Newsletters

Counting Down and Looking Back

As I begin my countdown to my last day at Red Dog Farm, I find myself reminiscing about the person I was when I first arrived here in July 2019. Who knew I would love farming so much! I have learned so much about vegetables, farming, the PNW, people, and about myself. A few skills that have become valuable in my day-to-day work at the farm are expert pallet jack...

Appreciating the Potent Flavor of Winter’s Salad

It’s that time of year again where I get to geek out about radicchios—winter’s salad! Perhaps I like radicchio because we share Italian roots, or perhaps it’s because I appreciate their winter hardiness and vibrancy. I like a vegetable that can endure the winter months. I find that people often like to admire their beauty, but when challenged to use them in...

Selling Plant Starts: Not Just for Springtime

Shopping for baby plants for your garden in springtime seems like a long way off during the wet, cool winter. But here on the farm, selling plant starts is nearly a year-round endeavor. As the farm office manager, I spend most of my time at a computer, and these days, that means entering data from this spring’s plant starts sales into a spreadsheet so we can...

Working in Weather

Today was one of the worst weather days we have had on the farm since I started here, almost six months ago. Rain, high winds, and an omnipresent cold combined to form inescapable, unpleasant conditions in the fields. Our roads have turned into muddy rivers, our fields into lakes. As we harvest, we are pelted by rain, we slip in the mud, and we feel the water soak...

Beet and Fennel Soup for Cool, Rainy Days

As the encroaching clouds of fall loom heavy over the heads of the field crew, who is harvesting our end-of-season veggies, we here at RDF turn up our collars and pull tight our hoods against the chill of the wind and the spackling of rain that seems to come almost daily these days. There is something deeply satisfying in seeing the full turn of the seasons: from...

Welcoming Winter

As we say goodbye to October, it’s becoming very clear that winter is upon us. The nights are getting colder, the days are getting shorter, and I’ve found myself opting to stay in my bed watching movies rather than getting out into the woods during my free time. Driving to the farm this morning, I was greeted by a beautiful sunrise over Mount Rainier followed by...