Pears

It is August and there is all sorts of good food in our stand. The online market is open for orders.

We are working at harvesting the summercrisp pears. They are avaialbe now. Half bushel baskets of the nicest of our fine no-spray pears are available for $14 and the #2s are $7 basket. You can also get small amounts by the pound.

I plan to have lots of good lettuce, beans, cilantro, radish, spinach, etc through the fall. To accomplish this I seed many plantings all through the spring and long into the summer. I just planted the last planting of beans for the year on Saturday. These are timed to get ready in early Oct. Lettuce, spinach and many other things also are still being planted every week or ten days. Daniel

Pesto and Pickles

It is time to get cucumbers and pickles for your canning needs. The next couple of weeks are the peak cucumber season.

It is the best time to get bulk basil for pesto etc now while the nights are warm.. Basil is a heat loving plant and is at its best now. As soon as the nights get cold toward the end of the month or in September it gets a lot more ugly and does not grow much. Beans and dill are also abundant.

Right now we do not have much for tomatoes as the greenhouse crop is slowing sooner than normal because of a whole assortment of stresses from rough weather through the spring that has resulted in a lot of damage from blight and leaf molds.(not late blight) The outside tomato crop looks lovely and we should have lots of tomatoes again fairly soon. Daniel

Blackberries and beets

The wild blackberries are ripe!There are several girls wildcrafting blackberries for the stand. Most days we have fresh picked berries by noon. The sunflowers are beautiful this morning. They would look good on a table along with a well-cooked meal. The glads are sending lots of flower spikes up and will become abundant with in a few days. We have beans and beets by the 1/2 bushel for canning.
The cucumber vines grew extra slow during the abundant rain in June and now are growing nice and big. We have started picking a few outside cukes, not many yet as the vines where still small when these flowers set fruit. Next week we should have floods of pickles and cukes for canning.
I picked the first sweet corn today. I stopped after picking one bag as most of the patch is not quite ready yet. By Wednesday it should be abundant. Last year it was July 30 till corn was ready. Daniel

Big cabbage and chicks

Another busy summer day is drawing to close. There is a goodness in the tired that results from meaningful physical labor. The sleep of a laboring man is sweet the Bible says.
It is midsummer now and there is a growing selection of good food at our stand. This evening Levi came in with eleven huge cabbage heads from his patch. As a group they weighed in at 125 lbs! We also have a selection of smaller cabbage. The carrots have grown a lot in the last week and we are starting to offer them with the tops off. The first sweet corn still is not ready. I think it may be ready by the weekend or sometime next week.

Cherie Whitten found a good source for meat chicks. There were 3300 chicks and there are still several hunderd of them for sale. If you wish to buy some you can either contact Cherie at 328-5559 or we have a couple hundred here. We should also have an abundance of chicken meat for sale in about 8-10 weeks from now. Daniel

Beans

There is lots of good food at our stand. I picked 140 lbs of beans this morning. The cabbage is ready and there is abundance of summer squash and salad fixings such as lettuce. We dug the first new, red potatoes this morning. The sweet corn is not ready yet but it has silk and baby ears now.
The strawberry season is coming to an end. The patch is open for gleaning anytime the stand is open for the next few days and when there is nothing left I will renovate the strawberry plants.

The chemical companies and big agri-business keep pushing the idea that science is on there side, that it has never been proven that there is a problem with GMOs or chemicals. They are whining that consumers are not accepting science. How do they expect us to believe them though, after all the lies in the name of science. Daniel

More strawberries

The online market is open for orders. We have all sorts of the early summer produce. The red beet greens are coming into their prime now. We have started cutting cabbage and are picking both early beans and peas now.
I don’t have a good explanation why we have beans now. These plants were well on there way when we had that freeze in the end of May. All my past experience says that beans don’t take frost- these bean plants lived.

There are a lot more ripe strawberries in the field than I expected for today. If anybody wishes to come u-pick strawberries today we have berries available.

We live in a beautiful community. I see many examples of people loving and caring for each other. I also see sometimes where community fails. Spouses divorce, neighbors fight. People act in selfish ways.I was pondering a bit about how all this works. Mostly it is pretty simple, we already know what it takes. Mercy and forgiveness are so lovely, Thoughtfulness, gentlenss, and giving others space to try and fail go a long way. Daniel

July 4 strawberries

We are open for u-pick strawberries today. The picking is about the same as it has been for the last few pickings, poor by normal standards. As I was walking the patches the sweet, delightful fragrence of strawberries was strong in the air.

This is the 4th of July. On a holiday it is normal for very few people to be out early, by midmorning lots of people will be here. You did not miss the picking just because you enjoyed a bit longer sleep this morning. Picking times for next week are Wednesday, July 8 starting at 2 pm and Saturday, July 11 starting at 7 am. Daniel

Strawberries and raspberries

We will be open for strawberry picking this afternoon (Wednesday) at 2pm. We are open even if it is raining. Picking conditions are about like they have been, poor by normal standards, but they taste good. There are still pretty many green berries in all stages so I still think that we will be picking for another 10 days or so.

The raspberries are starting. Somebody can pick a few today and there will be more Saturday. The u- pick raspberries will be available at the same times as strawberries as long as strawberry season lasts. After that we will do raspberry u-pick by appointment the same as we have in the past.

We will open for u-pick again on Saturday July 4th at 7 am and then next week on July 8 and 11. Daniel

Sugar Snap Peas

The online market is open for orders. the sugar snap peas are in season now. The hull peas are still not ready but will be soon.
When you come to our farm you are getting some of the finest “No spray” food around. You will also find that some of the headlands, pond banks and edges have not been mowed recently. I do this limited mowing on purpose as part of insect managment. You will also find assorted cover crops. Some of the effect is to provide food and cover for benificials and some of it is working as trap crops for bad bugs. I hope you enjoy some of our fine food this summer. Daniel

Strawberry picking dates

We will be open for u-pick strawberries Saturday morning (6/27) starting at 7 AM.
I have just came in from walking the fields. I think that there are several hundred quarts of ripe berries for tommorrow. If I am reading the plants right I see a simular amount of strawberries for each picking for the next 7- 10 days or so. There are still pretty many of green berries left. This coming week is the peak of the season. Set your expectations fairly low, the picking will never be good by normal standards anytime this year.

The wonderful taste of the berries that I ate as I walked through fields this evening is still lingering in my mouth. There is no picking on Monday June 29. We will be open for picking again on Wed. July 1st at 2pm. And Saturday July 4th at 7am. Daniel