(Not Dead Yet) The Week After Hail

The six year old, above, Elis, visiting from afar, had no idea were hit with hail this week. There was plenty to harvest for our chickens, and really just ten minutes after we loaded up our tractor bucket, 14, one hundred foot beds were flail mowed. The next day the beds were composted with 14 yards of compost and trapped, for planting in a few weeks.  While we are still wrapping our heads around not harvesting for about 50 hours this week, and changing some of our growing plan for the season, there's plenty growing. Greens were planted this week, and look at the photo (way down belowa -- that's 28 beds of baby greens re-bounding (and yes, some were painfully mowed in). And while our sales this week, and probably next week will be 50% lower, you may not notice it much.  There's some hail damaged zucchini, and pickling packs, and there was a lot to harvest, in our tunnels and with proper leaf stripping, quite a bit from the field. Some of our neighbors were hit too, as you read last week, and we really need you to load up on what we have at market today.

Mowing beds is painful, and revisioning crops plans mid-season is very difficult, and trying to make up income is hard for a farm but we are working on it. Erin, above, is well on her way to mastering our BCS walking tractor, purchased with a zero-interest loan this spring, along with a series of implements that disturb the soil much less than traditional tillage.

Hail damaged beds, flail mowed and ready for new plantings.

This block of 14 beds was an emergency planting block, one we had in reserve. We don't want to talk about the amount of compost (it's expensive) that it'll take to get into production, but here we are tarping this in after watering it in to break down organic matter and eliminate weeds. The trick with all of tarps is using the wind to your advantage, and then keeping them down with hundreds of pounds of sand bags.

With some of the extra time this week, we put a new trellis system in our high tunnel and did some maintenance on our tomatoes.

We aren't sure why Zukes, one of the cats, loves our Kubota so much. But, you all force us to breath a little, and we appreciate all the notes and visits this past Tuesday, and all the support. Mary will be bracing for the next hail warning (it's this Sunday), skipping a farmer training, and I'll be visiting with other growers, talking about some of our most irksome challenges. Thanks for everything. We couldn't do this without you

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Editor’s Note: Farm store regulars and a lot of other farmers asked us how we handled the hail announcement, and followup with our 70 farm members. In the interest of transparency, and also trying to explain how challenging it can be to communicate the impacts of a major hailstorm on a market farm — with a fairly rigorous harvest schedule, this is one of the messages that got sent a few days after the hailstorm to our farm members.

Today was definitely different than most Mondays.  As you probably saw in the email that went out on Sunday, we got pretty smashed up by the hailstorm that came through on Saturday evening, so we were not harvesting baby greens all day, as is our usual routine.

But we want to make sure no one, especially in our farm membership, is interpreting that news to mean that you shouldn’t come out and fill your feedbags this week.  Because here’s the thing: we still have a LOT of greens and good stuff in the walk-in cooler, but it will not last forever. In fact, it really needs to get home to your kitchens by Thursday at the latest. Normally we have gone through all of the Friday greens harvest by member pickup day, and you’re getting Monday-cut greens.  (if we have any left then from Friday harvests, we generally use them up ourselves or give them to farm friends, to keep the coolers freshly stocked).  

But for better and worse, this week our Friday harvest for market was a lot more than we really needed on Saturday.  That was partly because we were clearing beds to prepare for the next plantings, and partly because some restaurants actually closed for the 4th of July holiday and ordered less (apparently some people don’t work that day? Farmers don’t really think of that).  A lot of it stayed in the walk-in cooler, rather than going to market, and is still in great condition.  We really want you to come and load up on those baby greens, head lettuces, and bunched chard and kale while they are still here!  The only fate worse than hail that I can imagine for a perfect leaf of lettuce or spinach would be to go bad in the cooler because no one came to take it home.  

So again, members, please do fill up your bags this week, as soon as possible!  For Tuesday we will still have lettuce mix, arugula, spinach, Asian greens, head lettuces, baby onions, radishes, salad turnips, and loads of garlic scapes.  

Next week is when you may start to feel the impact, when you may have to adjust some of your eating habits to match what is available.  But don’t worry, there will still be plenty, and we’ll put in some extra time to guide you to some great summer salads and veggie dishes that just might create some new favorites for you.  

When you come out, especially on Tuesday, please feel free to check out the whole farm. Watch for the clues, like a layer of nasturtium leaves matted to the ground, below bare stems, next to the caterpillar tunnel. Fragments of fennel littering the bed. But don't despair. The good news is, many things are already starting to perk up and bounce back a little bit.  Plants are sometimes all kinds of amazing, what they can do and recover from.  We are trying to follow their lead. You may notice the whole front field you drive by, has been mowed; we’ll be preparing it to replant with fall crops, and we’ll also spend a chunk of the day working hard on our plans for bolstering up our fall and winter crop options, to bounce back from this challenge, too.  

We are truly grateful for the support of members, especially when we experience some of these crazy swings in luck or conditions.  You’ve made your commitment to the farm for the season, and you’ve agreed to take on a little of the risk of farming, with us. Don’t worry, your portion of the risk is fairly small (you may have to learn to like red salad turnips, next week), but spread amongst so many, it helps us feel less alone, and know that we can recover.  

See you soon, and don’t forget to eat your salads while you can.  

Hail Announcement - Important

View from farm north: Thursday or Friday night, before some of the summer squash and potatoes in the image were shredded. But don't worry, we think both of those crops will recover with a little bit of time.

Most farms we in Montana get this at some point. This weekend, it was our turn. 

When a doppler radar alert came up on my phone just before 8:30pm yesterday, it was all standard procedure by now: we head out to close up our tunnels from winds, thunderstorms and hail and pull down the sides of our caterpillar tunnels, to make sure storms shed properly. With just the two of us, it only takes about 15 minutes but as soon as the nickel size hail started coming down, we had to shelter in place in amongst our protected cucumbers. What followed for about 10 minutes was an ouslaught of the largest hail we've ever seen here at the farm, and during our lifetime. During that time we had significant damage.

About 21 beds of salad greens, in addition to many large crops, were pretty much shredded. The hail even punctured all the row cover that was out (even that big, 30' wide stuff we've been using), and the roof to our small greenhouse has some holes. We alerted our chefs last night, and the growers cooperative that we will have no salad mix this week at all, and we aren't yet sure how long the blackout will last.  We are still assessing the damage, and will have to see if some regrowth happens in the next weeks or if we are multiple weeks out from any more greens. For those of you who want hard numbers, it's difficult to say what the extent will be. The salad greens lost could be anywhere from $3,500 as a best-case scenarios, to upwards of $10,000 depending on whether the smallest plantings rebound or not.  With our level of experience -- don't forget, we are just 5 years into this -- we don't really have enough to say what other long-term important crops will recover. Plants can recover a lot from damage, and it's just a question if we have enough growing days in the season for them to replace lost leaves and bounce back. There are some crops that Mary and I each take rather personally, and we are respectively worried about some of those, but we will just have to wait and see.

We've weathered these kinds of losses before with the help of our community and farm members, and our spirits -- and yours -- shouldn't be dampened too much. Some beds we'll turn back under today, feeding the earthworms to prepare for planting again in a few weeks, and others we'll watch carefully for recovery.  We still have the time to pivot and make new plans for some of our 3 acres of production during this growing season, and we did do huge Thursday and Friday harvests that made sure crops were protected in our walkin cooler that runs at a steadfast 39 degrees under my watchful eye. We made enough at market to replace that damaged row cover, and we'll use the perforated stuff that will no longer work as flea beetle protection, as frost protection this fall, especially if this sets the squash and pumpkins back a few weeks.

This has really made us appreciate all the protected space in high tunnels that we have been building over the last years on the farm.  Some of you (and sometimes we) have seemed a little skeptical of the number of tunnels and structures we've put up, but when we imagined how our peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes would have been shredded out in that hail we were so grateful to have them under good protection.  Their tunnel roofs have some dents, but those plants were completely unscathed. 

So, here's the deal. All farm members: if you didn't fill up already at market,  to ensure that we have the freshest as most variety for you, we are encouraging you to fill your bags as early as possible this week, as early as Monday or Tuesday. When the currently stocked baby greens run out, there will be no replacements for an uncertain amount of time.  

To everyone that supports the farmstore, this goes for you as well. Come out early as possible this week if you want baby greens. When the Thursday/ Friday harvest runs out, it may be out for a while.  The coolers won't be completely bare, as there was a lot under the protected (but damaged) row cover that will be fine, and the cucumber tunnel is continuing to pick up speed. It hurts to cancel about 1/3 of our income this week (chefs and wholesale), but you are our core, our community, and the reason we are in this. Egg sales to chefs have been canceled for the foreseeable future too, just to make sure we can maximize variety in the farmstore. The chickens remained uneffected and their main cover crop for the late summer wasn't yet seeeded, so they are in great spirits.

Also, we still are staffing our farmstore from 3.30-6.00 on Tuesdays but it still be open all the time. We just won't be turning on a third cooler this week and may even shut down a small cooler -- a summer first. Given the scale of what happened, our and our changing strategies, it's more important than ever to emphasize that we don't have time to visit outside of this regular weekly window this week when we staff the farmstore. You are welcome to walk around and check out the farm during other hours, but if you encounter us in the fields, please understand that we are on the move and pushing hard to get everything done, and we don't have time to chat. It's really gearing up for a funny, odd week. Normally all 3-4 of us harvest and wash and pack all day Monday, and most of Tuesday, and there won't be any of that this week (or maybe just a few hours, instead of 20-30 (that's on Monday and Tuesday alone), so we are still wrapping our heads around what to do with ourselves! There's plenty, don't worry, but it's just an entire re-tooling of our weekly schedule, so there are going to be some confused farmers this week.

And, thank you in advance, too, for your cards, calls, emails, snacks and love. We have a long list already of gifts that have showed up, announced and unannounced in the farmstore coolers this year and it's just amazing. You really all do give us so much.

We'll try our best to let you know that where we have gaps in our production, too, where you can find produce from others, too, as we are all in this together. We just heard by text that Lindsay and Randi got hit pretty hard too, but others farther north are unscathed. As Lindsay said, we'll all learn a lot in the next few days about how things reboot. 

And, finally, see below the damage images, for what we are eating, becuase there's a lot of it!

Before Saturday evening, this was a perfect block of salad mix, arugula, baby kale, and Asian greens. Mary smelled the crushed arugula from 200 feet away, as we walked out to assess the damage. We uncovered this planting Thursday, and were looking forward to harvesting it Monday and Thursday of this week. None of it is salvageable, except perhaps some radish roots.

The white are drifts of nickel-sized hail, some of which actually punctured the protective row cover we use to both improve germination and keep insect pests out of our baby greens. Four species of 30' x 120' row cover are perforated with 1/4 to 1/2 inch holes, and will be retired instead of being in use for 2-3 years.

A little bit of learning and silver lining: we invested in some painfully expensive protective insect netting this spring, to try covering our weekly boc choi plantings with (flea beetles and cabbage moths love it). The bed on the right has that, which held up OK to the hail (in some places it still bruised the leaves underneath, but it wasn't torn). The bed on the left, covered in our usual row cover, was torn up pretty badly. It was newly transplanted, though, and is likely to outgrow the damage and be harvest-able within 4-5 weeks.

Big Harvest Time

Someone asked, by text this week: have you finished your planting?
Another: Is it harvest time yet?

We plant every single week here at the farm, and although it's week 9 of our farm membership this week, it is summer, and crops are starting to roll in. I'm not sure how many hours yet -- (don't forget, we are still new at this game)-- we have of staking and trellising this weekend, but it was 20 hours (at least) to get our cucumbers pruned and trellised this week and, in addition to the last tractor cultivation and hand-weeding, and our fall crop ground finished, we are staking and trellising like mad here - mostly tomatoes and peppers, but other crops too.

We could barely fit the harvest in the truck this morning and, thanks to some better cashflow and help from a supporter, we finally have some of our direct trade coffee. I roasted 15 pounds yesterday. 

And we have family in town. Some come see us at market. If you can't make it, the farmstore should be loaded by 2pm, and throughout the weekend. Take a look at that harvest sheet above, it's pretty impressive, even for us, and we couldn't do it without your support.

With love and admiration,
Noah, Mary, Erin, SweetRoot.

The Impossible Week

Last week's list of farm tasks was clearly impossible.  So daunting that we had a special section at the bottom of the page, labeled "How to get it done?" where we listed people to call in for extra help, people to try out for hiring for extra help, a few things to cut, and a little bit of just hoping for some farm miracles and magic.  It worked out surprisingly well.  There were some epic late nights with the three of us, some all-hands-on-deck planting pushes with farm members pitching in to get pumpkins and melons into the ground.  There were a number of days where, though near collapse we looked at each other and said "wow, we did it."  We didn't get to everything, but we did get the biggest stuff....which did not include the Saturday newsletter, so here's a quick Tuesday note to keep you up to date on farm happenings, and give you one good recipe/ eating idea, below. 

June is turbulent, in both weather and morale.  One day a light breeze becomes a gust that rips the 50 x 80' sheet of plastic off the tunnel midway through an install attempt, leaving 20' gashes.  A few days later, farm friends come before morning coffee to help try again, and then the neighbor with the crane happens to have just enough time to come over and hoist Noah and a roll of repair tape up. The tomatoes are covered, in the ground, and growing. 

In that crazy impossible week, we borrowed, broke, repaired, used, and returned a tractor implement from farmer friends in Missoula.  We were trying out using their plastic bed shaper/ mulch layer with the biodegradable plant-based weed paper that we use (the black "plastic" you see in the caterpillar tunnels is not truly plastic, but an alternative we've been experimenting with, which we can remove and compost at the end of the season).  It was a late night, with plenty of frustrations, but the pressure to have just one day to learn and return the tool forced us to push through, and now the pie pumpkins, carving pumpkins, and melons are all in the ground and growing.  

And in the midst of all that, there was also a move of chickens to new pasture, a turnover of beds from spring greens to summer crops, the start of full-scale harvests for our grower's co-op, and a lot of good eating.  A LOT of eating, and so much of it green.  

We have some really lovely things coming into the farmstore now: loads of baby greens, really sweet crisp leaf lettuces and butter head lettuces, snow peas, boc choi, scallions....and soon, first a trickle and hopefully before we know it a flood, some of the summer things.  We'll pick the first tiny handful of cucumbers and summer squash this week, so watch for those, along with some baby carrots, coming soon.  

We'll be stocking the farmstore for member pickup this Tuesday, 3;30- 6:00 pm, as we usually do on Tuesdays, but remember it is open all the time, self-serve and ready for you!  We're about to need to turn on a second cooler to make room for everything.  Members, feel free to fill up at market (remember, we advise getting to market before 10:00 for feedbag fills, to maximize your selections).  We're into the season where there are very few limitations, so just load up with whatever fits comfortable in your bag, and enjoy!  

The rest of today's harvest is calling, so we'll just leave you with a few photos, and our thanks for all your support and encouragement and appreciation of this food.  It's summer now, but it's really just the start of eating season! 

Ahead and Behind, All At Once

"Wow, those have grown!" seems to be one of the themes this week.  I said it to Erin in the green onions earlier this evening. A farm member said it about the tomatoes in the caterpillar tunnel, immediately upon arrival for Tuesday's pickup. I say it silently with a little inward cringe, about the weeds in the garlic beds and other places. We're halfway through June, but still somehow surprised that it's here. Any of you who've seen us know we've been a little bit harried this spring, and we thank you for bearing with us, as we continue to grow. 

Last weeks' market started off a little rough, as one of our reliable regular customers approached with a question as I was setting up (answer: yes, we're always happy to take a check, no worries if you forgot to get cash).  

Her next comment, though, was when it got tricky...."That newsletter this week was extremely depressing," she informed me.  Not sure how to respond, I just kept stacking kale, aiming for a sympathetic expression; I couldn't argue, it was pretty stark, but I hadn't had the time or energy to try to add an amusing farm anecdote when editing. "Who wrote that one?"  Still arranging greens bunches I replied "Noah wrote that one--we take turns, but it was him this week."  "Well you should tell him not do to that." the customer continued. I took a deep breath, and paused in my veggie stacking to turn towards her....how to explain....as if it were so simple, that Noah Jackson would ever do or not do something simply because I or anyone else said so, was laughable in itself. But what came out was the simplest and truest explanation: "It is extremely important to Noah to really be honest, and tell the whole story."   

I've thought a lot about that exchange. I understand what you are saying and I sympathize. Part of me agrees with that, coming as I do from a classic rural culture of a keep-troubles-to-yourself, stiff-upper-lip, chin-up, captain-goes-down-with-the-ship sort of approach. The farming family and neighbors I grew up with could be getting their third tractor stuck axel-deep in a field of Oregon spring mud, and would still answer "how are you?"  with "Oh, pretty good."  I am prone to fretting about our balance of humorous anecdotes vs details of the struggles, and may very well even have told Noah not to write about tears.  But I've also learned the good reasons not to just tell him not to do that.

Because, as Noah would say to just about everything, "It's a lot like chickens."  Erin, the  third farmer on the team this summer as an intern, has been learning the chicken chores and the ways of the flock, this past week.  Having another willing and capable farmer for feedings, watering, and egg checks, is great. I, for the record, flunked out of chicken training ages ago and am used only as second-string help when Noah is off the farm or very busy. One reason I'm on chicken probation is that I'm prone to let them get under my skin. When they swarm me as I collect eggs, pecking at my boots, my braids, my earrings, the pencil in my back pocket I get aggravated, annoyed with them, lose all pleasure in the task.  "They are just being chickens," Noah reminded me after a particularly terrible round this winter when my patience wore out after they knocked over a full basket of 5 dozen eggs. In trying to scoot eager hens away from the basket of spilled eggs with an awkward sideways kick, I managed to snap something in my left lower back/ hip badly enough to barely limp back from the coop.  Chicken injuries are the worst, as it's always slightly embarrassing, and it's always the farmers own fault.  But the reality was, they were just being chickens--and I had not paid close enough attention to the directions, which clearly stated to water them first, before collecting eggs.  They will mob a farmer when they need something they are lacking, and I just tried to force my agenda instead of theirs.  They aren't really jerks (I may have called them that), they were just being chickens, chickens with needs, in that case.  

A tenet of permaculture, a design concept that we try to keep in mind, not just in farming but in our lives, is that creatures should be allowed to express their full nature.  An industrially raised chicken in a cage or massive indoor barn can't be a true chicken. We strive to let our chickens be true chickens: running, digging, foraging, scratching in the soil, dust-bathing, engaging in their social politics, and moving on to fresh ground when they've used up a patch of pasture. We can't quite provide the tropical jungle canopy they evolved in, but we do our best to create a system where they can be as chicken-y as possible, can be their best chicken selves.  

That's why we spent 15 farmer-hours shoveling out more than 15 yards of bedding so we could move the barns to new pasture last week (yes, the egg flavor will now also be better).

In light of that customer's comments, and my own tendency, if I'm not careful, to reign in some of Noah's brutally honest sharing, I've been thinking a lot about that principle this week.  How to let each part of the farm embrace it's full nature as much as possible--to let a chicken be a chicken, and Noah be a Noah, knowing the whole farm will benefit the most from everyone's full expression.  

The main reason Noah hasn't been at market this season is that we are still so deep in behind-deadline building projects that each Saturday after helping me unload the truck, he has rushed home to make progress on something: intern cabins, chicken pasture, high tunnel structures, ground prep, etc..  When I came home from market last week, there was a small army of farm helpers under his command, tackling the many parts and pieces of our latest high tunnel:  Erin, on her day off, with a friend she'd convinced to come over to help, farm members Travis and Shelly back for a second shift after helping set up the ribs the night before.  All there because Noah had reached out saying clearly "we need help."   It was a lot to manage, but an amazing jump forward towards getting a tunnel ready to plant.  With their help, we actually wrapped up the day at 6:00 pm, and sat together taking a break in a cool breeze. 

Though I often prefer the comfort of "oh, pretty good" as a public front, I have learned that that honesty has so much value.  Noah's conservation work, the years in the tropics of Asia, from his Peace Corp days to Fullbright fellowship, to independent contractor work, were not just about "saving the rainforest."   Everything, if you look closely, was about ensuring that people's stories were heard, shared, understood. The story being understood is as core to Noah's essence as a chicken digging for worms. So, I won't apologize if his writing makes you sad, and I won't tell him to stop.  It's part of his nature, to show the world as it is, in order to think it out, understand, find solutions.  

And of course, sometimes what is uncomfortable but true provides some of the best conditions for improvement.  Because people knew, we received helping hands this week. Because people knew, there were calls, cookies, and cards from near and far with kind words and support beyond what we could ever have expected.  Thank you.  We'll do our best to use those gifts to continue becoming our best expressions of ourselves, and help the farm continue to find and express its own true nature, as a place for all of us.  

With gratitude, 

Mary & Noah, and all of SweetRoot 

p.s.  Father's day snuck up on us! But we couldn't send out a newsletter without a brief thank you to the man who is not only my Pa, but definitely the farm-dad: SweetRoot cannot express enough love and gratitude to Frank Bricker for all the "quick question" phone calls he's answered, the face-times from the shop to diagnose a tractor problem, teach us how to wire a motor, or fix a tool.  He's the agreed-upon voice of reason for settling disputes, the sounding board or "is this a good idea, or are we being stupid?" and the one most likely to truly understand many of our struggles and worries. And he reads every single newsletter. Thank you. 

June, Ready or Not

Back in the yurt last night, wrapping up another long farming day with 10 pm dinner, I started flipping through Noah’s phone to see if we had taken any good photos of this continuing roller coaster of spring, this week.  The image above stuck out, not just because of the lovely evening light, but the impression it gave—I held the phone out to Erin, saying “wait, that looks, like, pretty good, doesn’t it?  I mean, that looks like a farm that’s got it together. Those beds look great.”  Which is to say, part of my reaction to the photo was “is that really us?” 

That photo does not look like how much of this week felt.  Did not look like a farm that had spent most of the day grubbing out thistle and quack grass, frustrated and scared by the fact that item #1 on a long list (“prep beds in beet and carrot block”) had taken till mid-afternoon.  Did not look like a farm where one farmer had accidentally caught the entire set of garden hoses leading to drip irrigation in the high tunnels on a tractor implement and ripped out fittings, header lines and snapped the hose splitter and valve off of the well house. Again. 

That list could go on, but it’s also only one part of the farm picture.  That lovely evening glow, straight smooth beds seeded with carrots and beets getting covered with brand-new 30-foot row cover….yeah, it’s also the farm where two farm members cheerfully spent a good chunk of their Memorial day helping us plant potatoes and summer squash, spread compost, and feel a little bit better about the north garden. And the farm that had not one, not two, but THREE drop-offs of delicious, soul-saving home made food from farm members this week.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  We think every single one of those was consumed within 24 hours, and boy did we need them.

Same block of beds as above, but earlier in the day: a mess of thistle, grass and perennial weeds, despite weeks of being covered in dark tarps.

Spring is always a roller coaster on the farm.  Always a time of both/ and, filled with limitless possibility and impossible lists of everything to get done.  How things look depends a lot on your angle—just like how Erin, below, turned our medium-small farm cat Radish into a monster of a leopard, joking around with trophy-fishing poses, midway through the long day of prepping ground for summer crops.  

Some of the income we lost to the slow spring can’t really be made up; some of it, we hope, can be buffered by some good summer and fall crops.  And so, while Mary is at market this morning, Noah will be getting ready for the extra hands of yet another long-long-time farm member to help us set up the temporary tunnels for our tomatoes and peppers. 

Thank you to all of you who keep us going, who remind us occasionally step back and see the farm (and our work) in a more flattering angle, and who share and acknowledge your own very human mix of accomplishments and struggles. 

Mother’s Day

From where do you draw your faith?  How do you learn the lessons that you need?  

These questions have been following me around this spring as the farm has faced some serious challenges.  Our commitment to maintain the most vibrantly living soil possible by drastically reducing our tillage, combined with bringing a whole new garden into production after years of being pasture, has been hard. We've questioned whether this faith in the almighty earthworms and the rest of the soil food web is a beautiful revolution, or if we are being just plain stupid by changing everything about how we make beds and plant. 

That faith was tested more than ever yesterday as we struggled to plant our onion block.  Despite weeks of tarping, and a smoothing out with the power harrow, the no-till beds were rough with clumps of old grass roots, making the transplanting tool that we have used for years catch, clog up, and basically simply not work.  Only through the determined effort of all four of us (Noah and I, and the two farm interns, putting in yet another day that lasted past sunset), did we manage to get most of the onions roots-down into the soil.  At dark, with three rows left, we just had to call it.  

This spring, one of testing faith and searching for our lessons, I've been thinking of my parents, especially my mom as mothers day comes this weekend. My folks, farmers of a different sort of farm than ours, have an ability to meet problems with a blend of quiet pragmatism and humor that I so admire. I've been remembering a small example of that good humor this spring, as for the first time I am wearing eyeglasses, especially for the close-up work of seeding and greenhouse propagation.  As I learn about condensation, yet am surprised every time a peek into the germination chamber fogs up my lenses, I keep having a memory of my mom, whose glasses came at a similar age, coming from the damp Oregon weather outside into our warm cozy house, or opening up the oven to check on a roasting turkey.  As her glasses went cloudy, she'd laugh.  I can hear it so vividly in my head:  "ooh!" little whoop, and then her delightful chuckle.  A surprise and an amusement, rather than annoyance; it's hard to know how accurate memory is, but I feel she might just laugh till the fog cleared. 

It's a good example, but I'm not always hitting it myself, at large or small scale. I'm trying, but I did throw a few planting trays in frustration yesterday during the most difficult onion planting in our years of farming.  My mom's examples aren't limited to the minor annoyance of steamy glasses.  When a medical diagnosis led a neurologist to tell her to "go home and put your affairs in order," she did in fact think through and decide details of the end of life at a much younger age than anyone would hope to.  And she summed up her decision to not be extended by ventilation machines or feeding tubes in the most succinct and characteristic way I can imagine.  Though it was as serious anything we've ever discussed, she had a bit of a spark and chuckle when she told me how she had decided where to draw the line: "I figure, when I can't enjoy the ice cream anymore, maybe I don't want to stick around."  

Though we can't have some of the conversations about fear, faith, learning, and confidence that I wish we could, anymore, I'm grateful that she can still enjoy the ice cream, and can ride along the waves of laughter of gathered friends and family.  We all learn some lessons from our mothers, I think, and this spring, I'm trying to pull up that lesson of meeting real problems with calm and humor. It's a work in progress of course.  And also to remember to appreciate what I am capable of: starting these plants, working with this soil, building this farm, tasting spinach so sweet it could almost make you cry. And of course, enjoying the ice cream. 

As we continue our spring, feeling our faith and our abilities tested so often, and knowing that there's a good chance that things could not work out as well as we need, we're trying to maintain that faith. The farm tries to support and teach us, I believe.  The plants and the biology and the place itself, and also you, the farm supporters.  The members who read the whole newsletter and said at market last week, "I"m coming for my hug!", the members and customers who were so happy to be back in spring, back to eating farm veggies, celebrating the greens. You help us keep the faith, and inspire us to learn the lessons that we need.  

This mothers' day, may you find the faith, growth, and humor that you need.  In grattitude for nurturing and lessons in all their forms, eat a giant salad, and then eat your ice cream, too.  

With love and living soil, 

Mary and Noah, SweetRoot

By All Accounts, the Latest Spring in 26 Years

What a week. We think it’s spring, but according to Luci at Lifeline Produce, the last time the crabapples bloomed this late was 26 years ago, so the slow spring is not just our imagination! So this morning at market, produce is lighter than we'd like, definitely less than this week in past years, even for crops that were planted on the same dates. 

Farms throughout the region have been comparing notes about being behind; our grower's co-op has been hungry for greens from anyone who can produce them, but we, like many of our colleagues have had to keep them waiting as the limited production goes first to farm membership and market customers.  (We have let a few local chefs start to buy a few greens, but have them on a much smaller trickle than most years at this time).  

We are in a funny state right now where the first rounds high tunnel crops are wrapping up to make way for summer crops like cucumbers and tomatoes. Yesterday, we turned over two of our high tunnels, from early spring crops to summer crops, but the field plantings (some of them seeded just one week after the beds in the high tunnels we've been harvesting for 3 weeks now).  High tunnels are what we call those unheated greenhouses with the big rolling doors that you see when you pull into the farm; this year is the first time the we're 3 weeks into May with the only harvest-able things coming out of those structures, rather than also the field.  

We are also in a funny state because we have a larger list of projects than usual. We are desperately waiting for the last shipment of drip tape and parts that will complete our watering needs for season, our intern cabins are slowly creeping towards a finishing state (but also the most expensive stage of building), and our new farming system - reduced tillage on all thirty inch beds is more work than we bargained for. One of our colleagues, in Bozeman, a vey successful farm by many many measures, just closed their doors, going out of business. And we’ve been talking about that a lot lately, trying to understand it, and it makes us worrisome of the viability of farms and the obligation we have to write, to talk, to grow this community, and to try and get better.  

We are grateful for the time at market to visit and those of you who remind us that farms are about people, our members, to all of you who come out to the farmstore or give us a smile as we are more frantic than, well, perhaps ever this year. 

It’ll just be Mary at market — I’m heading to Missoula to put one of our interns on a plane that will eventually head to another farm. We’ve brought what we can to market, in this odd season of shuffling, cold weather, building, and re-building this young farm of ours. One highlight is that we will have 3 varieties of our favorite tomatoe plants available for sale. They will also be at the farm, stating Sunday: Brandywine, Black Krim, and a few Sungold cherry tomatoes. 

Legend of The Tree Frogs (First Market)

Some of today's harvest, left to right: baby kale, arugula spinach, salad mix. Radishes, bok choy, asian greens, microgreens, and eggs (not pictured).

Back before we went to market, long before we started a farm, and longer ago even still than I demanded to our realtor to stop the driving her car over our field, this year's new ground, the ground where I knew we'd farm, and back before Mary and I homesteaded, and harvested on other peoples' farms, there was the legend of the tree frogs.

It was spring, and Mary and I were madly in love. I'd write her letters from Madagascar, or Papua New Guinea, and send them off from coffee and spice or tea farms on my satelite phone. I loved my work, but something was missing. As I was writing her long distance love letters, before we really knew we were in love, I'd write about working with people who cared for land, soil, and community. I knew that I, and we, had to be part of that. She'd write me about her revelations of the natural world, her students minds, and everything else. One of the email letters she penned was titled the time of Tree Frogs. As she wrote, she'd hear the tree frogs singing out of one of her windows. She visited me one late spring, when I was caring for a friends small homestead gardens, and we'd seed his garden wildly, enough for dozens of families, maybe, out of our excitement and passion, and to burn off our energy, we'd go for long runs that turned into sometimes grueling four hour, river swimming adventures.  That was the time of tree frogs, when we'd fall asleep to that mysterious and magical cadence.

And that's how all this began, our love for one another, people, land, community. And now we are in the wild ride together. Another chapter starts tomorrow, with 2019 market and membership seasons.  There are a lot of new projects this year -- our new irrigation system, the intern cabins that we are literally working at every day so our team has solid housing (rather than, um, squeezing into living space with us), and our new approaches to soil. It's left us really, just as we began, with that mixture of passion, wonder and exhaustion building this farm. We'll be talking about that throughout the season in our newsletters, as we share stories and insights about this farming life, and what to do with our more than 50 crops. But tomorrow, is really about you. It's been a slower start to the spring, with both our infrastructure and the weather, but now our high tunnels are busting at the seams with early season greens.

Farm memberships start this week, and members can pickup their feedbag at market and start filling!  If market doesn't work for you this week, we encourage you to come to the farm on Tuesday, anytime after 3:00 pm, when we'll have one or both of us staffing the farmstore just for members.  Throughout the season you can fill your bag any day of the week, but in this first week, please shoot for one of those days if possible, or get in touch with us if those days don't work, so we know that you are sorted. Whether you are new or returning we really want to greet you and welcome the new season together, as well as just get a chance to make sure all the logistics are clear. 

We staff our farmstore on Tuesday afternoons so we can greet members, but the farmstore is open to anyone, all the time. We stock our farmstore several times a week now, and of course with eggs daily and have a few new surprises in store next week, starting Tuesday afternoon. 

I sit at my desk and take a deep breath. Wow, another season is upon us. We've got a warm hug for you at market and we are so grateful for you. We are at our same spot, on 2nd and Bedford. The new and improved market display we've been talking about is a few weeks from completion, so just look for our familiar well-worn used-to-be-white canopy, a big old pile of greens, and your smiling farmers.  

To get our cabins complete, farm members and friends have been literally bailing us out, one work party after another. We are planning on mudding and taping drywall on Sunday as we get our crew housed on farm. Travis helped take down our ugly and falling down pole building at the cabin site. Now he, and his sweetie Shelly help hang drywall. In the first image above, Chris shares a laugh after she and Alex hung drywall and stuffed insulation for hours on end.

Not quite ready to move in yet, but close to being dried-in, these little well-insulated cabins may be our strongest, tightest, and straightest buildings yet. To save cost and make for a better footprint, all the framing lumber, some rafters, floor joists, windows (except for two new ones at each peak), and the roof are all reclaimed. Market proceeds this week pretty much go right into the finishing of these structures.

Market Countdown

Spinach and Smooth Roads

Malaya yawns on a spring day as she gets ready to plant with us.

Happy spring! We thought we'd lift our heads up out of the mud and puddles for just a quick update from the farm. First and possibly most importantly: our neighbor Mike spent hours yesterday working out some of Bell Lane's impossible pot-holes, so you should no longer need to plan extra time in your day in order to drive that 1/4 mile to get your eggs and spinach.  Thank you to all who have braved the craters these last few weeks as the snow and mud melted. 

And yes, we did say spinach....there is a pulse of beautiful tasty spinach that over-wintered in one of our tunnels despite the many days of 18 (or more) below zero.  We cut it all to make way for spring seeding in that tunnel, so get it while it's here this week--the next wave of greens will be several weeks out (but they are coming--I just peeked on the lettuce and spinach germinating in the tunnel we planted last week). 

Our meadowlarks returned in force a few days ago, perched on the fenceposts and the hybrid poplars around the yurt. They joined the growing chorus of red-wing blackbirds that, in my mind, have been shrieking SEEEED! SEEEED! for at least a month already. And with the temperatures finally above zero, and with ground thawed out in our high tunnels we have finally been following their advice.

This spring, with late February and early March averaging more than 25 degrees below the seasonal norms, had us re-arranging our crop planning and calendars even before a single seed went in the ground. That March 8th round of greens seeding? Um, afraid not. And it's ok, we'll catch up. In the meantime, there are no shortage of building projects and farm tools to build, make, order, and learn. The well-house is almost finished, and the daunting but exciting steps of final wiring and plumbing are next on the docket, to have water ready to go on our tunnels and front field before the irrigation ditches come on in late April.

We've also been on the steep learning curve of our newest piece of equipment, a BCS walking tractor, as we prep ground in our tunnels. And not just raise-your-heart-rate-while-you-hike kind of steep. Steep as in maybe we should harness up and be on belay, kind of steep. We are excited about this tool, which will help us re-set beds and prepare them for seeding without nearly as much mechanized soil violence as our old tractor-mounted rototiller, and yet....let's just say that the experts demonstrating how to use it on YouTube are not showing you the first beds they ever built with it.  

When you order a new farm tool, I think it's normal to imagine yourself using it smoothly and expertly, turning out a perfectly formed planting bed nicely under control, fingertips on the levers. The reality is perhaps more like learning to use clip-in bike shoes. I can still remember my first outing, when the quick little side twist and disconnect that looked so easy when my expert friend pulled up to a stop sign looked nothing like my ungainly slow-motion crash while trying to remember how exactly that little bit of metal had me locked to my bike pedals and how I was supposed to get out.  Similarly, rather than the easy perfect beds, we found ourselves slowly coming to understand the BCS, but not before first wrestling awkwardly with it, being pinned by the handlebars against the wall of the hoop house, or trying not to get bucked off the raised beds by the heavy machine as it slips and slides off of fluffy soil piled too high, and beds and pathways that simply were not adding up to the dimensions we needed. We're hopeful it will soon be a bit smoother (and building beds in the field, without walls at the end will be helpful practice), and advice from other farmers has been key. Little details, like "ignore the manual and set the wheels 6" narrower, or it definitely won't work."  

Editor’s Note: After 40 hours this past season it got a lot easier; and after 80 hours this past season it was a breeze. One of the tricks was adding 35 pounds of weight to the front and easier a heavier power harrow to make the machine handle better.

Every day a little bit more soil emerges from the field, and every day we get a few more things planted in the tunnels, in starter pots in the greenhouse, and we get a little closer to the start of market and farm member pickups.  We have a feeling that this spring that is starting slow is going to accelerate quickly, so hang on for the ride! 

Solve your fear of River Snakes: The Eatership

Washing Tapioca Leaves, Sarawak, Borneo (2009)

A lifetime ago, I waded through Malaysian government bureacracy and countless trips, meetings, and visits to work in a remote national park in the interior of Borneo. The process took weeks, and not every day of my time living with communities learning to farm on forest edges was smooth, or rewarding. Many days I slept shoulder to shoulder on the floors of forest huts before long days of planting. One night a wild boar ate my sandals.

But I will always remember one day: I walked far upriver along a trail that to harvest fruit tree seedlings - we called them wildlings. Rather than going back the same way, our party split. Part of the party left to go hunting; the other part jumped in long boats to glide back downriver to the community. The boats were a bit full, and though of course my friends would have made room for me, I elected instead to mostly float alongside the boats, sometimes grabbing on to the low-slung carved out hardwood hulls, but most of the time just drifting. Along the way we beached one of the boats, with help of a group of women, and scrambled up the steep embankment and collected tapioca leaves and forest ferns for dinner.

Back at camp, when we pulled up to the banks of the village, I realized that I was no longer afraid of river snakes that sometimes swam along side me, leeches, dengue. I had come to know them and lived. I was free, food secure, happy, without worry. This was so so different than my first years farming, here, digging in. I was often worried, scared, and not who I want to be.

This morning, on NPR, I woke up to some new predictions of climate change. By mid-century we may easily see a two degrees rise in temperature and by the end of the century, we could see up to four degrees. That's almost catastrophic, and it's certainly detrimental agricultrual options worldwide. While some of the physics of this equation we can't stop, we can focus on the human solutions, building a food secure community that is strong, resilent, and embraces one another just like it embraces new farming practices.

All new farms, including ours, place an emphasis on infrusturcture. We've been doing that these past years. But sometimes I feel that we all neglect our social infrusturcture.

That's why we have The Eatership. For the past several years, we've been steadily growing the amount of food we subsidize for members of our community. We believe that that everyone, regardless of income or status or lifestyle, should be able to have access to organic, fresh, local produce for our entire growing season.

Through farm donations, we raised $2200 last year to subsidize farm feedbags for seven farm members. We made the choice of who received membership assistance based on donations (our farm chipped in too) and our simple, self-reported, need based application. The majority of the Eatership applicants paid some share of their farm membership, so this money is just not an all out gift. We think of this as a partial scholarship.

As we mature, we'd like to expand this program, and we see this as a program that could be scaled, to eventually include all farms in the Bitterroot that offer a farm membership program. We have two local not for profit organizations in mind that would be suitable partners to manage this program, we have a starter grant in mind that would help fund some of the administrative fees for the management that our greater community could run.

Raising donations of $4000 this season can help prove to our community of supporters and businesses that this program is scaleable and deserves more capital - both the human capital to run it and the funds to help create a better world, with secure access. This is something that keeps me motivated to farm. It's something I think about every day, whether working on a tool tool, cultivating, seeding, working on our crop plan or encountering a snake in our gardens.

“Donations of $4000 this season could help fund 20 SweetRoot Farm Eaterships - impacting more than 40 community members.”

— Noah Jackson

“Nearly all the 2018 Eatership recipients paid a share of their farm membership so this money is just not an all out gift. We think of this as a partial scholarship.”

— SweetRoot Farm

Donate to the Eatership Now

Late one evening, in the forest of the Crocker Range, I was wandering the forest footpath back to the village after a community gathering. This was a forest island of fruit trees mixed with community lands, large trees and the surrounding park. Moonlight filtered down through the forest and clouds rolled up. Muffled laughter filtered down the hill from the church, through the forest, through the mist. Just years ago, a decade or two, men and women carried salt from the coastal areas to this community. Now, it’s flown in by helicopter when the bridges that span the rivers need to be repaired. To arrive under the moon, via logging road and the path that links the sea to the forest is to experience what this might be like -- years ago. Crossing a bridge under the moonlight with a loaded pack and a roaring river below is like reenacting the migration. In this forest, though, I heard bare feet pounding the forest path. The large canopy parts and moonlight and clouds pool. I set my camera back in the forest, well off the footpath and made a single exposure to illuminate the night forest and moonlight. In this same exposure, I managed to catch the the gang of kids, running home, with just one flash exposure using two remote flashes near the forest trail, firing at 1/20,000 of a second. The night was cold, fog passing through the forest created some condensation on my camera lens adding to the mystical effect and warmth of this image. Later that night, I fell asleep to the voices of river murmur and moonlight and things that blew down the forest path, past my sleeping hut and deeper in.

Photos : From the Outside In. Chickens in Deep Winter

As many of you know, we took out a loan from a farm supporter this summer, to take down our large, somewhat failing mobile coop. After the demolition, and during the season, we built two structures. The first was a quick for our old farm flock; the second build was a much larger, and fully insulated mobile barn for the new flock. The first image in this series shows both new barns, in late fall, just as we moved our two flocks into our storage brassicas. The remaining images are all made in one day, February 9th. While our laying hens spend the majority of their days outside, these images of deep winter, when the temperatures drop to single digits, shows both the secret life of how we care of our chickens in deep winter and just what goes on, when the bulk of our two laying flocks spend a good part of the day inside: our chickens, behind the scenes, in deep winter.

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I’m deeply grateful to Mary, for encouraging me to keep our laying hens when the first big barn went south, literally, and for the farm supporter who gave us a $3000, no-interest loan in the spring of 2018. We spent a bit more on that on all of this infrastructure, but without that initial injection of cashflow, we wouldn’t have had the courage to continue this wild ride, deep into winter.