Delicious Fall Nutrition
I love Fall. The shorter days dictate more rest. The seasonal foods assure hardy comfort. The blustery weather encourages wool sweaters, book reading and craft projects. What’s not to love?! One food that most symbolizes fall to me is the pumpkin. One of my goals this fall is to make (and eat) more pumpkin pie! It’s the easiest pie to make and practically a health food with pumpkin, milk and eggs. Pumpkin soup is another favorite in our house. Sometimes we go with sweet spices like cinnamon and ginger, other times we take a more Thai turn...
read moreMeet the Farm Trucks
As much as I love my sweet red midsize SUV that gets me to work in the morning, takes me adventuring on the weekends, and brought me here all the way from the east coast, there’s nothing like a farm truck. I didn’t know what I had been missing out on until I met Red Dog’s beautiful fleet of multicolored trucks that are consistently muddy and worn, finicky yet reliable, and bouncy but cozy on the coldest, wettest fall days. Each truck has a name and each one most definitely has a personality to fit it. When I first started here, I didn’t think...
read moreThanks, Veggies!
Certain vegetables just have something special. Maybe I’m partial, but fall harvests have me giddy with all the ways they give freely to us. It’s easy to forget just how much time and effort we as farmers have put into a crop by the time it’s harvested and ready to eat! Take our winter squash, for example. It took a giant crew, huge fields and lots of planning to get those babies in the ground months ago. And maybe an even bigger push to get them all clipped off the plants and out of the fields for safe storage. Now we’ll have squash for...
read moreGo Team Winter Squash!
When life gives you a bad tulip year… you make it a standout squash year!!! I remember a few short months ago we were disappointed by an underwhelming spring tulip yield, a time of year where we are craving growth and bounty. But we shan’t dwell on that too much because luckily we don’t put all our eggs in one basket, we put our eggs in a hundred different baskets! By that I mean we plant over a hundred different varieties of plants. This year we planted 9 varieties of winter squash planted over 3 acres and 3 different fields. After prepping...
read moreSeasonal Changes Nurture Personal Growth
As this summer fades and fall and winter approach, I am filled with a melancholy. The days become ever shorter, the nights longer and colder, and the friends I have made on the farm begin to take their leaves for their winter lives. Some I plan to see again next season, some I never will. Change, ironically one of the only constants in life, has never sat well with me. I have always done my best to avoid it, and the reminder of it as seasons change has always pressed itself upon me like an unfortunate weight. But here, on the farm, change is...
read moreAutumnal Farewells
When you spend your time pulling carrots out of the ground during a heat wave, or cutting salad mix as the wind tries (and succeeds) to steal the leaves from your fingers like it did during last Friday’s storms, it’s impossible not to become close with the folks who are working alongside you. Since I moved across the country to work at Red Dog just four short months ago, I have been shocked by the community that this farm has given me. During that time I’ve made lifelong friendships here, getting to know each of my workmates—what makes them...
read moreAn Ode to the Season’s Last Corn
When I was growing up, corn always signified summer. Even though my family did not always eat an entirely seasonal diet, we saved corn for summer, knowing that’s when it would be the sweetest and the juiciest. During my time farming, my understanding of summer sweet corn has deepened as I learned the ins and outs of the crop. When I arrived in Washington in June, I remember walking through the fields and being excited to find the corn growing ankle high and feeling proud that I could identify its early leaves. As the summer progressed, the...
read moreTransitioning to Fall
The past couple of weeks have really started to feel like fall here on the farm. Mornings are a little chillier and days are becoming shorter. Here on the farm we have started harvesting fall crops which is very exciting. This week we are planning on harvesting the remainder of our potato crop for storage and our crop of onions were already harvested a week ago and now are all laid out in our greenhouses curing. I personally love the seasonal transition from summer to fall. While summer brings sunny days and abundance, fall offers cooler days...
read moreFall Abundance
Fall is certainly in the air with the brisk morning and cool wind. Today’s rain made it feel official- fall is just around the corner. Farmers love fall as it means we are one step closer to winter, which means we get to rest! Not yet though, still lots more work to do before the resting time. Fall is also when we get to see the fruits of our labor. Literally. We just pulled in our first storage crop last week in the form of pallets and pallets of onions. Good thing we built a second greenhouse last spring because we needed it to cure...
read moreThe End of Summer
When you’re in the heat of it, the summer feels like it’s going to last forever. The crops (and pigs) grow fast, the fruits are unlimited, and the days get so hot that it’s easy to forget that each day was slightly shorter than the last. Suddenly, it feels like we are passing the threshold between seasons. Our tomatoes, green beans, strawberries, sweet onions, melons and cucumbers are still in their prime—but now our sweet corn is here and multi-colored winter squash are decorating the fields. It’s a precious and fleeting time of the year...
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