This past week has been one for the record books. For the first time since starting farming together five years ago, my partner John and I were able to take five days off in the middle of summer to go on a rafting/camping trip in Central Oregon. Some of you may know that while I am the main manager of the farm John has had a huge hand in making Flying Coyote a reality for me. He encouraged and supported me from the beginning to start my own farm and even though he doesn't work on the farm full time right now he's always around for big push projects, like erecting greenhouses, fencing and building. Taking time off from the farm was honestly a bit scary for me, as amazing as the farm apprentices are I know what a huge job it is to care for this place and how much can randomly go wrong in the course of a week. Thankfully things ran smoothly while we were away and the crew was able to handle the minor hitches with ease and grace. We are halfway through the season at this point and I can feel the crew coming together, getting in the groove and taking ownership in ways that are truly impressive. This is my first year with full time help other than John and it has made such a difference in ability to love my work again instead of feeling burnt out and exhausted.
I am still grappling with the hot weather we've been having and the explosion in pests that has resulted from the relentless heat. We just mowed in all of our spring kale, collards, and chard because it was so pest ridden (flea beetles and cucumber beetles) that we could no longer get a usable harvest. We are also VERY tight on space on our farm. We only produce vegetables on 1/2 an acre and right now we have about 14 beds of brassicas (cauliflower, cabbage, kale, broccoli) to transplant and not enough space for them! I also want to sow a fall planting of carrots, get another bed of herbs going and there's salad mix, chard, radicchio and lettuce ready to go in the garden as well. I'm still refining my crop plan and seeing that I need less of some things and more of others but so far we seem to have hit the sweet spot on a lot of our crops this season (except lettuce, I ALWAYS seem to plant too much!). Our lack of land is a definite issue and something I wonder about constantly. I vacillate between trying to till up more of our small pasture and taking away land from our animals, or trying to lease land nearby and having to commute to another piece of property, or whether we should have it in our five year plan to move to another larger farm. The last one seems like the best long term solution but also the most daunting after we've put so much love and work into this place. Either way something's going to have to give for us to be able to raise enough produce to make a living as small farmers. In some ways the land constraints are helpful because they've forced me to pay attention to everything and to make sure that we are as successful as possible with each of our crops. Right now we grow over 100 different varieties of vegetables and specialize mainly in fruit crops (cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, etc.) and leafy greens. We are slowly refining our crop selections but there's always new varieties to try and I have a hard time cutting back, especially in winter with all those shiny seed catalogs full of beautiful pictures.
This week's share has a fair amount of fennel in it and an eggplant. Here's a lovely recipe for a Beet, Fennel and Carrot Salad, and another recipe for a Roasted Eggplant, Zucchini and Chickpea Wrap.
This weeks share:
1 bunch basil
1 head of lettuce
4 cucumbers
2 summer squash
3 fennel
1 eggplant
1 green onion
1 bunch chard
2 jalapenos
2 beets
'Til next week...