Gear for a More Pleasant December
The crew comes from a diverse background with varied amounts of experience working outdoors. With the winter rain in the forecast, we should all remember the motto of “no bad weather, just bad gear.”To start from the ground up, one would be wise to get a pair of rubber boots and a couple layers of socks. Hiking boots don’t usually come up high enough, and they can be hard to clean. A basic rubber boot can get a daily or weekly washing, and won’t cost too much either. As for socks, I prefer wool under a cheap cotton sock. Cotton...
read moreHarvest Moon Kale Caesar Salad
Frost covers the grass and fields and fog lays heavy in the valley on this brisk morning. Lately these farm days have felt like a window to what this winter will bring, as it lays right around the corner. And with the frost also comes the time for big shifts on the farm as we have less to harvest from the fields and more to pack from our stored crops. Standing in the center of our packshed this morning you can see all the various root vegetables, squash, and currently an abundance of fennel all being processed and looked over before getting...
read moreA Day in the Life
When people come up to us at the farmers market or when I tell someone I’m a “farmer,” they often ask, “What does that mean? Like, what do you do?” I understand this question. It’s the same thing I’m wondering when someone tells me they have a tech or finance job. Because my answer is usually “we do all of the farm work,” I thought I might take the time to shed some light on what we (the general farm crew) actually do here. The thing is, it changes a lot. In the early springtime, we are doing a ton of seeding: shoving a bunch of...
read moreLessons from Winter Plants
As the winter sun grows increasingly meager into November, so does our crop diversity here at the farm. Beds of cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts have given all they can and are turned over to cover crop to replenish the fertility of the soil. This grassy mixture of oats, triticale, vetch, and crimson clover sways across the fields like a green sea as the warmth and light dwindle.Some of the plants start to bolt, moving into their next life cycle, redistributing their energy away from the leaves and roots to produce seeds and a...
read moreChange of Seasons
Last week, a heavy frost covered the Chimacum Valley. It was a sight to behold, with bushes and grasses in an early morning white. This of course meant that there were things for the farmers to attend to and navigate as the proof of a change of seasons greeted the morning commuters.The first thing was that some of the harvests had to be adjusted so as to let leafy greens thaw out. Instead, produce that was normally harvested in the afternoon, such as beets, got a morning visit from our hard-working (and a bit chilly) crew. The beet...
read moreTilth: A Conference for Farmers
Farmers are great at embracing what might seem like paradox: for example, taking advantage of modern scientific research in the ancient act of agriculture, or simultaneously using technologies built half a century apart. We even sometimes leave the fields for an event that is usually associated with corporations or sci-fi superfans: a conference. Tilth Conference 2023 was held last weekend at Fort Worden, and drew agriculture professionals from across Washington State and Oregon. Attendees came from farms, farmers markets, food hubs,...
read moreA Brief History of Squash and Celeriac
It’s sort of strange to think of vegetables as not “always” having been the way that they are – that all of them began as some wild, sometimes unrecognizable version of what they are today, carefully (or, perhaps, recklessly) bred into the delicious treats we get to eat today. This week, I did a bit of research on two of our crops: squash and celeriac. I hope you enjoy. The first squash was cultivated about 8-10,000 years ago in modern-day Mexico. It is thought that their hard shells were initially used as utensils and containers before...
read moreObservations on the Arrival of Autumn
We are given days full of surprises. The days swirl from sunshine toward a misty rain to a roaring wind and back again, always giving each day a new beauty unlike the last. With gratitude, the wetter days mean an end to overhead irrigation and more time spent on harvest. The number of times we have seen rainbows increases as rain returns as a familiar friend, and knowing that winter is around the bend, we find ourselves basking in the last days of warmth with the rest of nature. Yet the geese know what lies ahead; they can often be seen and...
read moreSquashball 2023!
As Geffen wrote last week, squash season is here! We had the full crew outside on Thursday and Friday harvesting over 50 rows of squash. While the task was bound to take days, we had a special technique to speed up the pace and elevate our moods – SQUASHBALL! Here’s how it goes down. We cut the squash from several rows and place it into two adjacent rows. A tractor driver maneuvers along the bed with two macros (large bulk containers), one on the front and one on the back end of the tractor. The harvesters work in pairs with one person...
read moreLooking Forward to Winter Squash
The rains have started to come, and with the rain the summer has ended. The days are much grayer and cloudy now, very different than our long sunny summer days that I grew very fond of. The start of autumn has brought some amazing things though. Watching the rivers full of salmon returning to the headwaters has been breathtaking and the change of the leaves is beautiful. The ocean waters are choppier and more turbulent now too. The change is all around us. The farm is changing a lot now too. All of the fruits that we harvested in the summer...
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