August first! Feeling like it’s finally peak season around here. Peak season means harvest, harvest, and harvest! Bounty! Abundance! Summer hot crops! And for me this year, August first and peak season means the end of my job as greenhouse manager on the farm. Just last week I moved the last of the plants out of the greenhouse to prepare them for planting. Now as I...
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As I begin another harvest day on the farm, I look up and see the beauty of the mountains and trees around me and hear the conversation and laughter of my coworkers starting the day. Later, as I cut spinach and I look at the soil on my hands, I can’t help but think of my grandfather, who worked on farms here in Washington so long ago. My grandfather is, in a way,...
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This season has left many of us Pacific Northwesterners feeling like an audience on the edge of our seats, awaiting the climatic shift of the seasons. Needless to say, this spring wasn’t just raining cats and dogs — mane coons and St. Bernards fell like drops from the sky! As you can imagine, this record-breakingly wet spring has had a dramatic affect on the...
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Being certified organic means Red Dog is required to “maintain or improve the natural resources of the operation, including soil and water quality,” according to the rules of organic certification. One way the farm has done this is to plant dozens if not hundreds of native shrubs and trees around the property. As you come up the driveway to the Farmstand, you pass a...
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After this weekend, I think it’s fair to say that we all feel the summertime (finally) setting in. Here at the farm we’ve been able to get more plants in the ground, more varieties of delicious vegetables into our CSA shares, Farmstand, and farmers market tables, and prepare for the busiest part of our year. And with the flush of beautiful weather comes more beach...
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It seems that we can see the (sun)light at the end of the late-rainy-spring tunnel! Finally a week full of sunny days in the forecast, the ground is becoming less saturated, and our fields are slowly filling up with plants. The drier fields and roads enable us to drive our tractors and trucks around the farm…which means cultivation, transplant, and more streamlined...
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