High Tunnel Raising

The new year brought the completion of a BIG project for us... putting the poly on the high tunnel!  This is a job for many hands, and we owe many, many thanks to the wonderful people who came down on their Saturday to brave a cold breeze and accomplish a hefty task.

We were lucky to have two of our farmer friends visiting from Wisconsin.  Ken & Judith Keppers who own Keppers Pottery & Produce, brought their experience, calm nerves, and surprised us with another friend from town, Loring!  The winds brought us a new volunteer, Nicole, who jumped right in like an old farm hand.  Brian, Breanna, and Fehin made it a family affair, and brought their senses of humor and handy skills.

All pictures below are courtesy of Judith Keppers.  You can see pictures of their lovely farm and poly tunnels at www.Kepperspottery.com

Ken, Sarah & Breanna pull on ropes to get the poly over the top while Nicole supervises.

Loring and Matt help lift up the poly.

Matt and Sarah working together to get the wiggle wire installed.

Winter sun going down behind the tunnel.

 

The whole crew + Judith behind the camera.

The market season has come to an end!  Here are a few pictures from the late fall markets:

Bell peppers of all colors!

Matt and Sarah at the booth, early September.

Late tomatoes!

Giant pumpkins & sweet pie pumpkins at the last market.

Thanks to all of our wonderful, dedicated customers for visiting us each week at the markets!  It was a successful growing season and we're happy that we can share the harvest with the community.

A little bit of food preservation

 Yellow romas waiting their turn for the blanching pot.  This year I think we're just going to blanch and freeze a bunch of tomatoes.  Unless the sauce fever hits us when we get some fall tomatoes!  We've made sauce the past three years, and maybe this one will be different.

 Sweet corn for freezing! Again, I'm into freezing.  We had a bunch of ears that hung out long enough for me to get my act together and process them.  I simply husked, trimmed, and steamed the ears, then cut off the kernels.  I put them in double bags with the date, and will be thankful in January when I make chili!

 This is only the first batch of pickled jalapenos.  There will be more!  Matt thought I was crazy because I made them on a Sunday afternoon, after a sleep-deprived weekend of markets.  I really like to use the brine in soups and stews, and throw in a pepper or two as well.  Delicious!

Big Rains

We have had some rain... a couple pictures at the house of the torrential downpour from two weeks ago:

The spot on the right side of the picture was a garden that had some flowers, tomatoes, herbs, and strawberries.  Now it is to be dealt with after the markets end.  Our front "yard":

The greenhouse! It's okay now, though Matt and I saved the plants just in time!  The ones on the right are sitting on screens on blocks.  There were ones where the bread trays are, but we moved them out when the water rushed in.

Despite this desert flash flood, the crops survived and are growing well!  The weeds loved that one too. 
More pictures to come!

Sweet corn on the way

The sweet corn tassels two weeks ago were full of color!  Matt snapped off a few of the first fat ears this morning, so we'll have some good summer snacking this weekend at the markets!  We are thankful that we have irrigation for our sweet corn crop, and our hearts go out to all the farmers affected by severe drought this year.  When food prices increase due to the drought, it is not worth it to complain, as we are lucky that there is anything on the shelf at all, considering the lack of rain.   Seeing what it takes to grow just a small patch of sweet corn makes it hard to comprehend the energy that goes into putting out the tens of millions of acres of crops grown nationwide! 

I haven't been posting as much as I would like on the blog lately.  I have been putting pictures on to facebook from our entire farm photo collection (all years!) so take a look at that for more photos.  Thanks for reading, more to come!

June's happenings

June is a busy month for farmers -- markets are in their first weeks, planting is in full swing, and the weeds are really going to town.  It's a juggling act, between picking, weeding, planting, fixing broken things, and making sure the gophers don't eat everything before you get to it!  Somewhere in there we try to sleep a little, play with the dogs, and enjoy the bounty of food in the kitchen.

Matt built us a wash station at the farm and it has made a HUGE difference in our efficiency in harvesting and packing.  Before we were picking in the field, packing it in coolers, hauling it home, unpacking, washing, then packing it for market.  Yikes. Now we can pick, wash, pack all at the farm, and only haul it once!  Woo!

Beets in the washing line with Black Mountain in the background

Sarah with the most beautiful bok choy of the season.

 Roots!

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More photos to come soon!

Spring things

It's been a warm spring and we've been planting for two months now.   The weather has been pleasantly balmy and briefly rainy. The plants are taking a liking to it, both the ones we planted and the weeds of course!   We are trying not to get too comfortable with the nights in the warm 40's or we will do something crazy... like plant out our tomatoes!

What's growing now?  Kale, head lettuce, salad mix, sweet turnips, radishes, spinach, green garlic, and arugula are what we have been harvesting.  Broccoli, cauliflower, Swiss chard, onions, beets, and carrots are all in the ground and growing strong, within weeks of harvest.  Waiting in the wings for planting are second rounds of everything, as well as squash, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, melons, okra, and all the summer crops.

 Second batch of onion starts in the greenhouse in early morning light.

Greenhouse with tomatoes and pepper starts.

Matt bunching kale for the PCCSA last week.

The first Prescott Farmers Market of the season starts this coming weekend! We'll be there; stop by and say hi!