Spinning Greens - Back at It and the Market Trailer Leaves the Farm!
Above, the new tool of the week. We’ve needed one of these for a couple years now to speed up our workflow. One of our spring greens mixes dries in a fish basket that spins in a converted washing machine that’s been converted with a timer and other features to help our washing and packing go a lot more smoothly this year.
You guessed it, or perhaps you didn’t, because you’ve been supporting us all along. Tomorrow is the first farmers’ market. All week, we’ve been tightening bolts, adding some small updates and improvements to our market trailer, and getting through enormous lists on our white board: from huge plantings, regular direct seedings (we’ve been seeding greens for 11 weeks in a row now), bouts of weeding (with hoes, by hand, and with our flame weeder), and doing enormous amounts of bed preparation as we get ready for larger field plantings. New tools, being designed and built are going together in the farm shop. We also greeted new crew this week and, also, Sabrina came back from vacation. And, our farm FEEDBAG MEMBERSHIP begins tomorrow as well (if you are a member, see below).
It’s been a real wild spring, and with a larger crew and with the packshed to figure out how to finish - our large crew needs that space (it’s a time and labor issue, mostly), and with some of our production and equipment really dialed in, it feels like it could be one of our wildest, biggest, craziest years yet. We are so glad you are with us.
Although our last plantings of fall carrots did just sell out a couple days ago, we’ll have a large variety at market for this early in the season, in addition to boatloads of eggs and flowers.
Flanked by row cover which protects young transplants in our north garden, Mary, Flora, and Tyler transplant our second succession of peas.
Tomorrow, if you are a farm member, we look forward to greeting you! We’ve got new feedbags for you. If you are new member, we’ll give you a brief orientation, and then turn you loose. If you can’t make market tomorrow, from 9-12.30 (and don’t worry, you’ll get an email), we’ll see you at the farm during our regular Tuesday hosted farm hours from 3-6pm (and after that, you can come anytime).
You can’t miss our market trailer. It finally got a new coat of stain, and, market crew Adrian and Alexis (you may be in Poland, but you are still crew) will especially appreciate this, we put in some internal shelving and organization for all the behind the scenes gear to help keep us ship shape. Our flow will be a little different this year as well (left to right, instead of right to left). Don’t worry, we’ll help you.
One of our two new SRF greens spinners, converted from a washing machine and outfitted with a food-grade fish basket.. Over the next few days we’ll be adding a lid and an emergency stop button. All those greens dry in about 2.5 minutes! With keeping our crew hours to just 40 hours a week this year (and with some overtime pay after that), it’s our hope that we will be able to get to more things on our list this year.
One of the surprises at market will be tomato sales (we have lots, thanks to garden starts this year and a new, wonderful space to work in). There are still a handful of garden packages still available and as of Saturday night we are closing signups. So, if you haven’t reserved your Salsa, Sauce (or Pizza), or Salad garden, the details and options are here.
And, our 12 week Bouquet subscription begins in just a few weeks. There are still about 12 spaces left. Get the details and signup here.
See you soon,
Noah, Mary, SweetRoot