Hope, in Greens and Roots

In a social setting recently we mentioned that we were adjusting to our new, non-market season routine, which had quieter Saturdays but still some wild and sometimes overwhelming harvest days. A person in the conversation, though she’d eaten from the farm May through October, was a little surprised, almost skeptical that a farm could be so busy mid-November.  “I mean, what can you even be harvesting right now, isn’t it just, like, potatoes and carrots?”  Noah, Sabrina, and I each broke into a slow grin as we exchanged looks, taking some relish in listing what else there was….that earlier that day we were cutting spinach, spicy mix, mild winter salad mixes by the cartload. That we had been plucking and bunching fresh, live, leaves of kale, chard, mustard greens, growing in soil in our low-tech unheated high tunnels.  “Oh wow,” came the reply.  “Maybe we should get the winter share next year, too.”  

Fresh greens and more greens, and this is in our moveable caterpillar tunnels (not even in the big tunnels!).

The good news is, even if you didn’t join up for a winter membership, the farmstore is there for you, with all of those things and more. We continue to pull out the big bulk bags of storage crops like beets and carrots, cabbages, onions, radishes, and salad turnips, keeping the shelves topped up for you.  But there is something special, something soothing for those of us who need the outdoors and the elements, to have the fresh, green leaves, as the days get darer and colder. We hope they are exciting to you as well.

The garlic that we planted, late as it was, has sprouted some roots—we have started in recent years digging up a clove or two before the ground freezes up to check on the development. Ideally garlic puts out a good solid root system before winter, but doesn’t get a green leafy shoot above the soil till early spring. We were worried about this garlic but that little skirt of roots feeling their way down the soil, gives us some hope. And hope is much needed, as the seasons change, the days get darker still, and we try to balance the need for still-working, for progress, and for rest. Today I dug the last 30-foot trench for densely planted tulip and daffodil bulbs, tucking in dry dormant bulbs that should, next spring, push up a rather amazing number of butter-yellow tulips. One can’t plant a few thousand fall bulbs without having some serious faith in the next season. 

There’s still a lot to wrap up of projects, cleanup, and repairs that are best done (or have to be done) before the soil freezes. We have benefitted, though, in getting a longer window of mild fall than we could have reasonably expected.  We know it comes sooner or later, though, so with the rest of our week, we’ll be in the trenches—literally—as we set up the drainpipes for the muddy water that will flow out of the wash-pack shed next fall, and pour some last bits of cement to prep for building the endwalls of the new nursery, as we realize how before we know it, we’ll want to be starting the first spring seeds in there.

And finally, some truly good news: for those of you who have been waiting so long for their return….the eggs are back. The class of 2021 are off to a strong start, so pullet eggs (almost full-size) and full-size eggs have been in steady supply in the farmstore and we don’t expect to run out.

Eggs and more eggs. Office hours are open. The farmstore should be very well stocked!

We thank everyone who come to the farmstore to stock up and fill their feating tables last week—it was a record week for amount of food flowing off of the farm and into local mouths, which was so satisfying. And don’t worry, that wasn’t a final season-ending hurrah, either! Come on out and keep eating, the roots, the greens, the eggs, and more, will be here for you.

-Mary and Noah, SweetRoot Farm

The new flock in the foreground with the older (still molting) flock bringing up the rear.

Gratitudes

Farm produce from week 2 of our winter farm membership!

As we prepare for the week to come, Thanksgiving seems to have snuck up on us again. We are so grateful for the opportunity to grow food for our community, here in this place. And the amount of food, as well as the amount of community, still amazes us a bit.

We’ve been fascinated by winter growing since we started with our quarter-acre garden back in Missoula, browsing Eliot Coleman’s “Winter Harvest Handbook” for what seemed like really out-there possibilities of fresh, cold-hardy winter greens. We are grateful to have had the land, the space, the slowly-growing infrastructure, a handful of winter-growing colleagues in the region, and hungry people eager for local produce, all of which have helped us develop and grow closer to a year-round farm.

Just a few short years ago we were over the moon to have carrots, potatoes, and a token bit of baby kale and salad to offer people in the farmstore for the week of Thanksgiving. It’s amazing now, as we debate where to fit the frilly spicy mustard greens, to have more than 8 kinds of greens available (we counted), all shelves stuffed full along with plenty of back stock in the walk-in coolers and three coolers stuffed in the farmstore.

Part of what that means for all of you is that your holiday feasts, as well as your basic daily meals, can include quite a bit of locally grown produce this fall and winter. Part of what all this growing for winter eaters means for us in this particular fall is that, with our new food-shed space not finished, our old farm shop is rather over-full of storage crops, to the point where we can’t use it to work on some of the projects needed to finish the future storage space.

The solution to this problem is one of the best type: it seems that, collectively, we can eat our way out of this jam! Whether you stock up for a special holiday meal this week, or just for your daily feasts, we’re offering a Thanksgiving-week special on a big box of good heavy food. The details and a sign-up link are here, but the quick summary is that a $40 box gets you about 40 lbs of food, a combination of winter squash, potatoes, onions, beets, carrots, garlic. By signing up for this now, to pick up on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week, you get a good deal on some long-storing crops, help us open up space to move, and help us get the maximum amount of food out to everyone through the farmstore this week, too. And don’t worry, if you aren’t up for the big box, you can shop for just exactly whatever fits your needs, at the farmstore. It’s still open all the time, and we are working on keeping the shelves full.

Finally, food for thought: in addition to all the small farm dramas and struggles we’ve been focused on in our little 10-acre corner of the world, we’ve been trying to follow along with bigger issues, from global climate talks to Hamilton’s growth and development plans. Far more complex than an over-crowded shop space, we know local eating — and preserving well managed farmland — is only a small part of the solution to these challenges. We are left with more questions than answers, and a constant feeling that we need to be doing more—more to recognize and reduce our energy and carbon footprint, more to educate and advocate for the importance of agriculture and working land as part of a resilient community, and more to make our farming world - with ourselves and our neighbors more resilent. We are, again, grateful to be in this work of growing food, building soil, and connecting to people.

We hope this week brings you some extra coziness and comfort, time to think, extra flavors, and time with loved ones. And regardless of how you celebrate or not, we recommend working some winter squash into your week….our favorite squash pie/ custard recipe is below. The farmstore will be absolutely loaded with squash for you to bake with.

Thanks for being a part of the farm.

-Mary and Noah, SweetRoot Farm

Winter Squash Pie: For one 9-inch pan of pie or custard:

• 2 cups cooked winter squash of any type with bright, dense flesh (our favorites for pie are Salmon River squash, Red Kuri, and Sunshine; sometimes we combine one of those with a true pie-pumpkin like New England Long Pie or Winter Luxury) *

• 2 eggs

• 1 cup of milk, half-and-half, or coconut milk

• optional: 2 tablespoons of maple syrup or honey, or 1/3 cup sugar. (This assumes starting with relatively sweet squash—adjust depending on your taste, double the sweetener may be needed to get the super-dessert-sweet flavor many people are used to) .**

• 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice blend, or 1 tsp cinnamon, and 1/4 tsp each of ground ginger, ground nutmeg, and a small dash of ground clove (adjust to your taste). Substituting 1-2 teaspoons of fresh grated ginger is lovely, too. Experiment to find your best combination.

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375. Place all ingredients in a medium-sized bowl or large glass measuring cup. Mix until smooth with an immersion blender, wire whisk, or manual egg-beater. NOTE: If you need to do a lot of tasting and adjusting, it is best, for food safety, to mix the eggs in last after settling on your sugar level.

Pour mixture into an un-greased pie pan or pie crust and bake approximately 45 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. For best taste and texture we try to let it cool to room temperature, or chill before serving. We do not always succeed.

If you like how it turns out, we highly recommend doubling the recipe next time and have one pan left over for breakfast.

*To cook your squash: Cut in half, scoop out the seeds, and bake, face down, on a large pan with a little bit of water in it (half-cup or so put in at the start should do the trick). The Lower Salmon River Squash, like Hubbard squash, have a thick skin. This makes them excellent storage varieties, often lasting well into the next summer. It does make them a little more work to get into, but it’s worth it. Tips for opening hard-shelled squash: resist the urge to use a big thick butcher knife just because this is a big job. I prefer to use my smallest paring knives for opening squash, because the thin blade slips in easier, not needing to create as large of a space. Work your way around it slowly with the small knife, or use the small one to get started, then get the big knife in. Alternately, drop the squash on the floor a few times to get a good crack started, then work out from there. When you have it open, scoop the seeds out (feed them to chickens if you have them!) and bake, face-down in a pan with a little bit of water, at 350-375 for 30-45 minutes, or until the flesh pierces easily with a fork.

**We like to eat this dish as breakfast food with yogurt, as well as for dessert, and quite often we don’t add any sweetener at all to squash custards unless we are taking them to share with others.

When Market Season Ends: Cleanup and The Winter Farm Begins!

What do farmers do when market season ends? Of course it varies, but even we, as a year-round farm, find ourselves with some shift in our routine. If anything, this first post-market week was notable for cleanups of all sorts. Cleaning up some more field gear and beds, harvesting another last bed of carrots, cleaning out some common spaces in the barn….and more. As I type, Noah and Sabrina are cleaning out the largest chicken barn, empty of birds since the oldest laying flock, which had pretty much stopped laying, have transitioned to stewing hens (which are available by reservation here). (Two flocks, one new, and one 15-month old flock, are starting up again soon, so we hope to have record number of eggs later this winter, as soon as 2 weeks).

We prepare for winter in a host of ways: right now, we are entering the days of “last call!” for the first term of winter farm memberships, running November 10th to December 22nd. There is still time to sign up for one of the remaining spots, before the first pick-up this Wednesday. If you are curious what a weekly share includes, here’s the plan for this week—each share will include:

• Greens: 1 bunch kale, 1 bag spinach, 1 bag mild winter salad mix, 1 Napa cabbage head

• Roots: 10-oz bag of radishes (equivalent to a bunch), 2 lbs carrots, 2 lbs fingerling potatoes

• alliums: 1 sweet onion, 1 white onion, 1 head garlic

• 2 Delicata winter squash

• optional: decorative gourds, dried Thai chili and Thai basil

What do we think you can make with that? A veggie stir-fry (napa, carrot, onion, garlic, radishes, and green), or broth soup with rice noodles (especially for members who got stewing hens and have excellent broth available!); a crisp Asian-style slaw with Napa cabbage, grated carrot and radish salad, seasoned with sesame oil, rice vinegar, and optional Thai basil/ chilies combo. A modest batch of kimchi, if you like ferminting. Kale sautéed with sweet onion and garlic, served in a baked Delicate bowl. Roasted fingerling potatoes, or roasted root and squash medley; delicata squash “smile fries”, creamy soup of any leftover roasted roots and squash, spinach side-salads.

Cleanup extends to the home-life too, as we engage in our annual re-domestication, working to reform our feral, field-focused farmer selves into humans who live, at least partially, indoors. And so there were epic mountains of laundry (perhaps not Everest, but certainly at least Trapper Peak), of dishes, shoveling out of corners (yes, even a round home has corners) into which things have been accumulating since sometime in transplanting season. It may in fact be an all-winter project, but we do feel a little more human already.

And cooking returns….fueled in large part by a huge pot of chicken stock, an all-day simmer of several of those stewing hens and various “farmer grade” produce from the walk-in. We are all set up for a lovely round of rich soups as we dive into the last of the fall cleanup and our winter-growing routines.

We certainly hope that you will join us in the embracing the soup season and cozy dinner season! Regardless of whether chicken broth is your thing, the farmstore is truly loaded with good winter veggies, from roots to greens to squashes, and we are excited to help you eat well through the cold months.

Winter members, we are excited for your first winter-food pickup this week! Everyone else, feel free to stop in at the farmstore anytime this winter, and load on up.

Your farmers,

Mary and Noah, SweetRoot Farm

Final Market Today! Plus the Farm Week in Photos

Farm Friends,

From storage cabbage and carrots in, to newly covered beds of greens and massive field cleanups, it’s been the kind of week that requires an extra-wide lens. As we pack up for our very last Hamilton Farmers Market day of 2021, we have enormous gratitude for all of you who have been a part of the farm this season. We’ll be there on Bedford, along with a few other farms, and with still a huge pile of veggies. These final markets are a little mellower, so we should have plenty of time to talk and visit, so we do hope we see you. If you’ve been curious about how the winter farm membership works, or what to expect, come chat with us at market to see if it’s a good fit.

Main-season members, thank you all, so much, for your support these last 6 months! The main membership wrapped up this past week, but we encourage you to shop the market and farmstore this week with your 10% member discount, as there is still so much good food: spinach, salad mix, spicy mix, kale, chard, radishes, salad turnips, onions, garlic, scallions, carrots, beets, cabbage, and some of the sweetest winter squash.

Read/ look on for the photos of the week, and as we roll into fall and winter, remember the farm and the farm food are still here for you.

farmlove,

Noah and Mary, SweetRoot Farm

Sabrina harvests the final scallions for market, while another team tackles the bulk radishes (now washed and stowed away for months of farmstore salad-supplies).

The BCS flail mower shreds finished plants in place, returning their leaves to the soil for the eagerly awaiting worms and soil microbes to digest over the winter.

Much of this week was extremely un-photogenic and also important work: field cleanup to remove summer-crop plant matter to the compost, pull up and stow the re-useable landscape fabric, posts, trellising, and all the supports for the crops like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and flowers. Flail mowing the spent plants of been, greens, tarping some blocks for winter to help residues break down. Already we are thinking and strategizing about which of those spaces will be best for spring, noting which need a spring cover crop, which could take the earliest greens. Some of this cleanup is a gift to our spring selves.

Friday’s agenda included many final harvests, like the salad turnips on the right, and also setting up the final of our three moveable winter “caterpillar” tunnels, set now over greens that were seeded and grew directly in the field until getting covered at dawn on Friday. With the whole team working in one block, Malaya couldn’t resist lounging in the headlands, supervising it all.

Snow on the peaks, gold in the trees, and deep deep green inside the caterpillar tunnels in the valley. Spinach and mild salad mix are now protected and happily waiting their turn to feed you in November, December, and January.

Bok Choy, despite many sub-twenty degree nights, stands proud and fresh under row cover. Row cover (besides caterpillars and high tunnels) is probably our most important farm tool to help extend our season. This will be at the market and farmstore all week.

Malaya, tired from all her greeting duties, sacks out next to a shipment of new-to-us, refurbished food-grade harvest bins. This week we literally filled most of them and they are safely storing produce in our walk in coolers and temporary rented space across town until we move into our new space.

What a crew! Three dogs and a cast of characters you haven’t mostly met, other than Sabrina (farmer on the far right). It’s hard to believe we’ve been running the ship this year with so many part time crew. It’s been awesome to have so many people; but we greatly underestimated the hours of training required for the various farm jobs. We did make one job offer to someone this week and are continuing interviews for full-time crew so, both in the field, and off the field, we can have a more sustainable farm life, finish our packshed, and continue to grow food for you.

The power was actually connected last week, but we finally snapped the photo this week. The new packshed build has sat idle for a few weeks while we get our major harvests in, secure winter crops (and winter farm members). This photo is one of those that shows a mundane thing that is a really big deal. Turning on power, with new service and a natural gas line that will run efficient backup and nursery heaters took about a week’s worth of farm proceeds during our main peak season.

We had storms all week, the rain coming in is good for both some headlands that function as pasture for the young laying flock and germinating cover crop in garden blocks. We were actually so worried about the late seeding date for this overwintering rye and peas, that we used some of our older row cover to help give it a boost for germinating and getting established in the limited days left.

Gentle October, Sliding Towards The Winter Farm

Dear Farm Friends,

Have you noticed the brilliant gold of the cottonwoods along the riverbank? The streaks of larch on the hills? The aspen, if you are lucky enough to have a favorite grove? We have appreciated them more than ever this October, because this is the first fall in the last three years that the weather has turned gradually enough to give the trees a chance to prepare In 2019 and in 2020, sub-zero winter weather arrived in mid-October after a very mild fall, and leaves froze green, dropped brown, and quite a few of our (and many others’) fruit trees did not survive the shock.

Crops covered in frost cloth, moody October skies, and trees actually turning.

We survived those freezes, of course, but we do bear the scars. The keen memory of trying, as a last-ditch effort, to secure row cover over a block of carrot beds, as 30-mph winds drove snow sideways and ripped it from our hands. The aftermath that failure, hours spend cutting the freeze-damaged top two inches of of hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of carrots (critical to our winter sales, since that was also the season that hail smashed summer crops). The beds of beets, frozen in the field, all of this after having pushed so hard for so many days to bring in as much as we could. Our niece Kayla cutting the entire bed of mint in a wet snow. Those two Octobers will probably haunt us for the rest of our farming days, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Even short-handed this year, we were braced, always, for the possibility of those deep freezes. We started the push to harvest storage crops early, squash and potatoes in September, beets, carrots, a constant drumbeat of “we have to bring it it…have to bring it in.”

And somehow, this year, with a nice succession of gentle frosts and freezes starting in August, we are remembering how lovely fall can be. There are still some crops out there, attempting a little bit of bulking up, or tempting fate a tiny bit, as we juggle various other tasks—a few more carrot beds, the leeks and scallions, the slowest of the storage cabbage varieties, all on the docket for harvest next week or as soon as possible, one eye always on the forecast. There are still haunting fears too—of whether and how we’ll get to the finish stages of that packshed build, especially knowing the fall field cleanup and crops still to come in. But we are reminding ourselves that we have had, compared to the last few years, a much gentler transition this year.

These greens could be yours in November and December!

You might think, with all of that easing towards winter, we’d have given you a long lead-up to signups for our winter farm membership, but frankly we focused first on bringing in the food, and trusted that the people would follow! But, with the first pickup of winter food just two and a half weeks away, we are just now opening the gates for signups for the winter eating. Farm members had first shot at signups over the last few days, and have excitedly filled up about the first 30% of the 75 memberships. At this point, sign-up is open to everyone, and we do hope many of you will join us. Last year the winter shares filled up quickly, so we encourage you to get in soon if you want to lock in that winter eating.

If you want all the details, or if you know you are ready to enroll, you can jump right to the simple web form here, and get yourself signed on!

This is only our second year of winter memberships, so we continue to grow our winter program slowly, as this is the new frontier of growing and eating for us. It still feels like a bit of a big deal, farming in winter in Montana. But can I tell you something amazing? Last year we never ended up using the frozen kale and spinach we put up….because we had it fresh all winter long! This year we have space for 75 farm member households, but we have carefully calculated what it will take to feed those members with storage crops like cabbage, squash, potatoes, beets, carrots, radishes, onions, and garlic (literally labeled and set aside for certain weeks of the membership), as well as weekly harvests of fresh greens like spinach, tatsoi, winter salad mix, kale, chard, and more. The first winter term, 7 weeks long, costs $275, and will run from November 10th to December 22nd. We’ll decide the parameters of the second winter term in December, based on how the greens and storage crops are holding out.

Winter kale and chard, with newly moved caterpillar tunnel.

If a membership isn’t quite a good fit for you, don’t worry; there is plenty stored up and planned for stocking the farmstore too. Even after these last two weeks of market are over, you’ll be able to drop by the farm to load up on produce.

More winter greens than ever…Tunnel 1: baby leaves for mild winter salad mix.

Farm members: this Saturday marks the start of the final week of your feedbag membership! It’s been 6 whole months, 27 weeks of filling, and we do hope you have loved it. Be sure to visit us at market, or at the farm this week for your last bag-fill of the main season! Market friends, we have this and one more Saturday, with the market pared down to one block, but complete with (we think) the very best of the farms…SweetRoot, MGVC, and Ian and Ellen will snuggled a little closer together this Saturday, but all still close to our usual positions on Bedford street, and hopefully joined by some other hardy vendors. The farmstore, of course, continues to be open as always!

However you get the veggies, keep on eating!

-Mary and Noah, SweetRoot Farm

Announcing the Winter Farm - Early Signup for Current Farm Members

An owl perches on one of our high tunnels. It could be the harbinger of a cold December, but perhaps it’s just pondering why our chickens are so smart. The chickens aren’t smart (they have doors that close at night, and a solar powered electric fence that moves with their barns). But, what the owl doesn’t realize is that in our 4 unheated tunnels, we have more winter greens that we’ve ever had before. And today, we are moving three caterpillar tunnels for winter greens that were planted in both our fields in August. This year will mark the third year of winter growing for us, and only the second year we have a Winter Farm Membership. It’s still an exciting adventure with tons to learn, and we hope you’ll consider joining us, after your main season membership wraps up next week! There will be a one-week break, with the winter membership starting November 10th.

We had rave reviews of the winter farm membership last year, but we’ve made a few changes that will make it even better. We’ve kept the ratio of storage and fresh crops similar, planted even more fresh greens, and divided the winter up into terms, with the first term being seven weeks. In mid-December we’ll assess the greens and storage crops to decide if anything needs to adjust for a second winter term, and give you the option to sign on for that one separately. We’ve also reduced the cost (and the weekly volume of food) just a bit, to help make it more accessible to all sizes of households.

We’re increasing the number of shares available this year, but it is still a smaller group than our full-season membership, so we offer sign-ups to current members first (you have 2-3 days of exclusive access), before opening it up to the full email list and new members. We hope as many of you as possible will continue on into the cold months with us!

This winter farm, as we often refer to it, has become an increasingly important part of our operation. It helps keep year round, serious farm hands that are dedicated to the craft of organic farming. It also helps cover the costs of our infrastructure, which, with our new packshed (we call it the Foodshed).

Still Here: Three more market Saturdays, and hints of Winter

This time of year, we start to get a lot of questions at market along the lines of “how long are you here?” and “how many more weeks does the membership go?”

It seems important, now, to send out some reminders, even if brief: We are still here (at market), through the very last Saturday in October, and still providing for members in two more weeks of feedbag fill-ups. We have, still, so much food for you. As the cold nights came earlier this week, we pulled in the very final harvests of tomatoes and hot peppers (and holy moly, if capsaicin is a thing that keeps you warm for winter, come by market to load up on hot chilies!), marking the official end of the “hot crops” for the year. It’s always bittersweet, but in this particular fall it also just felt like time; it felt all right to switch, to encourage you to enjoy those last peppers and tomatoes, and to also now dig in and embrace the roots and winter squashes, the frost-sweetened spinach and kale.

We are here, but also we are looking forward to the other seasons. Seasons of snow and wood stoves, of the return of a type of day that includes is this magical time called “evening” that happens when dinner is not the very last act before crashing into bed, and we remember how to do things like read books, or have conversations.

We are looking forward to that, though there are some big projects and things that need taking care of before those “evenings” appear: 5 more carrot beds to dig, some storage cabbage and cauliflower to whisper daily encouragement to, as they need to bulk up a little bit in these last precious days of sunlight. Three caterpillar tunnels to move over plantings of greens intended for your tables on those cold dark evenings of the true winter. As usual, we are not entirely sure how we will make it all happen, and walk the fine exhausted line between detailed plans and leaps of faith.

But the mountains of food we have stored in walk-in coolers, the four tunnels filled with baby winter greens, the other spaces awaiting winter protection to move over them, all make clear that farm-eating season is very much continuing even as the days shorten. We finally sat down yesterday to settle details of our winter membership, and will share the sign-up link with members first, and then everyone, by the end of this coming week.

In the meantime, there is the glorious fall eating to do, and we’ll be bringing the supplies to market for all kinds of comforting, filling meals for you, whatever your days are like in this time of the season. As we wash and pack, we picture you eating savory-sweet baked winter squashes, pureeing the leftovers into soups. Maybe a creamy potato chowder flecked with carrots, sweet onion, broccoli, and some of the last sweet peppers. A slow-cooked chili with tomatoes, hot peppers, garlic and onions from the farm. A roasted root medley. Spinach salad served in the warm bowl of a roasted Delicata squash. Colorful farm fajitas.

Come see us at market today, and through the very last Saturday in October. Or come to the farmstore, which continues right on past, and the whole year round.

-Mary and Noah, SweetRoot Farm.

Red Kuri winter squash are making their market and farmstore debut this week. Bright orange, sweet, and sustaining, they are one of our (many) favorite varieties.

The Shells of the Season and the Journey to Rocket Science

Field crops for the harvest yesterday were all protected by row cover; one of our most valuable season extension tools.

This time of the season is amazing and terrifying. Some days are seventy degrees, and some nights, like last night, are forecast for 31 degrees but end up at 21 instead. We’ve been row covering in shifts since last Friday, as we follow the forecasts multiple times a day, but we woke up in terror. What would have been okay with a single layer of frost cloth at 31 might need two layers to survive at 21. Could all of our work, literally 15-20 hours of covering crops (in shifts, since Friday) have been lost? It wasn’t quite, but it was yet another wakeup call that while we have a huge part-time harvest crew here, nothing replaces full time, qualified farmers. If anything defines this huge season for us, it’s the need to get a good solid full-time team at our farm and figure out how to get our packshed up. Since our main building team left, our farm has required so much management of the harvesting that progress on the building has ground to a halt (except a final power connection, a big wrangle with permitting, and some final excavation work for drainage). Okay, I guess that’s a lot. Also, we pulled an emergency shift at our grower’s cooperative to help pack 500 CSA boxes last week since they had a major worker shortage due to a covid case and exposures.

As part of a deal, Sabrina worked Sunday to help do crop protection and harvest a couple pallets of one of our fall and winter cabbage waves. As part of the deal, she has Wednesday and Thursday off.

As Mary and I inspected our tunnels of winter greens this morning, which mostly weathered the frosts oaky, we could literally feel the stress mounting: the tension this year between managing part time crew and getting them sorted to the complexities of the root washing and noticing issues in the field has nearly too much to bear. The packshed should make many of these procedures so much easier, as well as preventing what feels like endless hours today (and last week) running stuff across town to a rental space that we are grateful for, but trust me, it’s terrible knowing that we’ll be moving 7,000 pounds of carrots, a few thousand pounds of cabbage, many hundreds of pounds of beets, and many other things more times than we need to. Our shop is a rubics cube of pallets and macro bins in temporary cool storage: onions, squash, gourds, potatoes, and now garlic. We are delighted to have grown so much, but at the moment there is only one free pallet-sized square on the floor space, and everything will have to shuffle with the pallet jack in carefully choreographed chess-move sequence in order to get some of it stacked, more of it accessible to load up for market, and open up some space for actual work in the shop. With that, with calculations of what can to where, projecting how much winter salad mix is needed to supply an eager chef and a winter farmstore, given variables of weather, daylight, planting times, and a giant unpredictability factor….so many details, it’s no wonder that Mary almost blew her lid when one neighbor said farming ‘isn’t rocket science.’ Luckily Mary was safely back in the barn and the innocent neighbor was not subjected to full blow post-market exhausted farmer rage.

It’s not rocket science, but this dance between seasons, as we put the fall to rest and prepare for full-time winter farming, I say this:

Managing the sequence of the day, knowing each day we could lose it all, wrestling soil moisture and understanding the tradeoffs of this season against next, transplanting timing, seeing issues early on the field (now instead of next summer, when it’s too late), monitoring for pests (those aphids, we are on top of), all the micro-controllers that help run our farm that we’ve programmed and wired, the background accounting, understanding what to harvest now and what to hold in the field and what to hold in what kind of temperature, the solar setups on our chicken barns (don’t worry, one flock will be out of molt soon). It’s not rocket science, but, as Sabrina says, ‘it may be brain surgery.’

Even in the toughest of times, our farm is always innovating. Here, we stretch 80psi poly pipe over rebar (that we use for other farm trellising) to help protect winter crops. Providing we wrangle enough labor, one of our moveable caterpillars will be moved over to these beds as soon as possible.

All the management books tell us not to share the stress that has been adding up over the season, with our core team. Or maybe anyone. All farmers should probably be in therapy. Sometimes we wish we had time. We’ve had a ton of wins, but a huge number of disappointments as we work to right the ship, work to grow food for our community and work towards growing a farm we love — with story, food, community, and love. Those are our core ingredients.

With that said, we harvested 7 kinds of baby greens yesterday, including a new cooking mix, spinach, arugula, and salad mix. We brought in more carrots, and the root washer has been running as much as possible. Potatoes, beets, a small mountain of cabbage, and most of our carrots, mostly by wrangling tons of people (for our scale) have been being harvested right on time.

Even though one of our chicken flocks is molting (220 of them), they are molting right on time and with the egg production slowly picking up and a new flock due to start in about a month, we will be setup for some of the best winter egg production we’ve ever had. Organic alfalfa, as part of their feed ration and our pasture management, has been secured. Eggs will still be tight at the farmstore for several weeks, but we expect to have well over 20 dozen eggs per day this winter.n Pullet eggs should start in about a month. Enough for everyone. This photo was made this morning, right after the most recent move of three of our four mobile barns. The new three ton grain bin, also mobile, was a new addition to our chicken infrastructure this year. Without that one piece of equipment, we would not be able to keep up on our feeding chores with limited crew this past season.

We are still loaded with tomatoes, along with peppers and more. Unlike other Tuesdays, there is simply too much to do to protect from tonight’s freeze (forecast at 21, so it could be 10), so we aren’t hosting the farmstore today, but it’s all set up and totally loaded. We’ll be out in the field, not quite with our lab coats, but with boots, work gloves, tractors, chattering on our radios to do it all. And, behind the scenes we are working on all kinds of other stuff. Winter farm memberships will be announced soon (all of our current farm members will have first choice), and we in the middle of doing hiring for next year, which includes inviting those from farther afield to come meet the team (next week), along with planting some late cover crop and figuring just how we will get back to working on that packshed so our farm can continue to work to be lean, productive, and strong.

Finally, we are grateful for you. This year, perhaps even more than others, we couldn’t do this without your support.

Noah and Mary, SweetRoot Farm

We had the best winter squash ever this year and you can find more varieties of winter squash in the farmstore each week as it finishes curing and as other crops, like tomatoes, begin to sellout. If you are just getting to canning projects now, we still have flats of roma tomatoes in the farmstore. Those tomatoes have been well protected in our moveable caterpillar tunnels.

The Biggest Little Thing

The building crew, including two farm members, and Team SweetRoot. From left to right (Brandon, Will, Dave, Ed, Noah, Sabrina, Mary).

Who are we, and what do we want to become? I think of this every day. This morning, over coffee with the crew, looking at our weekly and daily whiteboards, between getting winter crops planted and getting our regular daily harvests in, I try to step back and think about this question. With revolving crew this year (we’ve had many part-timers) and a small core team this year, and all the management that has come from that, it’s been difficult to stay on task, difficult to find the answers to those questions. With the huge management load, so many of you have seen us completely fried-to-the-core this year. We’ve not had a year of so little sleep since I can remember. And slowly, over the past months, a building, part of our new farm center, is rising up from all of this.

It’s the biggest project we’ve ever done. It’s an indoor wash and pack area that’s finally enough space. If we continue to have the early freezes we anticipate, as we did the last few years, it’s overflow space so crops literally won’t freeze out in the fields, it’s enough walk-in cooler space for us that produce won’t be tucked all over the farm (and at neighboring farms), it’s a space for real mushroom production, a space for workshops and events, and also includes an attached nursery. All part of this will help us grow up as a farm, to employ year round crew, create real jobs, and help build a sustainable food system.

Who knew, when we started out, that we’d need this, it’d all be part of our us digging in, creating the farm and community ecosystem that we imagined. As I write, an excavator churns away, digging us a new power line. Even though we’ve got the shell of a building up, nearly with 80% of the materials we’ve reclaimed ourselves, there’s still a long way to go: plumbing, electrical, insulation, some efficient mechanical systems, light tubes for natural light, doors to build and a couple interior walls to frame up, and coolers to build or move, some cement work to do and a little more timber framing to do. The list is endless but finite. I wish I could say I had a plan for getting this all finished out on a farm budget, but I embarrassingly don’t. It’s a huge project, and at the end of the day, it’s astounding how much of our land debt (in addition to my student loans), we could have paid instead of doing this project.

But, thus far at least, we stand by our plan. This is really the future farm we are building. Without continued farm and market sales, we just couldn’t do it. Somehow, we’ll get this project all wrapped up, and we will keep building that future we’ve imagined.

With all this said, we run a hosted farm from 3-6pm today (Tuesday). It’s time to make sure you secure everything from salsa and canning supplies to the last of things (zucchini and eggplant) that will soon be done.

For your table: We have flats of tomatoes stacked precariously high in the shop, barn, and the farmstore, but we are acutely aware that the tomato harvests will come to a halt soon! Now is the time to stop in and pick up whole flats for canning, freezing, saucing, or dehydrating. Also on the table for us with cooler weather (frosts will visit us most nights this week) are roasted cubed root mixes (multicolored potatoes, beets, carrots, garlic, and onions), soups, and a new one: roasted cabbage. Slice thick wedges of cabbage, spread on a baking sheet, drizzle with your favorite oil (turn over to get both sides), sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake at 450 till edges of the wedge are crispy and the centers are sweet and soft.

-Noah and Mary, SweetRoot Farm

p.s.: For farm members: We are almost into the final month of your 6-month farm membership! Feedbag fill-ups run through October 29th, so you have 5 weeks, counting this one, of loading up your bag.

The front of the new farmstore and nursery with our market trailer for scale. The south side of the super-insulated structure will house a nursery. A bunk of reclaimed lumber on the neighbor’s forklift will be made into doors and interior work.

A buckwheat cover crop in one of our unheated tunnels. Photo made this weekend right before mowing and getting ready for winter transplants.

Now’s the time. Pickle, preserve, or just eat up.

Dear Farm Friends,

On a recent Sunday, while Noah made a run to Missoula for some critical building supplies for the crew starting the next morning, I was headed home to ostensibly clean up and detail some of the planning for the week.  As usual, the kitchen housed a farmer’s mountain of dirty dishes,  dog hair was drifting on the floor, and muddy farm work clothes lurked in piles in unexpected places. But more than anything I was suddenly seized by a wave of fear that if we did not can that 5-pound bag of pickling cukes left over from market, we would absolutely miss our chance and we’d pass a sad pickle-less winter wishing that we had taken the time.  The dill was just 100 feet outside our back door in North Block One, there were already farmer grade garlic and peppers on the counter, so I went for it. It was not a huge batch, but a reassuring little section of our pantry now holds pickles, and I’m glad I did it, even if it did mean that much of the mess was mostly still there at the end of the week. 

The score: pickles 7, dishes 0.

As the frosts continue to make more regular visits, and get steadily more serious, it’s a good time to remind you that tomato and pepper season doesn’t last forever either.  They both made it through last night’s chill (27 degrees here from 5 to 7 am) in their tunnels and we have a mountain for market, but more frosts will be coming. I’m sorry to report that the cucumbers, which were out in the field, are now done. There are many lovely fall crops on the way to take their places, but it’s a good reminder that the seasons are changing. Now is the time to buy those tomato flats and can or freeze your salsa or your pasta sauces! 

Our most-favorite method for tomato-based sauces, especially if you have room in your freezer (so you don’t have to follow a canning recipe) is to throw tomatoes, garlic, onion, and sweet peppers, maybe also some eggplant, together in a shallow baking dish or cast iron pan and roast around 350 for a few hours, till everything melts, carmelizes, and concentrates.  We then blend it with an immersion blender for a smooth sauce, or leave it chunky, and freeze it in glass containers or ziplock bags after it cools.  Pull it out in winter for pasta sauce, or blending with a good broth for a summer-flavor soup.  Any fresh herbs you like go in great. 

It’s also time for fermenting….if you attended last weekend’s Bacteria Bazaar classes, or got inspired just from hearing about it, we can supply even the most enthusiastic home fermenters right now, with cabbage for sauerkraut, napa cabbage, carrots, radishes, and peppers for kimchi, hot peppers for chili pastes, and more  With more fall harvests coming in, and walk-in space filling up quickly, we would *love* to supply folks with bulk deals for putting up and fermenting. We’ll have some huge cabbages at market, perfect for sauerkraut (including the sweet Bavarian pointy ones), and sign-ups for for some other bulk deals—some we can set you up with right at market, like 5-pound sweet pepper bags, ten-pound bags of beets, and flats of tomatoes.  Others will be best picked up on the farm during our hosted time on Tuesday. 

In other news from the farm, the new packshed continues to come together, bit by bit. It has been rather amazing to watch the progress and Dave, Ed, and Will, supported by Noah’s constant gathering and prepping of materials (and sometimes everyone from the farm team for certain steps), have put together all the pieces of our scattered piles of reclaimed materials into a coherent building. We walk through it in its partially built state, and review the layout that we spent so much time designing last winter: “here’s the farmstore, this will be the path for a rolling cart to go from the walk-in cooler to restock. Next fall, if we have a sudden freeze, we can drop macro-bins of roots in this door, squash over there…” We can picture the smooth layout of the greens washing line, the packing areas. It’s taking shape, though still such a long ways to go.  We are excited for it, and also at the very same time exhausted by it. Even with some hired contractors, this build has pushed us just slightly beyond what we can actually handle. It’s not a conventional building project, in any sense of the word and Noah takes charge of all the details with all the experience of years of marshaling many flocks of laying hens.  As I write this newsletter, Noah is on his way back from Missoula, where he purchased one of the few stacks of new materials (metal siding for an area that does need to be clean and cleanable).  He’ll be sneaking away after market setup again tomorrow, to prep more lumber, cut sheets of metal to length, and various other steps to get things set for the building team to have another productive week. 

The same simultaneous exhaustion and excitement, encapsulates so much of fall. The food is so good, but harvests are heavy, the days are still long, and some pushes and deadlines are non-negoatiable. Cold weather is not very open to compromise, so it’s up to us to get creative.  Every week from here on out, we work on getting one more block of storage crops in. This week included the first wave of bulk beets (beet picklers and kvass makers, we’ve got you covered), and most sensitive, clipping the winter squash, pie pumpkins, and gourds.  Crawling through the dry scratchy vines in 80 degree sun, but knowing the frost was coming that night was such a feeling of conflicting fall.  For the first time, for us, we did not pick up the squash immediately from the field as we cut, but piled it into windrows in the field to get some more sun, waiting for the onions curing on the nursery tables to finish their process and make way for squash. It’s a tricky little dance, and we ended up needing to put row cover over three of our beds of piled squash, but it made it through last nights frosts well, and we’ll be getting in to the nursery to finish sun-curing safely, as soon as we can. Later this fall, our new nursery will also start to take shape as part of our “FoodShed (that’s what we are calling this building that has such potential to transform our farm life), and we’re excited for how the expanded space will allow for easier fall curing as well as adequate space for spring seedlings.

A farmstore friend (and Malaya) help break in an outside work area by roasting peppers this past Tuesday.

Squash rows covered for a frosty night.

Meanwhile, in the North garden, plants are doing their own amazing building….bit by bit, fueled by sunshine even as the days get shorter. If you think that new farm center building is quite the feat (and it is), consider this: carrots, beets, turnips, and all the leafy greens are out there in the back field taking those tiny bits of molecules, breaking C02 and re-assembling it into starches, sugars, cellulose to make crunchy leafy bites, all on solar power. They are building your winter fuel for you, all on their own.  Sometimes I like to think about how many pounds of carrots one sunny day in fall might add, when multiplied over so many individual plants.  They are working for you, those powerful little green collaborators! 

Squash by sunlight: one of the most beautiful sights.

And speaking of winter eating, we are finalizing details on our winter farm membership plans as soon as we can—it’s taken a backseat a few times to critical building steps, but watch for details coming soon, first to current farm members, then to everyone on the list.

Please, come on out to market Saturday morning, and stop by the farmstore anytime! And also, mark your calendars for another pepper roasting this Tuesday, from 3-6pm. We’ll take over the loading area of our new Foodshed and take advantage of the new-to-us roof and roast in style.

Wishing you good fall eating, 

Mary and Noah, SweetRoot Farm 

Cherry Tomatoes are still going strong!

Reaching Towards the Sky: Fall Stock up Sale, Pepper Roast 1, Sneak Preview

Rising from piles of reclaimed lumber we’ve been gathering for well over a year, the new packshed is taking shape. Two of the three independent contractors on the building crew are farm members, and the building team has been making amazing progress over the last three and a half weeks. Those of us on the core farm team have also been helping prep materials, make beams, set walls, and nail up lumber.

Yup, we are pretty proud of the new building going up. As many of you know, we’ve needed this space for about quite a while now. If you haven’t been following along, this building projects checks a lot of the boxes on our list of much-needed farm upgrades. It will house an indoor wash and pack area for processing veggies in all weather, two walk-in coolers so we can store crops at their ideal temperatures (and not run across town to rented cooler spaces all winter), a more spacious farmstore, and a nursery space large enough to meet our spring starts needs, as well as grow some starts for your gardens. As soon as we get power, we will literally start moving coolers in, racing against the cold weather, as one of the primary functions of this space is temperature controlled storage for crops our community can eat all winter: beets, carrots, potatoes, squash, and more. Nearly all of the main building components are reclaimed, and we are grateful to have found builders excited to build this way—even though it isn’t the easiest, it fits our farm values.

You haven’t heard from us lately since this has been such a major undertaking, literally nearly three years in the planning process, and even with builders hired, still requiring a lot of our time even during the busy late-summer harvest season. This is a crucial part of farming our way, creating a sustainable four season farming and being able to pay crew year round. It’s also a bit of a leap of faith; the last major details of the structure we are still figuring out some of the finances for. This is all the more reason to come out today for our first sweet pepper roast. We are kicking the building crew out for the afternoon and setting up our pepper roaster in the new lean to. This covered but open north porch will be a loading area, an area for mushroom production, and a nice permanent space for our root washer to work on warm days.

So come out today, help us break it all in, literally help us build the farm you are part of. The farmstore and market trailer will be loaded up. Our featured bulk deals are below. One reason we are offering some build deals and asking you to stock up is also to keep freeing up space in our current walk-in coolers, which are about to get pretty tight! We’ve got two coolers on the farm now, and the third (and hopefully final) big cooler is about to be put up in the new space, but we won’t have power for at least 2-3 weeks, so we are tight on space and need you to stock up!

Some crew yesterday, having some birthday cheesecake!

Need another reason to come out? It’s Noah’s birthday!

Big News, Little Sleep….it’s August-plus.

Dear Farm Friends,

When you come to the farmstore next (and you really should, it’s loaded with goodness), you’ll see some big things happening. Despite how the south wall may look right now, we are not building a drive-in movie theatre. Rather, the construction has really started on the new packshed. August is really a terrible time for a farm to be attempting a building project, so this one has been possible only with some major help.

After a long search we were able to find and hire a building crew that understands how to work with both reclaimed materials and our budget. They value the work of the farm enough to work with our non-standard materials, and also provide the perfect combination of push and pep-talks to get it going. We needed some serious pep talks, because even with builders hired, there was a lot to prep on our end—reclaimed lumber to rip down, process, and trim to length. We were really not sure we had it in us, and yet without this packshed, we’d need to make massive mid-season changes to this and next year’s growing plants. All in the midst of a point in the season when the harvests are massive, the ground prep for fall is super-critical, planting deadlines for winter production are looming, and the cumulative effects of many months without a day off or nearly enough sleep are starting to pile up.

A massive push of help came in last Friday: a group of volunteers that was frankly slightly larger than we could actually manage, but also quite a force, showed up to process lumber, help with a bulk carrot harvest, and move our first round of onions into the curing space. There are no photos that really capture it, but there are many eyewitnesses. So many we never got a clear headcount. That was all instigated by our market neighbors Sarah and Stephan, who listen every week with patient concern as Noah lists the stresses and problems of the week, the central theme being not enough hands, not enough labor.

We are continuing our recruitment, both locally and nationally, for a full-time farmer to join the three of us (Mary, Noah, and Sabrina) who have been keeping the ship more or less afloat. (here’s the job description for that, if you know of any potential candidates) We are also hiring for several local part-time positions, especially with several of our current part-time helpers moving on to other cool projects and phasing out to help their kids transition back into the school year. Please see our website for full descriptions of the local part-time positions, which include harvest help, market help, and flower help. Also, since we know how much we and other small businesses have struggled to fill staff positions this year, we are bracing ourselves for needing to rely on some volunteer help from members and supporters. Please watch for signups coming for that.

And we ask, again, that you have some patience with us. Once again we have triaged the harvest list (there will be tons, but we’ll harvest first the things that will not hold in the field till the next harvest day). We are working harder than we ever have; not because we have grown or are producing more, but largely because we have never been this understaffed for this long. August wears down farmers in the best of times, and this year it is hitting especially hard—overuse injuries, short tempers, the likelihood of getting sick or making a dumb tired mistake that ends in a serious injury, all increase with this level of pushing ourselves. But as we have tried to explain, a farm, as a biological entity, can’t just shut down for a few days or a week. Everything, weeds and crops alike, will continue to grow (or die, if we stopped watering and tending).

And yet, once again, we have so much for you….it’s hosted farmstore day, Tuesday 3:00-6:00, and once again we have pulled our market helper Adrienne in to help us host, while the rest of us keep harvesting and/ or working on prepping ground for the fall and winter plantings. There will be tomatoes, hot peppers, basil, many kinds of greens, cucumbers, summer squash, beets and carrots and so much more. Please note that it may take us all morning to get to everything on the harvest list, so while the farmstore is abundant right now, the maximum variety will be in the afternoon, especially after 3:00.

The early onions are in, curing in the propagation house.

With a few cool days in the forecast, it’s a great time to consider some canning of salsa or pickles or tomato sauce, so we’ll have whole flats and bulk pricing to support your kitchen adventures! It’s also a great time for a roasted tomato soups and sauces—just cut up some big chunks of tomatoes, onions, and garlic, toss with some olive oil, and roast in the oven, 350-400, still they are soft and a little carmelized, then blend with good broth for soup, or with fresh basil for a pasta sauce or pizza sauce. You can include pretty much any other summer veggie that sounds good too—eggplant, summer squash, sweet peppers. It’s also still salad season, and there are big pesto-sized basil bags on the harvest list too; the possibilities for your summer kitchen are really almost endless! Come on out, see the progress, give us a cheering on, and Noah says keep the meals coming (we ate so well last week in part thanks to generous, delicious, lovingly prepared dinners from farm members and we are so grateful).

with gratitude,

Mary and Noah, SweetRoot Farm.

Beating the Sunday heat, husky-style. Malaya discovered the soaker/ mister hose on the trees, and basked in the damp for a few hours. It made a nice break from her dusty holes.

Not a wild-west movie set, not a drive-in theatre screen. It’s the south wall of the future wash-pack/ winter veggies storage space/ better farmstore/ big enough nursery. Since that’s quite a mouthful, we just call it “the new packshed.”

The beauty of August: sure, you can use recipes. Or you can just chop all the things, and cook them in your favorite skillet, and call it good.

Heirloom Avalanche: tomato season in full swing!

Mid August is the season of can’t-fit-it-all-in. With each meal, especially when preparing a special one, like for Sabrina’s parents’ visit this past week, we are constantly saying “oh, we should have also thrown in…..” as in, the pesto pasta dish with piles of sliced heirloom tomatoes, could have also included grilled summer squash and eggplant. The salad, with two kinds of greens, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, cabbage, and shredded beets was perfect, and yet we still felt that perhaps we should dash back over to the farmstore so we didn’t leave out the radishes. We’re trying to remember it doesn’t all have to fit into one meal. We did stop, though, to fry up a round of shishito peppers, because they hadn’t tried those yet and we just couldn’t let that pass. (and if you haven’t tried them, you really must—just throw them in a hot skillet of olive oil or sesame oil till the skins blister, then grab them by the stem and eat them up).

It’s a beautiful problem, really, when the number of vegetables you want to eat can’t all fit into one meal. For farm members, all the deliciousness may not even fit in your weekly feedbag, so remember you can use your member discount to purchase more.

And more and more is the theme of this week….most notably, 450+ pounds of tomatoes hauled in today (not to mention close to 100 pints of cherry tomatoes yesterday. The farmstore is loaded, and we are just now getting ready to pull out the market trailer for the day, to display the bounty. There are bulk flats available for your canning, freezing, processing pleasure, or you can come pick up just the one perfect fruit for your sandwich today. We’ll have some extra crew on hand for the hosted time this afternoon (Tuesdays 3:00-6:00), to help with the bounty. We’ll be working to get onions and garlic processed, and peppers picked too, to aid in your salsa or saucing efforts. We are still drastically short-staffed, so please be patient if something you were hoping for is not yet harvested—we’ll be working on it. But tomatoes are, for sure, ready for you!

Come on out and load up today, or see us at market, for the continuing wave of summer goodness.

-Mary and Noah, SweetRoot Farm