I find myself thinking of Sir EH Shackleton this week, and how he led a team through a harrowing survival adventure in the arctic long before satelite phones and smartphones. It took leadership and guts. It was that kind of week. It all started with our phantom pepper roast last week (don't worry, we will have another one). And then a workparty on Sunday to side one of the intern cabins. And then, by Monday, the weather forecast turned so we packed up all the siding and then got to bringing all of our sensitive crops in. It shifted our entire week. It took all week, with big pushes. Today, in addition to our 4-farmer team, we had Lisa out (who worked on our day off), Toby, Ed, Travis and Shelley, and Regina. Somewhere on along the way we harvested about 900 pounds of tomatoes and we started bringing stuff into the packshed this evening, circa 9, 10 and 11 by the pallet load.
All this week while Gretha Thunberg, from Sweden, was raising awareness about climate change to world leaders. I think that was the day we were planting our very last bit of cover crop for the season, on Tuesday. It seemed so appropriate: it was just one of the few times this year we used our tractor mounted tiller, which we've completely abandoned in favor of lighter, living soil approached. We needed to bury seed, lightly in a hurry -- so it was a good decision. And then, on Wednesday, farm member Bronwyn Angela, brought 15 of her students to help clear out our big tomato tunnel for transplants (next week). And you won't believe it -- we all gasped as small legs and bodies stepped out of their bus. Rather than the 7th graders we thought they were (sorry, Angela), they were 2nd graders! But boy, all they needed was a little encouragement from Mary, and a little help from Erin and Taylor actually uprooting our tomato plants, and they were a force like we've never seen before. If you haven't caught some of the video on our facebook page, well, all I can say is that it's really worth a watch.
And somewhere along the way, maybe Tuesday night, at 7.30 in the evening, I had a magical conversation with Dan Hulls in his dairy yard, after he loaded our trailer with compost. He shut off his loader and the light faded we traded facts, hopes, and worries. For me, that was the closing of the summer, the beginning of fall, the hope that was to come. I heard it in the scuff of our boots, the smell of manure, I felt it in our warm smiles, a laugh, and finally a handshake.
The farm continues to amaze and inspire us all this week. Both Mary and I still get teary eyed and some of the first and last harvests of the year, and about new things to come. We've had so many visitors this week, and boy, the meal dropoffs have been amazing.
But please, we ask you this, come out to market tomorrow. Even at 2am and into 3am, our market trailer is fun to load and we've got tons of good stuff -- all the herbs, all the greens, tomatoes, brussel sprouts, zucchinin, sweet peppers, cabbages, brocolli and cauliflowler, and about 3 pages of other stuff (at least on our harvest list). The weather will be miserable, but we'll give you the best smile we have and I'm certain that us and all of our colleagues will make it worth your while. Come at 9.30 to our booth for the best results (it's been a 20 hour workday here and Erin and Taylor put row cover on our fields just about the entire day (until midnight). We worry less about the frosts because of our confidence in them, our infrastructure, and that we know we can feed you all with whatever we have.
We are so grateful for their magic and the season. Even as I write, and the weather alerts come up on my phone, we can't wait to share what we have with you. As we say, we can't be on this wild adventure without you.
Summer Sauce
"This country, it can jump up and bite you," someone said to me as I briefly shutoff our Kubota yesterday to speak briefly to someone coming out of our farmstore loaded up with bags of produce. I smiled. Because I knew he was talking about rain, hail, frost, and our short season. Life in our valley. That's just it: there are so many stories we want to tell you.
We want to tell you about the time Mary and I foraged together in our Oregon neighborhood; and how I convinced her to knock on doors with fruit trees to see what we could glean. And now our whole farm is like that, really. Trying to get to a scale that works for us, to build a place all of us love, and that gives us the life we dream.
We want to tell you how one farm customer came with soil on her jeans today. She had just been harvesting beets on another farm. And Mary told me, 'you see, all of us are not just feeding people. We are providing jobs.'
We want to tell you how tonight, with a 2x4 scrap fire (cutoffs from the market trailer), with a simple bowl of tomato pasta, with all ingredients from the farm except a little cheese, oil, and pasta we remembered when we thought we got all of our tomatoes in a little too late; we fretted about the moveable tunnel and the issues with the big tunnel. We were so wrong.
We want to tell you about new neighbors coming by: two men who came out to the farmstore this Sunday, just to see if the madness, the chaos, the life that all this food about is real.
And there it is. I'm out of time for now. We have a typed two page harvest list for the morning that we will start at with headlamps. On the whiteboards in the barn, we have a huge plantcare list going on behind the scenes and you'll see glimpses of some of that: high tunnels being turned over to fall crops, 2 acres of old ground being put into cover crop, bushes of peppers, eggplant and tomatoes. And the whole back garden, that kicked our butts this spring when we implemented a brand new soil managment system. It's really under control back there, with bed after bed of weed-free salad greens. Our winter squash never fully recovered from the hail, but if you walk back there, you'll see our best crops of beets, carrots and a few other things, too. And some of the largest pumpkins we've ever had.
But mostly, come on out, we are roasting peppers again, with our entire farm crew from 4-6pm. Farm members, this is the time to load up and bring friends. And for all of the rest of you, come on out too, bring your friends, family, questions. Our pepper roaster is amazing, and we'll help you roast peppers you pick out and be on hand for stories, pesto recipes, hot sauce tips, and a whole list of different directions we can point you in if you want to explore.
We will deploy the market trailer too and have it fully stocked along with the farm store. Since summer is fleeting, and it's important to get food off the farm, we have some bulk stock up deals too!
Your farmers,
Noah, Mary, Taylor & Erin
Setting up for the farmers market in our new rig last week: exhausted from a 3am bedtime and the exhilaration of so much food. There's also another story, about riding in the market trailer enroute to market, but we'll share that some other time.
You Might Not Recognize Us: Introducing the Market Trailer
Yup, we said it, you might not quite recognize us today at market.
We think it's more than we've ever brought: literally a two page harvest list, including spinach.
But, there's something else. We built something.
It’s a secret among many farmers we know, that farmer’s markets may be the toughest thing we do. It’s not selling our produce, or growing it — but that’s tough as well — it’s getting it to market. For the past five years, we’ve always loaded up our truck, all the crates and bins and all the produce and hauled it the short two miles to 2nd and Bedford. We’ve had a great run, but for the past couple of years, especially during this heavy season when we have tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, melons coming, and the winter squash (yet to bring in), it’s at least two trips in our truck. Boxes or crates have been known to fly off our strapped load, and those of you who show up at 9am, ready for us, realize that we aren’t ready — more typically stranded in a sea of our own wax boxes, just trying to make sense of our very own farm mess in downtown Hamilton. And our canopy has never completely blown away, but we’ve replaced many, many parts on it over the years. And the bolts on those old plywood tables we’ve sheared off? I can’t remember how many we’ve replaced.
Well, today, that all changes. With the very first farm member deposits this winter, we purchased parts that we had welded up to the specifications of our double-sized market booth, with a little space to spare. And, finally, after many other building projects (a pump house and new well, a new domestic well pump, 2 intern cabins, and others), we couldn’t take the strain on our truck, bodies, and the simple stress of Saturday mornings not being ready on time. So, for the past twelve days, I’ve been busy cutting, grinding, buying bunks of reclaimed lumber, staining, painting, bolting, designing, and testing. Unlike the root washer we built, or even the grain bin, there aren’t plans or models for this sort of thing, and it’s something we’ve done from the ground up. We were worried about this big investment: those of you who have followed us for years know that we’ve had some big expensive building failures — that first big chicken barn was too big for that small 10 ton hay wagon. And that straw bale house? That had a very happy ending eventually, but it meant some cold winters in our barn. And now, even if it’s planting dates that we miss, another failed building project just wouldn’t seem right. So we’ve been thinking about this piece of farm infrustructure for years, and doing a lot of designing and planning.
This was a difficult build - the project needed to check many boxes. We needed to be able to load pallet bins for big harvests. We needed about double the shelving and display space. We need to do away with our aging canopy and bulky wooden crates. We needed more shade. For some things that get buried in our booth, especially herbs and meal packs, we needed ways to display them. And we needed to have fun. Market was simply becoming too much of a chore for us, and we needed a big change. The solution needed to fit our values, and not be just another box truck or standard trailer. Those Sprinter vans that our colleagues use are expensive and a standard trailer didn’t solve our time pressure with setting up.
So today is different. You really won’t believe what we’ve come up with. In addition to checking the boxes above, we’ll use it on the farm as well, starting next Tuesday with for farmer members and all of you as a pepper roasting station. All I can say is come out and see this thing. There’s still a few bungi cords where we’ll add some custom hardware, and likely the first set of carabiners you see suspending our produce will be replaced this coming week, but this thing is wild, and if it weren’t for your enthusiasm to come out to market and buy whatever we can bring, we wouldn’t have made this investment.
And, another word of gratitude. We simply couldn't have done this build without our entire crew doing plant care and harvesting. When I pulled Mary in for some difficult steps, and also our entire crew for other steps, it was great to be able to focus with confidence, rather than worry. And we did have at least one video consult from Mary's dad, Frank Bricker when we needed to fabricate custom hardware with just what we had in our shop. Thanks so much, Frank.
Some come out today, and celebrate with us. And, see this thing for yourself.
End of August: The Annual Messy Farm Kitchen Addition
Confession: for the last week or so I've had a bad case of cheesy Christmas music stuck in my head. It all started a Sunday or two ago when I was harvesting tomatoes from our caterpillar tunnel, enjoying the hunt for the first ripe red prizes, and thinking of the avalanche to come if good weather holds out: ripe tomatoes, basil, peppers both sweet and hot, tomatillo salsa...and I thought to myself, the entire line verbatim "it's the most wonderful time of the year." And it's been stuck ever since, random lines about mistletoe and loved ones bounce through my head while I wash arugula in the packshed.
Don't get me wrong, it's also about the most exhausting time of the year, and we are flat-out dead-dog tired, as it pretty common for a small farm in August. Even as the harvests ramp up, there are still a few more rounds of planting and seeding left for our weekly greens, and some transplanting to try to maximize greens into deep fall and winter. When planting overlaps with such beautiful, bountiful, (but also heavy) harvests, farmers can feel a pretty deep exhaustion.
But in many ways we are also settling into our groove as a farm-team, and feeling pretty hopeful about riding this wild wave of late summer into fall. For those of you who have been following our roller coaster of recruiting interns/ labor this year, you'll be happy to know that what finally worked was when Erin recruited her sweetie, Taylor to join us at the end of July after finishing his owl-survey job in the southwest. We've had farmer colleagues advise strongly against hiring couples, but so far this team of two is pretty much rocking, and we couldn't be doing this without them. More than once in the last few weeks, we've let the crew (or "the well oiled machine" as they are also known) handle a huge portion of the harvest day while we worked out the details of our irrigation improvements, or the design details of the daunting market-trailer project.
Taylor lays out the first round of onions for curing in the prop-house. Many more will be coming in soon.
And finally, after many delays, we have finished (the inside of) their living space! The famed intern cabin #1 is livable and lived in. We know any of you have been curious to see it, so today (Tuesday, August 27th), during the latter part of our hosted farmstore time, we have a little cabin-warming/ show-and-tell time scheduled, from 4:00-6:00. To thank Erin and Taylor for allowing folks to poke around their home space, we just ask that you bring a small thank-you gift: a can of food, jar of peanut butter, box of tea, or any sort of non-farm food or drink would be lovely. Or something from the short list of supplies we are still working on outfitting their space with: kitchen towels, a soup ladle, a metal spatula/ flipper, and a cast-iron skillet. The space is pretty sweet, complete with Noah Jackson original light fixtures (of course), and we're hoping it helps keep morale up for hard-working farmhands like these two, for many seasons to come.
The sweet peppers are getting sweeter. Though still mostly green, we are starting to get a few of the colors. September is prime pepper season for us, and it's just around the corner.
A final gratitude, to end: our passenger-vehicle shortage was recently abated through the generosity of some long-time members of the farm family. Folks who have been members since the very first boxes we packed (we used to do a pre-packed CSA box!), gifted the farm a very gently used 1999 Dodge Caravan, and it has already been serving us well as a delivery vehicle!
Hello, August
The tomatillo trickle started last week, and people kept asking "what do you do with tomatillos?" So this week at market, we have green salsa recipes at two scales: a quick batch with a small bag, or enough to can. We also have, um, a flood of tomatillos, so we hope the you are up for it.
This season has been whipping by perhaps faster than any we've experienced before. It's hard to believe that it's August, really. But all the signs are pointing that way. The flocks of starlings are getting larger. The lacewings took care of the aphids in the peppers, and the poblanos are taking off. The printed sheets where we log the harvests each harvest day have gone from one page, to two. We have gotten used to just sweating all day, and the days are definitely long. And sure, we get a little cranky from the heat, bug bites, and never quite finishing the to-do list. But there's a secret pleasure in the full-on summer feeling, too. A whisper of color creeping into the tomatoes and peppers; with every run of sweat down my face, I think "the tomatoes WILL ripen!"
It's never fully guaranteed here, ripe tomatoes before the freeze, and when we finished the high tunnel for our tomatoes a full month later than planned (or was it more?), we definitely worried. But they are starting to turn, and a few cherry tomatoes are coming in (available sporadically at the farmstore, and a few for early arrivals at market this week). The zucchini really seem to have started to recover from their hail a month ago, and are making a good showing at the daily harvest again, though the high tunnel cucumbers continue to lead the charge.
We are starting to learn some of our annual patterns, in our fifth year of farming here; not just those of the plants and the surrounding birds, insects, etc.., but also ourselves and all of you we grow this food for. I predict that this weekend's rain will settle some dust in our farm roads, give us a few cool nights of good sleep, and boost the whole team up out of the common early-August exhaustion. I sense that you, dear eaters, might take advantage of that cooler weather to get the kitchen steamed up, so we'll be bringing our favorite salsa verde canning recipe (and a great one for just eating fresh, if you aren't quite up for canning). We have bulk bags of, um, larger zucchini and summer squash in the farmstore, if you're ready to grate and freeze, or make a big batch of zucchini bread. I'm having my annual panic that I might have lost the Ball Canning and Preserving cookbook that i won in the county fair at age 12 for my apple butter. I'll find it again I'm sure, I always do. And then I'll share with you the the best recipe for pickled beets.
But till then, there's plenty to keep you busy, whether you want to start putting up for winter, or just want to eat well all week. I (Mary) will be at market while Noah works on some of the final touches (really, it's almost done!) of the intern cabin. Eggs will be just at the farmstore, but loads of veggies will be at both the market and the farmstore, all week long. Hope to see you at one or both!
With gratitude,
Mary and Noah, SweetRoot
We share a lot of recipes, but so many of our best meals are simple improvisation with a cast iron skillet, a good tasty oil, a few herbs and seasonings, and the confidence to know how long to cook, and in what order. Two nights this week, Erin and Taylor wrapped up their tasks a little before Noah and I, and whipped up some extremely delicious big veggie bowls. Their directions, including the secret ingredient: heat the butter, bacon fat, or oil in the pan. Have all your veggies chopped to the size you like. Start with the most durable: beets, carrots and potatoes of all varieties. Cook them up a few minutes, then add the onions and garlic. When they get a little soft, add your summer squashes, and kale, chard, etc.. Cook till soft, then season to taste. Salt and pepper are good; we have an open jar of farm-dried thyme near the stove that goes in pretty much everything. Basil is nice. Or curry powder. The secret to this weeks root-based scrambles: a dash of maple syrup, to taste, near the end of cooking. It's subtle, but somehow does bring it all together. Give it a try, do some experiments, and let us know your favorite combinations.
Farm members Travis and Shelly visit with the crew as we end a long Monday harvest day with onion cleaning and bunching.
The romaine is still sweet and crips despite the heat, and the heads are huge!
Farm-scale sandwiches, even Hershey is impressed.
Would it be a newsletter without a photo of Zukes? He's taken to napping under the peppers and eggplant, but emerges to greet anyone harvesting. Also, there are eggplant coming to market! And we love our new harvest buckets from Hoss tools; you'll likely see all of us emerging from various parts of the farm wearing these over our shoulders in the coming months, and harvests get bigger and heavier every day.
Maximum Chaos.
This is when the farming season really takes off.
The 11 person, 75 hour workday (yeah, one day) last week? Replanting 50 beds from hail damage and spreading 70 yards of compost this past season? It was all just a warmup.
To the outsider of our farm culture, it might seem like we are always building, or planting, or doing something. And yeah, it has been a crazy season. But, to those of you in the know, this is what we’ve been preparing for. It’s the time when things shift from being less abundant, to fully abundant. This whole enterprise can be lean, tight, sustainable, and successful despite what our culture thinks about small farms and our food system. We are all out to help prove this.
We will fire up our root washer, farm-built in the shop this winter, for the first time today. I'm mounting hardware for the waterline in the photo above, while Mary prepares the rest of the hardware. And we fired up version 1.3 of the flame weeder just last week (and again this week) to tackle more fall and the last summer crops. And the garlic harvest, all six 120 foot beds, are now safely drying in our nursery, with shade cloth and fans and the garlic braiding is about to begin. It’s easy for all of us to think that we are over the hump now, and the farm will just sort of coast through the season, and you’ll pickup produce from us at market or the farmstore. And, we'll all go to bed at 5pm, well rested. But no, not at all. When you come to the farm from here on out, there’s always something big going on, and sometimes while it’s behind the scenes, this week -- and the rest of the season -- it’s all really carnival.
You’ll most likely see that root washer running today if you come out at 3.30 for the hosted farmstore. The chickens will most likely be enjoying treats from the pack-shed. If you want to feed them, just ask for a bucket of treats. Whole gardens are getting taken out of production in preparation for cover crop. Just a few more big plantings are still going in, in addition to the weekly plantings, and the last of our fall ground preparation is happening, and that’s all just this week. The last big summer crops are getting ready to fruit (come on tomatoes, you are almost there), and you’ll see some of the first eggplants, mountains of cucumbers, and some peppers, along with lots of surprises — including some new head lettuce we’ve been happy with. Oh, and did I mention that we have another full time crew member in addition to our Thursday pack shed princess? I haven’t even talked about the intern crew cabins at all this year, really. They are both getting close to getting power and the last interior carpentry, and everyone, and especially the residents in our tiny village that feed you all are looking forward to their completion.
In the barn office, we are finalizing a workshop schedule that will help our community put up food. And, on a more serious note, it’s part of our makeup income plan for the hail damage we had earlier this year. It really never impacted farm members, and really we brought just a tad less to two farmers markets, but they were crops that help us pay off debt and run a tight ship, and we really do need to replace that aging 1992 Geo Metro that can’t leave the Bitterroot, so you get the point.
The best way you all can help is to come on out to the farm. Walk around, join the excitement, and boy, there’s a lot of new stuff here - we even re-arranged the pack shed and for the boat loads of produce about to come in, have everything from new harvest supplies to (finally) another garden cart coming. Malaya even got a summer hair cut. A couple of us set aside Tuesdays to visit with you all from 3.30-6.30, so come on out! It’s farm season, and we are so grateful for you, and abundance.
Special Note to Members: Remember this spring, when we had to ration produce a little? We are imposing mandatory minimums from now on. I’m kidding, but not really. Salad mix? It’s now unlimited. You thought we weren’t growing enough carrots? Think again? You want to pickle some beets? We’ve got you covered. We are getting very close to firing up the third large cooler in the farmstore and there’s a lot more out on the counters now, including some coffee we’ve purchased from farmer friends in Indonesia. We roast that here as well, every week. And members and friends, tell others about the farmstore. It's the time when we really do have enough for everyone, so please help spread the word about the self-serve, always open farmstore.
See you today, or at the farm!
Dirty, But Victorious
We're back. Three weeks post-hailstorm, we are excited to see the zucchini and summer squash bouncing back. This one, our very favorite variety, Costata Romanesco, will be at market with us Saturday, and in the farmstore all week.
July is an interesting time on the farm. The summer produce is starting to roll in at a serious pace, and yet it's also a critical time for planning and planting the crops we will harvest in October. It can be easy to get a little turned around when part of your brain is in the fall, part is estimating how many pounds of salad mix are in that bed (and how many person-hours it will take to harvest, wash, and pack it), part is trying to remember if the chef ordered cucumbers, and part is wondering if there is a plan for dinner.
It seems this is just the time of summer when it all piles on...in addition to the farmers market Saturday morning, there is Daly Days, Brewfest, and the most-talked-about event of July on our farm team: the weiner dog races on Main Street in Hamilton at high noon, on Saturday. Come get your produce before noon, in case you can't tear yourself away from that! Erin will be representing SweetRoot in the audience for that one, as we'll still be at market. There will be all the summer greens (salad mix, baby kale, spicy mix, and beautiful baby arugula), as well as kale and chard, beets, carrots, onions, summer squash, napa cabbage, boc choi, fennel, head lettuces, green garlic and so much more.
One night, after a late dinner (the plan turned out to be zucchini noodles with garlic, basil, cheese, and nutritional yeast), Noah and I asked each other "what did we do yesterday?" At first we drew a complete blank, then we started listing and remembered a rather impossible number of things that we, with help from some farm visitors and of course our intern Erin, had accomplished. it's just that the whirlwind pace can make it hard to keep track.
We've had some farm magic this week. Most leaves have grown back from the hail damage three weeks ago, we have reset or replanted almost all of the irreparable damaged crops, and things are just generally looking better again. Plants are really rather amazing. So are people, and we've had some great help this week: Noah wrangled a half day of help from a team of Natural Resource students from the Darby Job Corps, who cleaned up our rather awful winter squash patch, in exchange for a tour of the farm, demonstration of tools (the flame weeder is always the biggest hit), and learning about soil life and how we try to take good care of that critical natural resource. Some aspiring farmers stopped by for a few days to visit, see our operation, and jump in to whatever task was at hand--from dragging tarps, to weeding beets, to washing greens, they got a full-speed taste of life at SweetRoot. The wash and pack shed got a boost from the new plan of hiring our friend Rami for Thursday harvest days (300 pounds of greens to wash goes way better with a few more hands), and from the long overdue investment of a way to play some music in there.
So, what did we do this week? We didn't take photos of it all, but here are a smattering of the things, to give you a glimpse into the farm.
When the summer excitement and pile up of events starts to overwhelm you, though, we still recommend that the best solution is to eat. Something simple, home-made, grown close by. A recipe for yet another pasta salad is at the end of the email, and you can get everything you need at market, or at the farmstore this week. Hope we see you there!
After the spring struggles with this new North field, it's especially satisfying to be hitting a rhythm with our weekly salad plantings and harvests. Hundreds of pounds of greens have been pouring out of each block before it is mowed and covered in a tarp to help worms break down the crop residue before the next planting. We're getting better at all the steps, and are finally starting to feel like we're getting the hand of some of these new tool and techniques. That's our BCS flail mower taking down lettuce residue left after harvest, to mulch it back into the soil--many thanks to all those of you who helped up purchase it through a KIVA loan! The learning curve was steep, but we're starting to love some of the results of our minimal-tillage systems already.
Mary demonstrates a new technique for weaving our peppers onto their stakes. One little tip from a farmer on instagram whom we've never met, plus a scrap of PVC pipe, and suddenly a task is faster, more ergonomic, and generally more fun. The peppers are not too far in the future!
10 students from the Job Corps program learned about our farm, soil biology, and weeded winter squash with us on Friday. Many thanks, y'all!
Dirty and victorious.
Hul's Dairy is part of the hail-recovery strategy. Our plan for making up for the damage includes an extra , and extra-large planting of fall beets and carrots. Dan delivers 13 yards of compost that will help make the dry sandy end of the north field a great place for growing roots. All our sections of field are numbered as blocks, but this additional space is a little short. There's a full Block 9, and then there are a few more beds we weren't originally going to plant, when we made our spring plan. When we realized, though, that we were going to be planting North Block 9 and 3/4, we were pretty we'd found some magic.
Friday night at sunset, we finished planting the extra roots. Mary carries out the 30'x 120' roll of row cover on her head.
(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
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.
