What a Party! A Recap of Our 2017 Harvest Party

By Farmer Richard

Members enjoying a light snack before the wagon tour!

One of our younger members
stretching to step over the drain!

Last Sunday we hosted our annual Fall Harvest Party and had a great day!  Preparation for this party starts days before with planning, sending out invitations, ordering food, supplies, etc.  Then, the Saturday before the party comes and we kick it into high gear to get everything ready.  Our crew still had harvest to do as we finished putting together our orders for the week, but we all worked together to get the jobs done and then spent the last few hours of Saturday washing the work tractors, loading wood crates onto harvest wagons for the tour and making sure we were “parade ready.”  The packing shed crew spiffed up their area, moved equipment out and moved picnic tables in as we prepared for the potluck.  Andrea spent all day preparing snacks and food including some delicious caramelized onion & roasted poblano dip, black bean salad with tomato vinaigrette, fig & apple chutney and purple tomatillo salsa!  Angel, Oscar and Ascencion spent much of the day preparing the underground brick oven and the pork so it could slow-roast overnight.  By the end of the day we were all tired, but excited for the next day and its activities.

We had some members who came on Saturday afternoon so they could camp out on Saturday night.  They set up their tents in our camping area by the river, built a nice fire for cooking and beat the heat with frequent dips in the river to keep cool.  Chris & Lisa (members from Madison) brought a super powerful telescope.  After the sun went down, we had clear skies which made for spectacular star gazing.  We could see Saturn with its rings, Jupiter and its moons and the Andromeda galaxy.  What a cool treat!  All of the campers seemed to enjoy their night with a few hooting owls and other night sounds. 

We enjoyed music performed by Dave & Ryan!

Sunday dawned, clear and warm for last minute set-up and preparations.  Michelle arrived and took over kitchen duties so Andrea was free to mix & mingle.  Scott, Gregorio and Manuel pitched in too to help grill tortillas, finish preparing the pork and make sure everything was ready for the potluck.  Our guests started arriving at noon and enjoyed snacks and the gentle music of the Sonic Love Child.  Dave, one of the band members, is a CSA member from Minneapolis.  Unfortunately the other members of his group weren’t able to come this year, but Dave recruited another musician friend (Ryan) who actually lives in Viroqua and the two of them played for us.  The kids enjoyed giving Captain Jack (the dog) pets on the head and tossed sticks for him.  Kids of all ages tried to guess the number of baby potatoes in the gallon jar.  The winner was Clara, a young CSA member who walked away with the big jar of potatoes to enjoy!

Farmer Richard showing members how to dig sweet potatoes!

Look at this sweet potato!

One of the larger sweet potato finds this year!

Finally, it was time for the field tour!  We had 3 full wagons with a headcount of about 100 people!  We set out for our first stop at the tomato/eggplant/pepper field by the river.  We parked in the shade and spread out to find our favorites.  Some went to tomatoes, others meandered down the rows of eggplant and many enjoyed snacking on bright, sweet, warm peppers!  It’s great to see kids wrestling peppers off a plant and tentatively tasting.  Finding it sweet, they look for more.  You know the expression “kid in a candy store?!”  Yes, it’s a little like that.  After we’d had our fill, we hopped back on the wagons and headed to the sweet potato field!  We passed a very nice field of broccoli and celeriac and stopped to dig sweet potatoes.  This is a much different harvesting experience, having to remove the vines and dig to loosen the dirt with a shovel in order to pull the sweet potato bunch from the dry ground.  We have several different varieties we’re trialing this year, so we dug in several different places to check on the progress of the different kinds.  We found some very nice sweet potatoes, but it was agreed that many were on the small side and needed another week or two to grow to their full potential!

Our next stop was the pumpkin field!  We picked as many as we could including some 20# Jack-O-Lanterns and many smaller “winter luxury” pie pumpkins.  There were plenty of pumpkins for everyone and many still remained in the field as we drove away.  While we would’ve liked to stay and keep picking, we had to get back to the farm for the potluck! 

Some Members prefer the smaller pumpkins.

And some liked the bigger ones!

Chef Andrea with her wee little pie pumpkin.

The roasted pork turned out great and we enjoyed it carnitas style on corn tortillas with cabbage slaw and salsa.  Rufino made a super spicy sauce that took some by surprise!  We filled our plates, making sure we saved room for ice cream brought by Madison member, Sarah!  We had had such a great day, but wait!  We still had more activities to do!  Captain Jack took a place on the sideline, exhausted from chasing sticks and Frisbees.  While he rested, Rafael took a group to test dig the fall carrot field.  His group came back with big bunches of nice orange, yellow, red and purple carrots.  Meanwhile I took a group to check out a magnificent bald-faced hornet nest in the tree behind the office.  We also took a walk through one of our prairie spaces to collect wildflower seeds.  We wandered up to the woods and foraged for hickory nuts and stumbled upon a small patch of ghost plants!  This is a rare and strange plant that is “ghostly white”, having no chlorophyll.  We ended the walk by swinging past the Concord grape vines where we paused to pick a few to pop in our mouths.  One final visit to the goats and ducks and then it was officially time to bring the party to a close and head home!  While we were off on our adventures, our dedicated crew had already started cleaning up the wagons and was getting the packing shed put back together so we’d be ready to hit the ground running first thing on Monday morning.

After the tours, members could go with Rafael to
see and dig some carrots to take home.

Some HVF Crew took breaks under
the wagon to cool off!

Farmer Richard talking with members about Jicama!

Thanks to those that made the time to come and visit us.  We enjoyed your company and enthusiasm and hope you too enjoyed your farm experience.  If you weren’t able to join us this year, mark your calendars for next year and join us for a super-fun day at the farm!  We also want to pass on a big “Thank You” to all of our crew members who pitched in and helped us put on another great party.  Now that the party is over, it’s back to work for another busy week of packing CSA boxes, harvesting root crops, tomatoes, peppers and more!  Hope to see you next year!

Late Summer Farm Update

By Farmer Richard  

     Wow! That was a hot one! July was the hottest month ever worldwide! Aside from a few hot days, it really was not so bad here. We did have two days when we changed our work schedule and started an hour early, but we worked carefully, drank lots of water, and all did fine.  Even Jack, The Dog, survived….and he is one furry creature! He did learn (unintentionally) how to turn the air conditioning on in our new field truck. Easy, push the button! Turning up the fan speed is a little more difficult, but he asks nicely and I oblige!
     The rains and storms have definitely kept us on our toes. We expected drought, at least that was what the prediction was for the summer. Instead, we got rain after rain…and even as I write this article the rain is falling again. Many of our crops get a fertilizer boost of fish/seaweed and other natural minerals through the drip irrigation system when we water them. This year many of these crops have had little need for water, but they still need the nutrients. It takes “discipline” to set-up and pump even minimal water just to deliver the nutrients. Nonetheless, we have persevered, have some nice crops still to come and are thankful for the decided turn to cooler fall weather. The weeds have slowed down, we’ve been able to do timely cultivation and the fall crops look great! Sweet potatoes are looking very nice and the winter squash will be ready to harvest soon. We already have a few specimens setting on the kitchen counter, and we’ll sample them soon! The onion crop was fantastic this year, and we’re thankful we got it all in. The week we harvested onions, we raced against the threat of rain. The crew finished the harvest and had the last few crates tucked away on the wagon just as it started to rain!! They are still curing in the greenhouse, but we take advantage of the wet days to work inside, trimming and cleaning onions.
     We’ll continue to pick peppers, tomatoes and eggplant, but we’re approaching the point in the season where summer and fall collide. It’s nearly time to start making the shift to fall leeks, potatoes, celeriac, turnips, sweet potatoes and winter squash. Some of the fall brassicas (cauliflower, broccoli Romanesco, etc) have succumbed to wet and heat and you likely won’t see much of these in your fall boxes. Thankfully, the broccoli still looks good! We just started planting salad mix again last week and added spinach to our planting plan this week. We’re looking forward to a short run of fall greens in September and October, our favorite time of year to grow these crops. Yes, they grow a little more slowly, but the colors are intense and the cool temperatures lend to a sweet, pleasant taste. Our fall fennel and head lettuce crops look great as do the fall radishes.
     We’re hoping to dig the remainder of our potato crop later this week. Despite the fact that we reduced the acreage we planted, the yield looks to be quite abundant! Our fall carrot field looks great, rows and rows of beautiful green tops. Even our crop insurance adjustor commented on how good they look and snapped a few pictures to show his wife! Needless to say, we love fall!

Sunchokes standing tall & blooming

     Every year of farming holds both triumphs and disappointments. Last week we had a short, yet violent, storm that managed to flatten our last two crops of sweet corn. There aren’t as many ears in your box this week, but the corn has been so good this year we didn’t want to count it as a total loss! It’s a little more challenging to pick, but we managed to salvage the good ears and hope you will enjoy the last few tastes of fresh sweet corn this summer. The edamame field experienced a similar fate, and about 40% of a beautiful sunchoke crop lays with flattened stalks and exposed roots. Neither are a total loss though…there are still 60% of fantastic looking sunchoke plants standing proud and tall in all of their 12 foot glory! The edamame is slow to pick, but the pods have filled out and the beans are sweet and delicious. “Hope springs eternal!”
     We win some; we lose some. That’s just the game of life for farmers. We put forth our best efforts, make the best decisions we can, work diligently and proactively, and try to play the hand Mother Nature deals us as gracefully and successfully as possible. In the end, we always consider ourselves very blessed and always have plenty to keep us busy. When we have done all we can in the fields, we go to the woods to pick hickory nuts, clean up dead trees and turn them into beautiful things such as bowls and furniture we can enjoy. These are the late season projects I look forward to.
     We just started to get our loads of fall compost this week with the first few arriving today. We’ll take advantage of every dry moment to spread compost and plant cover crops. Yes, it’s time to put the fields to bed for the winter. As we wrap up one season, we’re already getting ready for a new year!

Mid-Summer Farm Update

By Capt Jack, The Dog

Hello Everyone!  Can you believe the first day of July is this week! There’s been so much going on around here I have kind of lost track of time. I recently heard my Dad (Farmer Richard) tell someone we are now past the longest day of the year and  the days will start to get progressively shorter. Thankfully we still have several more months of summer to enjoy, and a lot more vegetables to eat before winter rolls in!
 
I wanted to give you a glimpse into what I’m seeing as I travel through the fields each day with Farmer Richard.  Let’s get an important discussion out of the way first….Garlic.  This is the time of the year when Dad and I start to visit the garlic field every day, and sometimes twice a day.  We’re

checking the garlic to see if it’s ready to harvest yet.  Dad says it’s not quite ready yet, we’re thinking next week will be the big week of harvest.
 
Here’s something else exciting to share.  The corn is starting to tassle!  We’ll need to put up all the shiny bird deterrents, fence and electric tape pretty soon to keep the critters out of the field.  We’re thinking we’ll be picking corn within a few weeks.  You may be wondering about the rest of the popular summer vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.  I’m happy to report the tomatoes, tomatillos and peppers all look healthy and fantastic!  The cucumbers have been a challenge this year.  We will have cucumbers, they’ll just be a little behind schedule.
   
We’ve been harvesting quite a lot of broccoli last week and this week.  Our first and second plantings of the year are heading up and the guys just keep cutting and cutting!  It’s kind of funny to consider

that while we’re harvesting our spring-planted broccoli, we’re also planting our fall broccoli.  We have one more planting to do next week and then our 2016 broccoli plantings will be done.  Mom has been asking Dad when we’ll have cauliflower.  He keeps telling her the spring-planted cauliflower is waiting for cooler temperatures to make a head.  The cauliflower must think like I do. When it’s really hot, like it was last weekend, I prefer to work minimally and hang out in a cool place.  This week has been a much more mild week, so I think we’ll start seeing the heads forming on the cauliflower plants very soon.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
Wait until you see the big, beautiful head of leaf lettuce in your boxes this week!  We’ve had pretty
good early season head lettuce this year.  Rain and humidity can be very detrimental to a lettuce crop, but my Dad chose some good lettuce varieties this year and they held up well despite some rain and hot days.  We’re thankful to have had these lettuces this year as our spring salad mix and spinach has been quite a challenge.  We are looking forward to the fall when we plant spinach and salad mix again.  They grow much better in the fall.
 

 Oh, I wanted to let you know the winter squash field looks awesome right now!  Despite a few annoying bugs on the plants, they look very healthy and are filling out very nicely.  We’re optimistic that we’ll have a good winter squash crop to harvest later this fall.  The pumpkins also look pretty good.  Some of you may have seen them when you were at our party a few weeks ago.
 
In addition to the crops, we’ve also been busy dealing with weeds.  We were caught up with weeding earlier in the season, and then we had a period of rain and the temperatures spiked.  These are the perfect conditions for weeds to take advantage of and they literally grew overnight!  While I really don’t like weeds, I have to admit I have a lot of respect for the intelligence of a weed seed.  Weeds are opportunists and will establish themselves whenever and wherever conditions are favorable.  Dad says the weeds are going to slow down now.  Weeds like to multiply by producing seeds that drop back into the soil or blow around.  They have to have enough warm days to do so though.  Now that we’re past the longest day of the year, the weeds won’t waste their time germinating because they know they don’t have enough time this year to produce seed.  Unfortunately they don’t just go away, they’ll lay in the soil and wait until next year to grow.  For this year though, it means the pressure of having to hand weed will let up a little bit.
 
Well, I have a lot more to tell you, but I’m out of room and need to get back to work.  We hope you’ve been enjoying your boxes so far this year and continue to have fun cooking and eating!

Strawberry Day…We had so much fun!

by Andrea Yoder

This past weekend we hosted our annual Strawberry Day CSA event.  We had a gorgeous, sunny day for the party and were thrilled to have over 200 CSA members in attendance!  While we had many members who were enjoying their first visit to the farm, we also enjoyed seeing some of our longtime members and friends return to enjoy the day. We also had a group of happy campers enjoy a night under the stars in our valley! 

   

We started the party with a picnic potluck lunch, and let me tell you this was one of the best potluck

spreads I think we’ve ever seen!  We also enjoyed delicious iced maple latte made with Kickapoo Coffee’s cold-pressed coffee, Castle Rock Organic Dairy’s milk and Alvin Miller’s organic maple syrup.  The other cold beverage treat we enjoyed was a special batch of strawberry-basil kombucha made by NessAlla with HVF strawberries and basil!  Once we had all satisfied our mid-day hunger, we piled onto 5 wagons and ventured to the fields.  Our first stop was near the kale and collard field. Farmer Richard walked the field with some of the members on his wagon. Together they decided red curly kale was the first variety we should harvest for this week’s boxes. 

                                                                                                                                                                   

 Next stop along the way was at our Hammel Farm.  At this stop we checked out the broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage crops that will all be ready for harvest within the next few weeks.  We jumped back on the wagons and circled around the farm to get a good look at the peppers, tomatoes and tomatillos….all of which are looking great!!  Along the way we had the opportunity to answer a lot of excellent questions about the crops, the land, farming techniques, methods for controlling pests, how do we decide what to grow and how much and even a few equipment questions that I had to recruit some help from the crew members.  We were very impressed with the interest and thoughtful questions everyone asked this year!

After we left the Hammel Farm, we journeyed to our final stop along the tour….the strawberry field!!!  Everyone was anxious to start picking and eating the warm, juicy strawberries.  You could smell their aroma as we got close to the field and we were all in strawberry heaven!  After careful instructions from Farmer Richard, everyone got busy picking strawberries.  Farmer Richard, ever the teacher, created a lasting memory for the day when he had the opportunity to pick strawberries with a young CSA kiddo.  As Richard reflected on the day, he lamented that there were so many people and so little time, but this little guy “made my day.”  Richard taught this little guy how to pick strawberries.  Did you know that strawberries like to hide?  Well, they do and the trick to picking them is learning how to “find them.”  His student quickly caught on and filled his pint container in no time.  He handed it off to his mom and got started on another one!  If you can’t tell, Richard has a soft spot in his heart for children and I’m sure he’ll remember this strawberry day picking experience years from now after this youngster is grown up and moving on to college and beyond!

After strawberry picking we were all hot and ready to enjoy a bowl of refreshing strawberry ice cream.  I think it’s safe to say that EVERYONE loved the ice cream…Captain Jack was right, it is some of the best strawberry ice cream we’ve ever tasted!  A big thanks to the folks at Castle Rock Organic Dairy for making this special batch of ice cream just for us!    

 It takes many hands in the community to make this day a success.  Richard and I would like to thank all of our crew members who worked hard to get things ready for the day and many of them helped with the party as well.  A big thanks to our friends Bob & Carol who helped prepare food for the potluck. They were a joy for me to cook with and made the process of preparing hot dogs and chili sauce for over 200 people seem like no big deal.  We’d also like to thank Pam & Jim for their help with sharing Richard’s beautiful wood products at this party.  It was quite a display of unique, one-of-a kind products made from specially selected trees we’ve harvested.  We’ll have more things to share with you by the Harvest Party, just in time to start your Christmas shopping!
  

 All in all it was a great day.  We appreciate everyone who carved out time to come visit our farm and be part of the day with us.  We love getting to meet our members face to face and be able to share a little piece of our daily lives with all of you.  Your joy and appreciation for the work we do is what encourages us to continue doing what we do.  Thanks again!

Spring Farm Update

by Farmer Richard

Crew transplanting onions.

This has been a weird and unpredictable spring!  It warmed up in late February and March. The snow melted, the maple sap started to run….perhaps a bit too early? The ramps came up in early April and by the second week of April we started harvesting them.  All indications pointed towards an early, warm, dry spring! We planted our first salad greens, radishes, beets and carrots on April 14. Early?  Yes, but we love it!

We had fairly dry weather early in April which allowed us to get the overwintered parsnips and sunchokes out of the cold winter ground. The overwintered spinach looked pretty good and by the end of April we started to see signs of the asparagus starting to come up. We were thinking “Yes!  We’re going to have nice early season boxes for our members!” ….and then our fortunes changed.  Cold, damp weather going into the first of May slowed all growth to a crawl!  Some crops did continue to grow, despite the cold temperatures. The garlic, rhubarb, and spring onions looked good, until we had an unsuspected and freakish hail/slush storm with strong north winds. It was quite a

Jose Manuel and Alvaro laying plastic for sweet potatoes.

storm! It moved through quickly but managed to dump about two inches of hail and sleet balls on us in just about 15-20 minutes! Unfortunately the rhubarb and overwintered onions took a beating as the hail hit the tops of the onions and the rhubarb stalks. The wind was coming from the north, so one side of the plant looked pretty bad while the other side of the plant was virtually untouched!  Whoa here, what happened to our early spring?!

After the storm, it was on the dry side so we continued to plant on schedule, even early sweet corn and green beans. The first 24 hours after a seed is planted are probably the most important.  If we plant on a warm day and plant shallow, we can usually germinate the seed. Voila!  Our first planting of beans germinated, pushed through the ground and were looking good. They were just coming up and then on May 15, our average last light frost date, we had a freeze!  27-28°F was our low temperature that set in for about 6-8 hours overnight and into the morning. The green bean sprouts that were still under the ground froze!  The sweet corn froze too, but recovered with new shoots. Most of the beans, however, did not survive.  Despite the fact that we had a cover over the strawberries, some of the blossoms were damaged. It looks like about 40% of the blossoms were damaged, but still a lot of smaller strawberries are ok and coming.

   
The zucchini and cucumbers were under a cover as well.  While the zucchini toughed it out and had a pretty good survival rate, the cucumbers in the same field didn’t fare so well.  They had about an 1% survival rate. So sad. On a brighter note, the beets, carrots, chard, burdock, broccoli, fennel, cauliflower, cabbage, etc are all alive and just waiting for warm weather to grow!

We picked the asparagus hard before the frost on May 15, but some asparagus still froze off and we lost 5 days of production.  That’s why there was such a small bunch of asparagus in last week’s box!  We were very happy to see larger harvest numbers this week when the crew picked on Monday.

Captain Jack supervising.

 No, the asparagus season is not over!
 
 With some extra time on our hands, we turned our attention to that which we always turn to when we have a free moment during the growing season….weed control! Can you believe it has been so cool that even the weeds haven’t been growing!! While we’ve been waiting for the vegetables to grow, our crew has been busy trimming around fields, has done a lot of landscaping, painted our barn and the nursery greenhouse, cultivated and cleaned every small weed from the plantings.
 
Finally, this week the warm weather came and we have been busy transplanting some of our warm weather plants including eggplant, tomato, pepper, squash and melons. While it has been a challenge to manage things this spring and provide a nice box, the tide is turning. The crops…and the weeds will grow!