June Farm Update—Welcome to Summer!

Gorgeous Potato Field under blue skies, HVF 2020

Here we are, just past the halfway mark in the month of June.  The first day of summer is approaching at the end of this week on Saturday, June 20.  So, as we do an official transition from spring into summer we thought it fitting to do a farm update so you know what’s happening in our valley!  This Sunday, June 21, is also the day we were scheduled to host our annual Strawberry Day event.  When the pandemic infiltrated our world back in March we hoped for a quick resolution and return to “normal,” however we quickly realized we had to be realistic that this wasn’t going to end as quickly as we hoped it may.  So, as the pandemic continues to persist we are cancelling Strawberry Day for the first time in HVF history!  While we’re still doing our best to minimize contact with the outside world, continue to wear masks and practice social distancing, continue daily cleaning and sanitizing, etc, we also continue to farm and do what we know how to do best—grow vegetables.  So while we can’t invite you to join us on a wagon tour to experience our fields and valley views for yourself, we’ll do our best to take you on a virtual tour through this week’s article, complete with pictures Andrea and Richard have been taking over the past few weeks!  So, get comfy and claim your seat on our virtual wagon as we take you through the fields and update you on farm happenings!

May 2020:  HVF CSA Box # 3

As we write this article we’re preparing to pack our 7^th CSA box of the 2020 season and this week we’re welcoming our Peak Season Vegetable share members.  While our early season boxes were filled with a wide variety of greens, radishes, ramps and asparagus, we’re just starting to see the transition from spring crops to summer crops.  We started picking strawberries last week and while they taste quite delicious, we have to be honest with you that we are not going to see prolific yields as we have in previous years.  When we pulled the field cover back early this spring, and loosened the straw mulch, we found that some of the plants had not survived the winter.  What exactly was the cause?  It’s hard to say, but likely a combination of a warm March followed by a cold April.  This is our first year to harvest from this planting.  While it’s a bit disappointing, we’re hopeful that the plants will shoot out runners to help fill in the gaps.  If we manage the field correctly after we’re done picking this year, we may be able to establish more plants for next year’s’ harvests.  So, while we will still have strawberries, there won’t be as many as in past years.  Now that we have that bit of news out of the way, lets move on to some other fields!

Look closely and you'll see the cutest little Green Zucchini!

By the end of this week we’re hoping to start picking the first zucchini and in just one more week we’ll add cucumbers to the harvest list!  We had a field cover on these plants after we transplanted them back in May, with hopes that a little extra heat gain would encourage their growth.  We didn’t intend to take the cover off, but Mother Nature had a different idea when she sent high winds our way a few weeks ago!  So, we let her do her thing and once the cover was off we were pleased to see nice, healthy plants!  Right next to these crops we planted our first planting of melons and watermelons.  The plants are still small, but they look very healthy.  Manuel Morales and Jose Antonio have been working hard irrigating many crops.  Crops such as zucchini and melons are planted on beds covered with plastic mulch and have drip lines running underneath the plastic to deliver not only water but also nutrients and beneficial microbes to support the plant’s growth and fruit development.  Before the melon vines grow too much and extend into the wheel tracks in between the beds, we are trying to maximize every effort to control the weeds that seize every opportunity to grow in open spaces. 

Jamie & Felix running the Kult Cultivator
through the melon field

Last Saturday Jamie and Felix used our Kult cultivator set up to clean up this field. They are doing a great job as a 2-man weed killing team!  Thanks to the efforts of all these guys, we’re hopeful we’ll have some delicious melons to send your way in July and August!

We are very thankful all of our crew members remain healthy and well.  At the end of May we greeted two more crew members who returned from Mexico after receiving their visas! Juan Pablo and Alfredo are brothers and have worked at our farm for many years.  They had to take last year off, but were ready to come back this year and we are so glad they did!  Once they arrived we greeted them from a distance at the airport where we left a vehicle for them along with keys to a house we had kept vacant and reserved for “quarantine” needs.  With a tank full of gas, a cell phone so we could communicate with them, and a fully stocked kitchen, they quarantined themselves away from the rest of the crew and the community.  

Juan Pablo & Alfredo spending time together
as brothers weeding our onions!

They did have a very productive quarantine spent going between their house and whatever weeding mission they were assigned to for the day.  Over the past two weeks they have spent a lot of quality time together bonding as brothers and as yet another 2-man weed killing team!  They have managed to hand weed horseradish, early beets and carrots, parsnips and the entire onion field!  Thankfully they reached the end of their quarantine healthy and well, still thankful to be brothers, and they by no means put themselves out of a job—the weeds continue to grow!

Saturday, June 13--Mulching and Transplanting Tomatoes!

Summer isn’t summer without tomatoes and basil!  We’re happy to report we now have two fields of tomatoes planted!  The first planting has already been staked and tied to keep the plants growing upright both to keep the fruit clean as well as to allow airflow through the foliage.  Pretty soon we’ll need to add another string to the stakes and will continue to weave the plants into place as they grow upward.  Last weekend the mulching crew had the transplanting crew right on their heels as we worked hard to achieve our goal of getting the second tomato field planted.  We had some rain the week before as well as about 2 inches earlier in the week.  The fields were too wet to work in, but the tomato plants were growing quickly in the greenhouse turning from small plants to tomato trees right before our eyes!  They really needed to get to the field before they got much bigger or we would risk breaking them when we tried to plant them.  The crew pulled it off and the field looks great! 

Basil Planting #1 looking quite beautiful
after the cover was removed!

As for the basil, we have planted two of our five plantings in the field and have a third one in the greenhouse that will be ready to take to the field in a week or so.  The early plantings of basil also get covered with a field blanket to protect the delicate leaves from chilly spring nights, but also to trap heat to accelerate growth.  We pulled the cover off at the end of last week and were pleased to see beautiful basil plants underneath!  If you look closely at the plants you can see them smiling, now fully exposed to the sun and emitting a sweet, herbal fragrance in the air all around them!  We should also mention the pepper and eggplant fields look quite nice and we’re hopeful they’ll produce well come late summer.

While we’re just beginning summer, we’re already looking ahead to fall.  After a two week delay in getting our sweet potato slips from North Carolina due to poor weather conditions, we were able to get the last shipment of plants last week and by the end of the week the sweet potato field was completed.  The winter squash field has also been planted and we’ll be transplanting and planting the first of our fall broccoli, cabbage, rutabagas, etc later this week.  We also have a gorgeous field of celeriac that the guys have done an excellent job of cultivating and hand weeding.  I have a feeling summer is going to fly by and fall will be here before we know it!

Precision cultivating of cilantro

Cilantro, dill and red radishes are pretty important crops for our farm, not only because we like to include them in CSA boxes from time to time, but also because they are important wholesale crops for us.  We’ve had some very abundant crops this spring which we’re very thankful for!  Our harvest and washing crews have been bringing in about 15,000 bunches or more of cilantro each week for the past few weeks.  In order to keep a constant supply of these crops we have to plant them every week, which means Amy stays busy keeping the seed containers filled and managing inventory.  Tomas, Manuel, Luis and Rafael have helped not only plant the crops, but also have been doing a good job with timely flame weeding and mechanical cultivation to kill weeds.   Did we mention the weeds continue to grow?

One thing we can hardly wait to eat are freshly dug new potatoes!  It won’t be long before those tender-skinned new potatoes with red skin and creamy white flesh are ready for harvest.  If you’ve never eaten a freshly dug potato, you are in for a special treat!  The potato field looks quite nice and we spotted the first potato blossom at the end of last week!  What else goes nicely with fresh potatoes?  How about some of those tender little carrots with their green tops still attached?  Or maybe the first beets of the season?  Yes, those are all coming within the next few weeks as well.

Immature Broccoli head hidden amongst the leaves

In the meantime, we have our eyes on the second half of our first crop of broccoli and there are three more very nice crops coming up behind it!  Within the next week or two we’ll be cutting one of our favorite early season cabbages, the beloved sweetheart salad cabbage.  Cauliflower will also be coming soon.  We anticipate we’ll need to tie the first planting by the end of this week.  Why would we do that?  When we “tie” cauliflower we wrap a rubberband around the leaves to hold them together.  This keeps the plant closed in order to keep the head of cauliflower from being exposed to the sunshine thereby blanching it so it’s snowy white.

Lupe planting Ginger in the cold frame greenhouse

You asked for ginger, and you will get ginger!  On last year’s survey this was one of the most frequently requested crops you asked us to grow this year.  Last weekend Jose Antonio, Simon, Tomas, Lupe and Jorge worked hard to get the ginger planted in our cold frame greenhouse.  Hopefully we’ll have some nice baby ginger to send your way in October or November!

We can’t give a field report without mentioning garlic!  Can you believe we’ll be harvesting this year’s garlic crop in less than one month!?!  Yikes!  We’re hopeful that we’ll have a bountiful harvest and so far things are looking good.

We hope you continue to enjoy this journey through the seasons with us, embracing each week and the bounty in each box.  We have so many more delicious things to share with you, so get ready to have some fun!   Thus concludes our virtual wagon tour.  We hope you enjoyed the fresh country air, the wind in your hair, blue skies and a little time in nature.  Until the next time…….Farmers Richard, Rafael and Andrea

Strawberry Day 2018!

By Farmer Richard

We plan for working around the weather every day, and party days are no different!  This past Sunday we hosted our annual Strawberry Day event and it was a hot one!  We had planned for about 200 people, but the forecast for a hot day with the possibility of thunderstorms must’ve deterred our visitors.  We did have about 100 people in attendance with just two brave families camping.  Were we disappointed?  No!  We enjoyed the smaller numbers which allowed us to have more personal contact with those in attendance.  We had a great crowd of interested members and some of them brought extended family and friends as well.  We had a great day! Thankfully the weather cooperated.  Hot?  Yes, but we had a nice breeze, traveled on covered wagons, parked in the shade and drank lots of ice water.  Our campers enjoyed their night in the valley.  Did the choir of frogs keep them awake?  No, they had the best night’s sleep they’d had in weeks!

Headed through the fields on the wagon tour!

After enjoying a delicious potluck picnic lunch, everyone found their place on the wagons and we started off down the road for the field tour.  Given the heat, we decided to stay close to the home farm and had intended to cut the field tour a little short.  Even though we only traveled from one end of our home farm to the other, we still had a lengthy field tour as everyone was interested in learning about the crops along the way, stopped to harvest some for themselves and asked great questions!  At our first stop we harvested celtuce, a new crop in this week’s box that originated in China.  We were thankful that Christopher, a member from Madison, brought his parents with him to the party and they are from China!  We considered them to be our guest “experts” about celtuce and they shared some of their uses for preparing it.  We really appreciated their contributions and one young CSA member even had a chance to practice speaking Mandarin Chinese with them!  While we were hanging out in the celtuce field, some members wandered into the adjacent field to pick baby dill, arugula, turnips, radishes, cilantro and some baby lettuce while learning more about which crops we plant every week as well as some of the opportunities and challenges associated with growing these vegetables.

Richard explaining what we look for in ripe garlic.

We jumped back onto the wagon and continued on to the far end of the garlic field.  We had to stop and dig a few garlic just to see how they were doing.  Garlic harvest will be happening within the next month, so we learned how to read the signs of the plant to make the decision about when to harvest.  We also learned a little bit about how we irrigate the garlic crop from our lead irrigation crew member, Vicente.  As we left the garlic field and headed to the other end of the farm, we got a good look at the second planting of tomatillos and tomatoes.  They look really nice and will be ready for staking and tying very soon!

On our way to the strawberry field we made a brief stop in the zucchini and cucumber field.  We are just starting to pick these crops, but we had to stop and see how many full-sized fruit we could find.  The cucumbers are a solid mass of beautiful vines.  I asked for only a few volunteers to help me and Vicente find some cucumbers and zucchini to cut.  Our helpers did a good job, but couldn’t resist harvesting a few themselves!  Their squeals of excitement when finding the hidden jewels was a joy to hear.  As we pulled away from the field, most of the people on my wagon were eating a juicy, cooling cucumber.  That’s one way to beat the heat!

Stawberry fields filled with guests!

Our final stop along the tour was the strawberry field.  In less than one hour we had collectively picked quite a lot of beautiful ripe berries.  A few committed pickers stayed late to pick more.  Lisa, Carol and Paul were on a mission to pick their annual quota of strawberries and collectively walked out of the field with 50# of berries altogether!  Overall we estimate that we picked about 235 pounds of strawberries.  Of course we can’t weigh the berries that we ate in the field, so this is just an estimate.

We were all happy to enjoy a bowl of cold strawberry ice cream when we returned to the packing shed.  While the day was hot, we were grateful that the thunderstorms held off until later in the evening after everyone was well on their way home.  We had a great day and personally, I really appreciated the opportunity to connect with this group of cool CSA members and families of all ages.  Hearing people say “Thanks, we had a great time!” as they left was music to my ears.  A visit to the farm can be a very special thing.  If you weren’t able to join us for Strawberry Day, we hope you’ll consider coming to our Harvest Party in the fall.  In the meantime, enjoy the strawberries in your CSA boxes!

Celebrating & Growing Strawberries at Harmony Valley Farm

By Farmer Richard

Immature Strawberries

Strawberry Day is upon us and we hope you are making plans to visit our valley to celebrate this year’s strawberry harvest.  We are only in our first week of strawberry picking, which is about 10-14 days behind our “normal” strawberry season due to the cold, wet spring.  This year’s strawberries are looking good, and taste great!  In most years our Strawberry Day is near the end of the season whereas this year we’re just beginning the season.  Before we go any further, I want to mention a few important things for this year’s Strawberry Day event.  Normally we don’t worry too much if the kids (or adults) crawl, roll or run through the patch.  They are having a great time and we’re usually done picking most of the berries so there isn’t too much harm that can be done.  This year, we need to limit the amount of frolicking through the field.  We are proud of this beautiful field and really need to make sure we treat the plants gently and tread lightly so we don’t damage the plants or the immature berries that we want to preserve for picking over the next few weeks.  We’ll limit the traffic to our early varieties including Earliglow and our new early variety called Galletta.  These two early varieties will be in full production.  Some of our mid-season varieties are starting to produce some beautiful berries, but we need to try to stay out of this section of the field so we can continue to have abundant berries for two more weeks! 

This year's strawberry field--streamers to deter the birds!

As you prepare for your trip to the farm this weekend, please remember to pack your ballet shoes (tutu not required) so you can walk gracefully through the field like a ballet dancer and watch where you step! While I understand many members really enjoy participating in the “Heaviest Berry Contest,” we will not be able to host this activity this year.  Many of the big berries that are going to be tempting to pick will be in the part of the field that will not be open for picking.  The competition can get pretty intense some years and we often have excited participants leap off the wagon so they can run through the field in search of the winning berry.  Remember, ballet dancers don’t run.  While they do leap, we ask that you only do maneuvers such as these if you are professionally trained to do so.  Aside from the professional ballet dancers in attendance, we should all consider ourselves amateurs and limit our activity to gentle walking.  Please, do not run through the field this year!  If you do feel a sudden burst of joy coupled with the desire to run, feel free to do laps around the perimeter of the field.  Thank you in advance for your attention to these details.  If we all work together and treat the field with respect, we’ll be able to maximize our harvests this year and preserve the field for another great year in 2019!

Strawberry plants right after planting last spring.

While there won’t be a quiz about strawberry production when you come for Strawberry Day, we thought it might be interesting for our members to understand a little more about how we produce our strawberries.  We use a matted bed system of strawberry production.  This means we plant bare root dormant strawberry plants in early spring.  We space them about 12-16 inches apart.  The field we’ll be picking from this year is actually in its second year of growth, but this is our first year picking from it.  We planted the field last year, spring 2017.  The first year we do not harvest fruit.  The plants will produce blossoms, but we snip them off to shunt the energy in the plant towards producing runners for daughter plants instead of producing fruit.  Generally the amount of fruit a first-year plant would produce is not that great, thus it is more productive to forego the fruit for the sake of encouraging the plant to grow and spread.  The main strawberry plant will send off new growth called runners.  These runners will produce daughter plants that will set their roots into the soil thus propagating our strawberry crop.

Covering strawberries to protect from frost.

Over the course of the first year, we focus on controlling weeds with mechanical cultivation and hand weeding and make sure the plants have adequate water and nutrients to support their growth, health and development.  We bury drip tape under the beds before we plant so we can easily and efficiently provide water as well as nutrients when needed through these water lines. In the fall, the plants will start to produce the embryos or buds in the crown or base of the plant for the following year.  We then cover the plants heavily with straw mulch to protect this new growth from freezing and thawing over the course of the winter.  In the spring, the plants are uncovered and the mulch fills in between the plants to help choke out any weeds and to provide a clean bed for the strawberries.  The mulch isn’t removed too soon though or the plants will start blossoming and are at greater risk of being damaged by frost.  We also cover the field with large row covers, basically a huge blanket to keep the strawberries warm and protected on nights when we anticipate freezing temperatures. 

We select the varieties based on their ripening season, flavor, color, disease resistance and production potential.  Flavor is one of our most important characteristics and we typically only choose varieties that are rated as having “Excellent” flavor by Nourse Farms, the farm that produces our strawberry plants.  Genetics plays a very big role in flavor, which is why we’ve learned to trust Nourse Farms and their expert recommendations.  Every year we evaluate the plants and the characteristics of their fruit to decide which varieties we like best and want to plant again.  In California and Florida, two major strawberry producing states, the varieties they plant are “ever-bearing.”  These varieties have longer ripening seasons and have been bred to be a firmer berry with a longer shelf life to hold up to shipping.  While these strawberries often look pretty, their flavor is no comparison to any local berry you will get in early summer.  The berries we plant are “June-bearing.”  While our season is shorter in comparison, we select varieties that ripen at different times so we can extend our season as long as we can.  We have some early berries (Earliglow and our new Galetta), some mid-season, and some late ripening varieties.

After the harvest is done, we will renovate the field.  This means we will destroy some of the plants to promote more runners and daughter plant production for the next year.  We only harvest off our field for 2 years before it is destroyed and we start a new field in a different location. Why do we do this when the field is still producing?  Well, we like to keep our patch as clean as we can and free from perennial weeds.  The older the patch, the greater the chance that weed seeds such as dandelion and thistle will make their way into the patch.  This is also a means of controlling any leaf disease we may see on a variety.  A young, clean patch will usually have greater production and yields.

The best way to eat a strawberry is while standing in the patch with the sun overhead and a gentle breeze blowing across your face. While I hope you have the chance to do this, the second best option is to eat locally grown berries in season.  Sliced berries are a great topper for a bowl of cereal, ice cream, pancakes, waffles, or added to a spinach salad.  You can also preserve them to eat later in the year in the form of frozen berries, strawberry jam or syrup.  Other popular ways to enjoy strawberries include strawberry shortcake, pie, or chocolate covered berries! 

The weather looks good for this weekend’s festivities.  We have lots of other crops to show you and there may be an opportunity to pick some crops including onions and zucchini!  Of course we’ll have plenty of nice strawberries, delicious strawberry ice cream, and lots of good company as well! 

Our cabins are spoken for, but we still have lots of room in our two campgrounds if you’d like to turn your farm visit into a weekend adventure. 

We hope you enjoy your strawberries this season and we look forward to seeing you at Strawberry Day!

Just What Does It Take to Grow a Strawberry?

Just What Does It Take to Grow a Strawberry?

By Laurel Blomquist

Berries getting ready to go home after the party!

Strawberry season is upon us! For those of you who have been eating with the seasons for some time now, you know that this time of year is one of the most highly anticipated. What you may not know is that in order for us to provide you with as many great-tasting strawberries as we can for as long as possible, we have to plan years in advance. I sat down with Farmer Richard to get the scoop on how we grow strawberries, from start to finish.

Step 1: It all starts with genetics. We carefully select varieties based on trials we do at the farm, along with information received from Nourse Farms in Massachusetts, which is where we get our strawberry crowns for planting. We choose varieties with excellent flavor and disease resistance. Many of the plants at Nourse were bred in Canada, while other varieties were developed in the US and Germany.

The early season varieties that we are currently growing include Earliglow and AC Wendy. Earliglow is a favorite among CSA members and market patrons alike, known for its excellent flavor. It’s an heirloom variety that produces a large amount of small berries. AC Wendy is highly prolific, providing the bulk of the first crop of berries.

Strawberry Field

Midseason varieties include Darselect, Flavorfest, and Jewel. Darselect is high-yielding and dependable. Flavorfest is a new favorite, with excellent flavor and large, disease-resistant berries. Jewel was developed at Cornell University and is our best main-season plant and a reliable performer.

Our late season variety is AC Valley Sunset, which is great at extending the season a few more days. Even though we grow early, mid-, and late season berries, the total season time is usually no more than four weeks. If we get a hot streak during strawberry season, the berries can ripen very fast!  No sooner than you get to the end of the field, you have to turn around and start picking at the other end again!  We purposely plan Strawberry Day to land in approximately the third week, when berry production is peaking. We need your help to get the berries out of the field, and you reap the benefits by getting the freshest, most flavorful berries around!

New strawberry field just starting out!

Step 2: Now that we know which varieties we want to grow, it’s time to start planting. In the first year, we plant strawberry crowns in April or May. We make sure to choose a field that did not recently have either berries or plants from the solanaceae

family (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, and peppers), for maximum disease resistance. We grow plants using a matted row system, which means that we space the crowns out so that their daughter plants will fill in the row later. Spacing of the crowns is important. We need enough room for the daughter plants to fill in, but not so much that weeds will overtake the plants. Too many plants in the row will bring on leaf diseases and pests, thus proper spacing will maximize berry yield. 
Step 3: De-blossoming. In the first year, the plants will develop blossoms, but we don’t want those blossoms to grow into strawberries just yet! So we remove the blossoms, which encourages the plant to put out runners. At the ends of these runners are daughter plants. The best strawberries come from daughter plants. We space the daughter plants out to fill in the spaces between the crowns in the row. Keeping the bed weed-free is important so that we have space to place the daughter plants.

Japanese Millet cover crop in with the Strawberry field.

Step 4: Weeding! Yes, it’s not the most glamorous step, but necessary to keep the bed productive for several years. The bed needs to be kept weed-free while the crown grows runners and daughter plants. Weeding, while necessary, is tricky, since the roots of the crown are so near the surface. For the first couple of months, we can do this using a special tractor attachment with soft “fingers” to weed around the crowns. Later in the summer, around August, we need to weed by hand, because there are too many runners and daughter plants filling in the space. At this point, we plant a thick stand of Japanese millet, which will prevent future weeds and become a living mulch. It will winter kill with the first frost.

  

Mulching the field for winter.

Step 5: Mulching. In the late fall, we place a heavy layer of rye straw mulch over the plants to provide them with a more stable environment over the winter and prevent the ground they are in from freezing and thawing.  Strawberry plants are planners. In the late summer and early fall, they are thinking about their conditions and whether or not to grow a large crop the following summer. If the plants have been well weeded and fertilized, with adequate water and sunlight, they think that conditions are ripe (no pun intended) for a bountiful harvest the following year, and they form blossom buds that will become dormant over the winter and then produce flowers and fruit the following summer. If weeds are overtaking the plants, or they are lacking in nutrients, water, or sunlight, these blossom buds will not form, lowering overall yield for the following year. You can see how one year’s harvest is affected by the previous year’s maintenance (or lack thereof). These blossom buds are very sensitive to frost, which is why a thick layer of mulch is necessary.

Cover being unrolled over the Strawberries.

Covering the Strawberries.

Step 6: Insulating. In the early spring, around the first or second week of April, we check the plants for signs of new growth. Once the plants have started growing new leaves, we remove most of the thick mulch layer so the plants can emerge and grow, leaving a thin layer of straw under each plant. This layer will help deter weeds and will also give the berries a clean spot to land once they grow. You may think that this is how strawberries got their name, but humans were harvesting wild strawberries long before they used this cultivation practice. After the mulch is partially removed, an agricultural blanket is placed over the entire bed. We use this cover to protect the plants from frost.  At this point in the season we may still have some frosty nights.  The cover protects the blossom buds from freezing, which could damage the berry and impact our overall yields. 

Strawberries all covered up and safe from the frost!

Strawberries under the covers.

Step 7: Uncovering. In the late spring of the 2nd year, after threat of the last frost has passed, the blanket is removed. The plants (including the daughter plants) start producing blossoms in late May, and berries in June. It’s this brief time of the cycle that we’re in now. It may seem like a lot of berries at once, but we will lose a certain amount to birds. Bugs can also damage the berries when they enter the blossoms for sweet nectar. This is why you may find some “cat-faced” berries from time to time. The blossoms need to be pollinated in order to produce fruit, so don’t fret if you find a less-than-perfect berry. It just means that this plant got a little extra love from a bug.

Once the berry growing season is over, the beds need to be renovated so that the plants continue to produce for years to come. The plants are mowed down just above the crown, and the daughter plants are removed as well. This is done so that the plants grow new runners and daughter plants, producing delicious berries the following year. Once renovation is done, we start the process again by preparing them for winter.  After 2-3 years of berry production, depending on weed pressure, the plants are tilled in and we go back to Step 1 with a brand new set of crowns in a different field.

Picking Strawberries with Farmer Richard!

Whew! That’s a lot of year-round work for a mere month of strawberries. Now that you know how it’s done, you can appreciate these sweet beauties even more. To get a closer look at the peak production of the process, make sure you come to Strawberry Day on Sunday June 18th. We’ll have plenty of fresh berries for eating straight out of the field or for freezing for enjoyment year-round. You can see our “older” strawberry field in production and see next year’s field in its first year of being established.  They both look good now!  Farmer Richard will be there to answer any questions you may have about how to grow delicious, organic strawberries. Enjoy!

_______________________________________________________________

Strawberry Day 2015-What a Fun Day!!

Strawberries ready to head home! We can't wait for next year!

Last Sunday we had a great turnout for our 2015 Strawberry Day Party.  Thankfully we had a clear and sunny day for the celebration and the storms and rain held off until Monday morning.  It was fun to see some familiar faces again and we enjoyed the opportunity to meet some members who were visiting for the first time.

The wagon tour ended in the strawberry field,
where no one could resist sampling a sweet, sun-warmed berry
or two!

Captain Jack had a great day and boy was he tuckered out by the end of the party!  He’s still recovering, so he asked me to pass on a huge “Thank You” to all of the wonderful children (and adults) who played with him and took care of him on Sunday.  Farmer Richard was grateful for the help he had with feeding the animals in the evening.  Rico the goat and Richard’s pet pig appreciated the pieces of apple snacks the kids fed him.
We had our annual “pick the biggest berry” contest again this year.  Faith was the winner of the kids division and won with a berry weighing 0.12#!  Kathy and Jess tied for the adult division and picked berries weighing in at 0.11# each.  There was enough ice cream to go around, so these three ladies each went home with a ½ gallon of strawberry ice cream.  Carol was the lucky winner for participating in the scavenger hunt and also took a container of ice cream home with her.  If you weren’t able to attend the party….you might want to knock on one of these ladies’ doors and see if they’ll share their ice cream with you (although chances might be slim).

Farmers Richard & Andrea were happy to share farm stories
& wisdom on the farm tour!

Mark your calendars for our Fall Harvest Party on September 27.  We have a lot more fun planned including pumpkin picking, sweet potato digging & a hog roast!
----Richard, Andrea, Capt. Jack The Dog & The Entire HVF Crew

Wagon tours heading towards the sugar snap pea field, where
everyone could pick & eat to their heart's content!

Our heaviest berry contest winners! Each took home a 1/2 gallon of Castle Rock Organic Dairy & Harmony Valley Farm strawberry ice cream!

Farmer Richard asked for some help collecting eggs
at chore time!

Strawberry ice cream from Castle
Rock Organic Dairy & Harmony
Valley Farm was a big hit!

Wagon tours of the farm ready to head out

Strawberry Day 2015!

By Captain Jack-The Dog

Hello Everyone!  I’m so excited for our Strawberry Day party this coming Sunday, June 21!  I wanted to make sure I reminded everyone about the party in case you haven’t had a chance to read any of the invitations we sent previously.  We’re going to have a great time sharing together in a potluck lunch, followed by wagon tours through our fields and lots of strawberry picking.  Of course, I can’t forget to tell you we’ll also have strawberry ice cream!  We have a lot of exciting things happening in our fields right now and there will be plenty to see and pick.  Here’s a little sneak preview of some of the things we’re excited to show you on the tour.
We’ll start with the obvious….strawberries!  My dad, Farmer Richard, says this is one of the best fields of strawberries he’s ever seen….and he’s seen a lot!  We spent a lot of time and effort making sure the field was mulched really well last fall.  Dad says our investment has paid off this year.  Despite the rains we’ve had over the past week, the field still looks good and the berries are clean.  The plants have really been producing gorgeous, sweet, delicious berries.  My dad and some of his crew leaders will be in the field on Sunday to help you find the best berries.  Don’t forget to walk in between the rows with your ballet shoes on.  We want to keep the plants nice and healthy so we can continue to pick berries this year and so the field looks nice again for another year.  If you aren’t sure where to walk, just ask my dad.  He’ll show you the best way to tread lightly in the fields.
Along the tour route, you’ll see quite a few other vegetable crops as well.  We just started picking zucchini last Friday.  The plants look really nice and they are loaded with blossoms!  Right next to the zucchini you can check out the progress of the cucumbers, watermelons and melons.  If you look closely you might find a tiny little cucumber!  To get to the zucchini field, we’ll have to drive by the onions.  Man, they look good!  I think it’s going to be a good onion year….at least that’s my perspective as a dog.  Just another week or so of scallions and I think the green top Cipollini onions will be ready to harvest.  These are some of my mom’s (Andrea) favorite onions.  As we’re leaving that farm, you can take a look at the celery root field.  It looks pretty good!
We’ll make another stop at a location we call “Dorothy’s Bench.” Dorothy is our landlord and she has a really nice farm.  This year we planted our early broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi and sweet heart cabbages on her farm.  They look really nice and we’re excited to show you these beautiful fields.  We also decided to plant our tomatoes on her farm this year.  The first planting has already been staked and tied for the first time.  Wait until you see the tomatillo plants…..their stems are huge!
Before we leave Dorothy’s you’ll want to check out the sugar snap peas.  I have trouble picking them, but I can show you where they are and tell you how to decide whether they’re ready to pick or not.  You want to look for the big fat ones…they’re the sweet ones.  Don’t eat too many peas though…we have to save room for strawberries!
The strawberries are so delicious this year!  I’ve been eating them for my snack almost every day!  You are welcome to pick and eat in the field.  You might get a little dirty, so don’t wear your nicest shirt.  If you want to take some home to make jam or strawberry pies, make sure you bring some containers.  Kelly will have a scale by the packing shed where we’re going to load up the wagons for the tour.  Make sure you talk to Kelly before you get on the wagon so she can weigh your empty container.  Oh, I almost forgot…we’re having a contest!  While you’re picking strawberries, keep your eye out for large berries.  We are offering a prize to the kid and adult who find the biggest strawberry (by weight).  The prize will be strawberry ice cream that you can take home!  So lets talk about this ice cream.  Most members probably know by now that I really like strawberry ice cream.  Our friends at Castle Rock Organic Dairy made the ice cream for our party again this year.  They use their delicious creamy milk and strawberries from our farm that we froze last year.  They always alter their ice cream recipe a little bit for us so there is at least twice as much strawberry in it!  Last year there was a member who said she didn’t like strawberry ice cream, but she tried a little bit anyway.  Surprise—she loved it!
It’s time for me to get back to work.  I need to go check on the harvest crews with my Dad and then it will be time for my afternoon nap.  I hope you will consider coming to our farm on Sunday.  I’m really looking forward to a fun day!

Spring Farm Update!

By Farmer Richard and his sidekicks Andrea & Captain Jack the Dog

Spring is different every year and as we write this update temperature is on our minds.  We were happy to see the snow melt away towards the end of March…..and then woke up to a winter wonderland on March 23!  Once the snow melted again and things dried out, we were able to dig overwintered parsnips and sunchokes….just before it rained!  After some rainy, cold days, we were thankful for warm days in April which allowed us to get some field work done.  We planted all the parsnips as well as the first beets, carrots & peas.  The transplanting team worked hard to plant all the onions and then moved right into transplanting the first crop of head lettuce, fennel, basil, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and kohlrabi.  They also managed to get the parsley and Brussels sprouts in the ground!  Thankfully everything was in place before the next wave of rain.  This past week has been cool and wet.  In fact, it’s downright chilly today and there is a chance of frost!  Don’t worry….the crew covered the strawberries yesterday to protect the blossoms so there should be plenty of strawberries to pick on June 21 at Strawberry Day!  (Mark your calendars!)

Weather talk aside, we’ve had a pretty good spring and have a lot of good field updates.  First, our asparagus and rhubarb crops are producing beyond our expectations!  Both of these perennial crops take about 3 years to establish before we can do any substantial harvests off them.  Over the past few years we’ve put in new rhubarb and asparagus plantings.  Richard & Jack have been waiting patiently (Andrea not so patiently) for our new fields to become established and this is the first year we can harvest from all of these fields!   Despite the cool weather we’re still seeing some impressive asparagus harvests.  The rhubarb field is also producing well and the bright red stalks are gorgeous!
As we look ahead to June, we should mention that our first two pea plantings are in and looking good.  Sugar snap and snow peas should be ready for the first to middle part of June.  The pea vine looks like it might be ready as early as next week.  The strawberry field is blossoming and the plants look healthy.  We do watch the weather closely though (that darn weather topic again).  The blossoms can’t take the frost, so we’ve covered the field with our giant field blankets to get them through the week…just in case Jack Frost pays our valley a visit.

Anyone interested in garlic?  We’re happy to report the garlic crop appears to have overwintered nicely with about a 99% survival rate!  We’re planning to harvest green garlic next week….and before we know it we’ll be enjoying garlic scapes and fresh, juicy bulb garlic.
Our pastures are lush and green and the cattle love their days grazing the hillsides.  Our goat pasture is full of young energy with nine new kids and more on the way!  We’re also happy to report we have pigs roaming our pastures again!  Last week we got 15 piglets.  It took them a few days to acclimate to their new home, but it looks like they’ve adapted well.  They’ve also grown accustomed to the nightly deliveries of compost from the packing shed. Just like us, they are enjoying many spinach salads for dinner.  The chickens moved to the pasture with the pigs. They’re a little more vulnerable to pesky predators, but are learning to defend and protect themselves. Manuel and Juan Pablo have done five plantings  of “salad greens.” This is our first week of harvest from our spring-planted salad greens.  We should have salad mix, baby kale and more baby arugula coming soon!  We’re also learning how to use a new vacuum seeder we got this spring. We’ll use it to plant our cilantro, dill, bunched arugula, baby bok choi and radishes.  It was fun having a shiny, new piece of equipment.  It’s dirty now, but seems to be working well and we’re thankful to have it as it will help us fine-tune the plantings for greater precision.
Jack is happy to have the field crew back from Mexico so he can play ball at lunch time.  Richard has been hunting for morel mushrooms in his spare time and Andrea is having fun cooking them along with asparagus, spinach, ramps and all of the other tasty green things available now!
Kelly & Beth have been busy in the office preparing for the start of deliveries.  Lately they’ve been working on processing orders for maple syrup.  Our friend and neighbor, Alvin Miller, had another pretty good year for making maple syrup.  If you haven’t taken advantage of this offer yet, don’t wait. We’ve extended our deadline until May 20th, but that’s the absolute last day for orders!  Alvin needs time to bottle the syrup, so make sure you send your order in as soon as possible so Alvin knows how many bottles to fill!   We’re happy to have another season of CSA underway. While farming isn’t easy, we are blessed with great customers and a great crew!  Our crew has been practicing flexibility for the past several weeks.  On warm, sunny days they stay late to get the work done.  On rainy and cold days they help in the packing shed and greenhouses doing whatever needs to be done.  Without a hard-working crew, we couldn’t be the farm we are today.  We’re glad that you’ll be sharing with us in the bounty of this year’s harvest.  Rest assured we have a lot of delicious food coming your way!