"Big" Plantings

Digging Beds - From SHF CSA

Last week, this week and next week are the biggest planting weeks of the year for us, about 15 beds over that period. We're finding ways to consolidate a little and sections of previous beds are starting to open up so we can plant back to those. Normally it's a push for us to prep and plant two beds in a day, especially with harvest. We've been fortunate enough to have a consistent Volunteer helping take some of the pressure off (thank you, Adam), and Danny and I have been putting in a few extra hours to get through this busy time of year. Last week we were able to plant four beds and we planted one more yesterday and have three more ready to go.  At this point we've hand dug 2200 square feet of garden beds and we're expecting that number to double by the end of the summer. 

The photo above is yesterday's share. We were so busy on the farm that I forgot to take a photo there, so this is once the share got home in my kitchen (and sat in the fridge overnight). There are three types of lettuce this week: thinnings from Pirat, a red butter lettuce, and Plato II, a green romaine. We also cleared the first planting of Flashy Butter Lightning. Our spinach planting got thinned out and is very sweet Bloomsdale - all of our lettuce and spinach seed comes from a friend of ours, Frank Morton, who breeds, and maintains, great varieties down in Philomath, OR. Gathering Together Farm grows the seed for him organically, and we buy it through his seed company, Wild Garden Seeds.  Frank is an amazing seedsman and advocate for reviving regional, and market farm appropriate seed production - something that has been mostly lost in agriculture with the advent of long distance refrigerated shipping, and subsequent consolidation in the industry.  Back to the share, there's also the last of the spring raab, and radishes.  

One more note - we had our first CSA member come tour the farm yesterday with a few friends, very fun to get to show folks around. We're out on the farm every Thursday from at least 7:30am to 4:00pm. We're happy to have visitors see what we're doing in person, and if you want to get your hands dirty we can put you to work. Just let us know you in advance and we'll give you directions to the farm.