Farm Happenings

Seasoned farmers know how important it is to have routines and we also know that regardless of said routines, things don't always go routinely. With the renewal of our Oregon Food Bank grant, an expanded farm stand and a new wholesale account with Linn-Benton Food Share, we seeded thousands of plants in late winter. Here are many of them in their full glory! There's lettuce, celery, parsley, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbages and collards to name a few. We then waited a few weeks and seeded summer crops, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, basil and tomatillos, they're looking great too! The heat mats and...

Let's talk business... Beginning today, you can sign up for 2023 Canners and Planners, our version of a CSA! Details here. The deadline this year is March 31. Our hiatus is coming to an end. We'll be resuming harvest on Monday March 6th. Thank you for your patience while we gave plants time to grow and recover. It's been a mixed bag of results. We'll have salad mix when we return but the kales and blue collards still aren't looking so great. They got the one-two punch of a high water table and freezing conditions. Keep your eyes peeled for the produce...

It's true that farm life revolves around the seasons and the cycle of seed, transplant, weed, harvest, repeat. I'm not particularly drawn to monotonous tasks but I do find them to have a meditative quality. I can put my head down and get through a long task when I need to. I think if farming were just that, people with more creative inclinations might find themselves bored. I haven't figured out whether it's a blessing or a curse, but farming is so much more than the aforementioned cycle.  We spend a lot of time problem solving, fixing, maintaining, streamlining, and...

As you might imagine, farm life is a constant game of tug-o-war for one's attention and energy. It can easily turn into a game of ping-pong or a blindfolded egg toss if you aren't careful. I can't be sure, but I would guess that this particular dynamic is one of the reasons many first-time farmers don't make it past their first few years. It's easy to get caught up in the chaos and lose direction or spread yourself too thin and burn out. As unlikely as it may seem, the opportunities to tune in to a different frequency are also...