn’t start until next week, there’s plenty in the farmstore for everyone.
You farmers,
Noah, Mary, Sabrina
Mary drops bulbs into 6 inch trench we dug with the rotary plow mounted on our walking tractor.
Winter salad mix peeks out from one of our moveable caterpillars and as Sabrina and Mary sort spring bulbs (planted yesterday) in one of our field carts. A bucket of compost, for a little fertility boost and weed suppression, waits in the foreground.
On cold winter evenings, a stir fry of asian bunches, turnips, cauliflower, onions, garlic and herbs may be all we can muster, but it’s not only enough, it’s plenty.