Late April Farm Update…What Might Be in the First CSA box?

By Richard de Wilde & Andrea Yoder

April 23, 2024:  Transplanting Onions

Looking back to February and March when we had gorgeous sunny days with clear skies and temperatures in the high 50’s and 60’s, all indications were that we were going to have an early spring.  The garlic pushed through the mulch and was taller than we’ve ever seen it that early in the season.  We worked diligently to stay on top of the greenhouse planting schedule to make sure the plants were ready for the field as soon as our field crew returned from Mexico.  And speaking of crew, we did everything in our power to keep the visa process moving along to ensure a prompt arrival, with a goal of no later than April 1.  Well, we succeeded, and the first group of field crew started work on March 25!  

We dug parsnips and sunchokes, transplanted celeriac seedlings into larger trays in the greenhouse, and did our first harvest of overwintered spinach.  On April 1 we sent our first planter out to the field to seed cilantro, red radishes, dill, baby bok choi and baby white turnips.  We were on a roll!  And then the temperatures dropped, and snow fell from the sky.  By Wednesday, April 3 the spinach field was covered in snow, and we called off work for most of our crew because of poor road conditions.  We cancelled spinach harvest for the rest of the week because the daytime temperatures were never high enough above freezing to melt the snow!  Thankfully the sun came out over the weekend, the snow melted, and we were back out harvesting the following week.  

April 11, 2024:  Washing 
Overwintered Spinach

We’ve done our best to take advantage of windows of opportunity to get our outside work and field work done, but it has been a challenge at times!  We’ve had snow, rain, hail, lightning, high winds, freezing temperatures, and finally this week we’re starting to see the temperatures rise and have had mostly sunny skies!  Is it still early spring?  Yes and No.  As mentioned, we were able to plant on April 1.  April 1 is always our goal for the first planting, but seldom do we get that opportunity to actually be in the field that early.  Those crops that were planted on that day will be ready for harvest on the first of May, likely just in time for that first CSA box!  Our overwintered spinach crop definitely came in ahead of schedule by a few weeks, an indicator of an early spring.  But the cool weather held back the ramps to a more “normal” start of the harvest season.  We had hoped to start transplanting some plants in the field earlier in the month, but rain and freezing temperatures caused delays.  We aren’t too far behind schedule, and we’ll catch up quickly, but we are a little late.

April 11 2024:  Silvestre seeding cover crop
seed in the Asparagus field

Thankfully, we’ve been able to get quite a lot of field work done despite the weather challenges.  We were able to get minerals spread on all our fields at the end of March.  We’ve also been able to spread compost on most of the fields that needed it and we’ve been working on making new compost and turning our piles.  We’ve also managed to do three plantings of our lineup of crops we strive to plant weekly.  These crops include the ones I mentioned above (red radishes, cilantro, baby bok choi, etc.) as well as our baby greens including salad mix, baby arugula and spinach.  We’ve also been able to plant beets, carrots, chard and just this week we managed to complete our parsnip and burdock plantings!  The field crew has been busy laying plastic mulch and drip tape in preparation for many of our crops that are transplanted.  Thankfully we were able to start planting onions and shallots earlier this week and will definitely finish by the end of the week.  The leeks are planted, along with the first plantings of broccoli, cauliflower and spring cabbage and kohlrabi!  By the end of the week, we should have the first planting of kale and collards done as well.  The potatoes are planted, and we even managed to put in a new strawberry field earlier this month!  

First Radishes of the Season!

In addition to field work, we’ve been busy with other projects.  We’ve done oil changes on tractors and field vehicles along with changing filters, checking brakes, lights, etc.  We’ve also checked wheel bearings on all the harvest wagons, so they are ready to go to the field!  We finished some cleanup from a riverbank repair project we were working on last fall.  We had cleared some box elder trees that we burned this spring.  We took the charcoal and added it to our compost windrow, our own biochar!  We are also working on some improvements around a beautiful spring on one of our properties, taking time to clear away honeysuckle and prickly ash so we could plant some ramps in the area.  We also planted another two acres of pollinator plants!

Mini Romaine Head Lettuce......coming 
to CSA boxes in mid May!

The first CSA boxes will go out for delivery May 9/10/11 and it looks like they are going to be nice boxes!  We’ll have to see how ramp season plays out, but we’re crossing our fingers that the season will extend long enough that we can put ramps in that first box.  We anticipate including baby arugula, fresh red radishes, nettles, overwintered parsnips and sunchokes as well as some potatoes we squirreled away from last fall!  We’re also feeling like we may see asparagus pushing through any day now, especially if the temperatures warm up as predicted.  Asparagus for the first box?!  We’ll take it!  Plus, we have a crop of cilantro that overwintered from last fall, a side benefit of a mild winter!  We can’t recall ever including cilantro in the first CSA box, but it looks like it will be in that first box as well this year!  We have a crop of mini romaine head lettuce planted in one of our greenhouse tunnels and hope that will be ready for the second or third delivery.  We’ll be putting together herb packs later this week with plans to deliver them with the third & fourth delivery weeks.  

Oscar & Luis laying drip tape in the 
new strawberry field

As in every year of farming, there are opportunities and challenges and if we play our cards right, we can turn those challenges into opportunities to succeed!  While April has brought us a variety of conditions to work with, we’ve also had a lot of productive work and have made great strides towards the start of what we hope will be a very prosperous growing season!

While deliveries are just around the corner, we do still have plenty of CSA shares remaining.  In fact, we would like to pack another 200-250 boxes each week in May!  So, if you have not yet signed up, please submit your order soon so you don’t miss out on any deliveries!  And for those of you who are already signed up, please tell your friends, neighbors and anyone else you can think of who might be interested in delicious vegetables!  Remember, we offer referral coupons to those of you who help us recruit new members, so it’s win-win all around!

We hope your spring is off to a great start and we look forward to sending delicious vegetables your way very soon!

Fall Farm Update…A Bountiful Year!

by Allison Kieley & Richard de Wilde

Onions drying in the greenhouse

The energy on the farm in the fall has a noticeably different feel than during other times of the year. While we remain busy harvesting vegetables, the shift in weather forces us to deviate from our typical go-go-go spirit and pause for moments of planning and problem-solving. This fall we continued to work around the lingering impacts of the season-long severe drought. Increased irrigation efforts paired with the silver lining of drought – little to no disease caused by wet foliage – allowed us to harvest bountiful yields of some of our favorite crops. We have seen about double the typical yield from our onions, and our sweet potatoes are some of the best we’ve seen in years!

Our successful yields presented us with a new challenge: storage! With so many healthy, sizeable crops to harvest, we quickly realized that storage was going to become an issue. Not only were we short on cooler space, but for the first time in well over 10 years we ran out of storage bins. We’re thankful for our friends at Spring Grove Pallets who were able to make and deliver 80 new wooden bins in a matter of days to help us get our crops into storage. If you were to drive past the farm today, you’d see the parking lots scattered with full-size semi-trailers. These refrigerated units have been our creative solution to a shortage of cooler space for various winter root crops. At present, we are running our three main coolers in the packing shed, three 53’ refrigerated semi-trailers, and we are using the refrigeration unit on our little market truck. It is a full house!

Fall cabbages in October,
ready to harvest!

The funny thing about the transition into fall is that despite knowing it will arrive every year, we somehow find ourselves feeling surprised at its arrival. Whether it is waking up to an early first frost or working around an unexpected downpour of 4” of rain in the middle of a drought, there is nothing we can do to control the weather. What we can, and do, control is how we react. It is awkward to have the crew call from our field on Upper Newton Road to report that it is freezing there, and they cannot harvest. What to do? Take a long coffee break until it warms up? We must remain diligent in our forecasting and plan our work accordingly.

Over time, and through trial and error, we have learned to take steps to be proactive rather than reactive. For example, instead of looking at an upcoming weather forecast with high temperatures in the low 20s as a sign to throw in the towel on our vulnerable green vegetables, we took it as an opportunity to pause, shift gears, and set ourselves up for success. We assessed the situation and decided to use an entire day of work to put covers over several acres of greens. This process can feel painstakingly slow, but because we took the time to protect these crops, we were able to extend our greens harvest for several weeks. As I am writing this, our crew is harvesting the very last of our cilantro crop…on November 14th. That is certainly a new record!

We're still harvesting kale in November!

We have learned a lot through trial and error and think that is the only way you can truly understand what works and what doesn’t. After 50 years of lessons learned, and taking advice from second and third-generation farmers who came before us, understanding the importance of time is a recurring theme in farming. This is especially true when it comes to planting fall crops. Fall crops, like broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage, like cool weather but if you wait too long to plant them, they might not make it. To avoid putting all our eggs in one basket, we typically have two different plantings for these crops, which are done about two weeks apart. The first one battles against the heat, and the second one battles against the cold. Choose your battle! We work hard to maintain accurate records and continue to adjust planting dates based on, you guessed it, the weather. This week’s CSA boxes contain the last of our fall cauliflower and broccoli Romanesco. The heads are small, but we couldn’t bear to leave them behind. 

Mulched Garlic Field

After seeing our 2022 garlic plants above ground last fall, we realized our mid-October planting date was too early. We aren’t supposed to see them until the spring! We pushed our planting date back 10 days this year and ended up being able to shape and fertilize the field. We were also able to bury irrigation drip lines in preparation for planting. We’re lucky we had the foresight to get this taken care of before planting because we unexpectedly got 2.5” of rain on October 13th and needed to wait for the ground to dry to plant the garlic. In hindsight, we must see the humor in needing to wait for the ground to dry after this year’s historic drought. There’s never a dull moment around here! 

While we are finishing a few late harvests, our work in the fields is starting to wind down. Our crew has completed the sunchoke and horseradish plantings for the 2024 crop year and we were able to plant about 50-60 acres of cover crops. We still need to cut our supply of firewood for next year but are fortunate to have a strong storage supply so that isn’t terribly pressing. Some of the harvest crew has already returned home to their friends and family in Mexico, and we have another group of 12 leaving at the end of this week. It is always bittersweet to say goodbye to our team, they really do feel like family. As we celebrate Thanksgiving next week, we realize we truly do have a lot to be grateful for this year.

Enjoy the upcoming holiday, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Late Summer Update

By Richard de Wilde

There is surely an expectation that farmers always talk about the weather…and it’s true, we do!  We check three different weather forecasts daily and plan our work schedule accordingly. The one thing we can say about the weather we’ve had this summer is that it has been pretty consistent…. consistently Hot & Dry! In fact, I think records have been set for both temperature and rainfall…or lack thereof. According to the National Weather service, many parts of southern Wisconsin are now classified as being in a D4 drought given the lack of rain for three months. Thankfully, on Tuesday morning of this week we woke up to the most glorious sound…. RAIN! We received three-tenths of an inch, and while that isn’t that much, we were grateful for every drop! 

Checking the "benchmark" point for one of 
our irrigation sites

The good news is that the dry weather greatly decreases disease caused by wet foliage.  The challenge is to get enough water to keep crops growing. We have seven irrigation permits from the Wisconsin DNR to pump surplus water from the North Fork of the Bad Axe River and two feeder streams. We have very strict rules to follow when pumping and a “benchmark” water level below which we would NOT be able to pump.  Fortunately, the underground aquifer system here is very stable and our benchmarks have remained well above the cut-off! In many states, including parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota, the underground aquifers have become depleted. If this severe drought were to continue for several years, that picture may change in our area as well. At this point we are pumping surplus water at very low rates, not measurable depth from water run-off to the gulf.   Without our ability to irrigate from surplus water, we would be having a very different year.  In years like we are experiencing now, irrigation is the difference between having or not having a crop. 

Jose Antonio, one of our 
irrigation experts!

We are also very much aware of the benefits we are reaping now from the many years we have invested in building organic matter in our soil, which increases water holding ability. As a result, we have been blessed with not only crops, but excellent crops! Additionally, I’d like to acknowledge and extend my gratitude to Manuel Morales and Jose Antonio (our two main irrigation guys) who have worked hard, long hours to try to keep up with our crops’ water needs. 

Manuel Morales making his rounds to set up
and check irrigation pumps, manage leaks, etc.

Throughout the summer we’ve had several extreme heat waves with temperatures in the 90’s and even some days that have topped 100 degrees!  Extreme temperatures presented us with some extreme challenges. In some crops, including melons, peppers, and tomatoes, we have observed that the plants did not set fruit during those extreme periods of heat. We can clearly see a gap between early set fruit and late. It’s really strange to observe healthy, lush plants with no disease that have a greatly reduced production of ripening fruit.  The high heat days were also a challenge for our production schedule and harvest crews. We always schedule harvests for greens in the morning when it’s a little cooler.  This strategy proved to be essential at times when plants were wilting in the afternoon heat! We also had to be cognizant of the impact extreme heat has on the health of our field crew. Even though our crew has a generous supply of drinking water in the field, there were several days when we started late and ended early to the benefit of the crops, but also to maintain the health of our crew members.  There were even several days when we had to cease harvests during the heat of the day, and we started the workday an hour earlier so as to maximize work in the cooler parts of the day.  Thankfully, we invested in air conditioning units for all of our employee housing several years ago, so they have a cool house to retreat to and get a good night’s rest. 

Using sprinklers to water a new seeding of 
fall storage turnips so they'll germinate!

We are now in the busy transition between summer crops and early fall crops. We have made some adjustments to our preseason plan, i.e., later planting in anticipation of warmer late summer and early fall temperatures. Every direct seeding and transplanted crop we’ve planted has had to have immediate water to germinate and survive.  A very challenging task!  We have mostly been successful as your boxes reflect. Our fall crops which have required irrigation from start to finish but are looking good! It has been a strange and challenging year for sure! We have invested in more irrigation equipment, gained three new irrigation permits, and we’re currently in the process of setting up a new well that we’ll be able to use for irrigation.  Despite the investment in time and resources, our efforts have proven to be a life saver!

We have good looking fall crops including lettuce, spinach, radishes, beets, carrots, parsnips, and turnips. We hope to finish winter squash harvest this week and we’ve already started harvesting what I consider to be possibly the best rutabaga crop ever!  All of these crop outcomes were achieved only because of timely irrigation.  We are now in the overlap of finishing up harvest of late summer crops i.e., peppers and tomatoes whilst we are initiating harvest of our fall crops.  It is an extremely busy time of the season and it’s been a challenge to find space in your CSA boxes each week for all the vegetables we have available!

One of our pumpkins ripening
while nestled in a bed of vetch!

Our Fall Harvest Party is coming up on October 1^st and we hope you’ll plan to join us!  We have some nice-looking pumpkins for you to choose from this year as well as other crops we’re excited to share with you!  This year we planted the pumpkins in a trial field that we did as no-till, so you’ll have the opportunity to see this farming strategy up close, complete with some hearty vetch cover crop!  As always, we thank you for your continued support of our farm and hope you’ve enjoyed the season so far.  We still have more exciting crops to send your way, so get ready for jicama, sweet potatoes, Brussels sprouts and more!

Where’s the Salad Mix & Lettuce?

By Andrea Yoder

This week’s article was prompted by inquiries from several CSA members expressing that they would like to have more salad greens in the weekly vegetable shares. Valid request and we know our salad mix in particular is enjoyed by many for its convenience as well as its place as a staple component of many meals.  Well, you too may be wondering why we aren’t sending more salad mix, spinach, lettuce, etc. your way, thus we thought it would be appropriate to share the full story with you this week!  

First, a little history for you. Richard, being the pioneer of organic farming in the Midwest that he is, was a key part of the picture of introducing mixed baby greens to this part of the country. He visited growers on the west coast where he saw them growing baby greens and lettuces to make salad mix (also known as mesclun mix). He brought the concept back to the Midwest and spent many years refining our production system. Fast forward 30 plus years and salad mix/Mesclun mix is grown extensively across the country on much larger scale than our operation.  It’s easily available year-round on grocery store shelves, so if they can do it, why can’t we?  

Salad Lettuce Varieties in the Field

Well, it is possible to grow salad greens and head lettuce over the course of the entire growing season, and that was our plan at one time. We used to plant these crops weekly from early April into late September or early October. We invested in a mechanical cutter to harvest with so we could scale up production. And then after several years we realized, it’s just not worth it to grow salad greens or lettuce in the heat of the summer.  You see, lettuce, baby arugula, spinach, etc. actually grow best in the cool of the spring and fall. In fact, they thrive during these parts of the season, producing flavorful products with rich colors that just look healthy and vibrant. During the heat of the summer though, these delicate plants are stressed. They take on an “old” appearance early in their life and they are often bitter and/or have off flavors. The summer months are also intense times for weed pressure and we found, in some locations, that the weeds grew faster than the product! We’d lose the crop to a bed of purslane, and it felt very defeating.  One day we stopped banging our head against the wall long enough to ask ourselves “Why are we trying to force these vegetables to grow during the time of the year when they are stressed and struggling?”  There were other factors at play as well. Baby greens and salad mix in particular are very labor-intensive products.  During the middle of the summer, we have so many other things to do that, from a business perspective, are much more profitable. So we made the decision to change our planting plans to only include 4-6 plantings of baby greens, lettuce, etc. in the spring.  again in the fall while taking the middle of the growing season off.  We also decided to limit our head lettuce crops to early in the spring and mid-late fall. Head lettuce can quickly melt down in the heat of the summer sun, or it may decide it’s done with its life cycle and shoot up a seed stock.  Plus, it just doesn’t taste good in the heat of the summer!  The flavor is much more balanced and desirable when grown in cool weather.

So, what does that leave us eating when there is no lettuce or salad greens to use for salads during the summer? This is how we learned to appreciate how we can use other vegetables that do thrive during the heat of the summer to build delicious and nutritious salads to enjoy as a side or as a main entrée. This is my challenge to all of you, to embrace the practice of eating seasonally even when it comes to salad greens and lettuce. I know this is probably where some of you may sign off and say “I don’t think so Andrea.  A green salad is a green salad…no substituting.”  And that’s ok.  For those of you who are still with me, there are a lot of great salad options awaiting you!

Roasted Beet & Kale Salad with Maple 
Candied Nuts

Still staying in the realm of leafy greens, there are actually some really great options in the class of summer greens.  Some of the greens we enjoy during the summer include kale, chard, baby bok choi and cabbage. One of the things I actually really like about these vegetables is that they are more durable and can be tossed with dressing or vinaigrette in advance, without getting too soggy.  This makes them great options for taking on road trips, picnics or just taking them for your lunch on a regular workday. You can enjoy these salad creations as a side dish, or easily turn them into a main dish by adding a protein of your choosing such as beans, tofu, cooked chicken, grilled steak or fish.  Plus, in the heat of the summer entrée salads are a cool alternative to heating up the oven or stovetop to make dinner! At the conclusion of this article, I will include a few of my favorite recipes in this category from past newsletters and hopefully there will be a few that appeal to you as well.

Garlic-Scented Tomato Salad

The other types of vegetable salads we can enjoy may be built out of the bounty of summer vegetables we have available to us, such as cucumbers, zucchini, beets, peppers, carrots, eggplant, tomatoes, corn, green beans and even melons and watermelon! Really, the possibilities are endless! There are so many creative ways to use these vegetables in different salads. You may choose to make a salad with vegetables only, such as a creamy cucumber salad with slices of fresh onions or a tomato salad with garlic and herbs. Of course, you can bulk it up with the addition of pasta, cooked grains such as quinoa, wild rice, farro or couscous. Fresh feta or mozzarella cheese, f. h herbs, flavorful vinegars and oils, toasted nuts and seeds, croutons, fruit such as peaches, grapes, cherries, or apples……are you starting to see how vast and wide the potential is here?!

So, I’ll leave you with the challenge of seeing what fun and delicious ways you can fill the void created by salad greens this summer.  And when fall rolls around and we include beautiful head lettuce and those colorful, delicate baby greens in our boxes once again, know that they are in the height of their glory, thriving in the season that fits their style best. Have fun, get creative, and don’t forget to share your summer vegetable salad creations with all of us in our Facebook Group!

Here are a few of my favorite summer vegetable salads from past CSA seasons:

Roasted Beet & Kale Salad with Maple Candied Nuts

Bok Choi Salad with Sesame Almond Crunch 

Red Cabbage Slaw with Maple Mustard Dressing 

Summer Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad (with Cabbage) 

Carrot Parsley Salad 

Swiss Chard Salad with Lemon, Parmesan and Breadcrumbs 

Grilled Corn and Kale Salad 

Summer Succotash Salad with Orzo 

Corn & Tomato Salad with Torn Croutons 

Grilled Eggplant & Quinoa Salad with Dates & Almonds 

Garlic-Scented Tomato Salad 

Red Pepper, Lentil & Tomato Salad

Insights into the Harmony Valley Farm Planting Strategy

By:  Andrea Yoder

Transplanting Watermelon plants 
with the Water-Wheel
Transplanter

Here we are, halfway through the calendar year. We’re picking beans, harvesting green top carrots, tomatoes are hanging heavy on the vine and in the watermelon field there is fruit the size of a softball!  Every day is filled with a long list of things that need to be done.  Of course we have a full harvest schedule, but we also have a long list of hand weeding projects, another list of fields that need mechanical cultivation, other crops that need water and the attention of the irrigation crew, tomatoes need to be pruned and tied, and in the midst of it all we need to find time to plant.  Plant? Isn’t that what happens in the spring? 

On our farm, spring is the time of the year when we do the most planting, but unlike many other row crop farms in our region, we have a long planting season starting in the fields in April and extending all the way through October or even November if you include planting garlic, sunchokes and horseradish!  Several weeks ago, I was met with some questions from inquisitive CSA members while we were bouncing down the road on a tour wagon at our Strawberry Day party. They were asking great questions about when we plant different crops, what we plant, how we plant them and so much more. As I was reflecting upon the day, I realized there may be other members who are interested in understanding a little more about what it actually takes to accomplish all of the many plantings we need to execute in a given year in order to put food on your tables!  So, this week I’m going to give you an insider’s glimpse into the tattered 34-page document we call the “Harmony Valley Farm Planting Plan 2023.”  This is a document we create each winter as we make our plans for the upcoming season. Once we have our plans laid out, we can use this document as our guidebook throughout the season to help us execute timely plantings.

Harvesting Celtuce, one of our 
unique crops

So let’s start with a few stats.  Within each year’s field plan there are about 67 crop categories, plus or minus a handful from year to year as we trial new crops and rotate in some of the more unique crops, we grow from time to time (e.g., celtuce, cardoon and lemongrass) but not every year.  Within those 67 crop categories, we grow 140-150 different crops!  Just to make sure we’re all on the same page, I’ll give you an example.  One vegetable category is Beets, but within that category we may choose to plant Chioggia, gold, and red beets, which count as three different crops for the sake of this article. Many farms that are not diversified vegetable farms have a small handful of crops. Perhaps they grow some corn, soybeans, and alfalfa—three crops.  Our situation is different though. We commit to growing food for the same CSA families week after week for a 30 week season!  We want to keep things tasty and interesting for you, our members, which means we need to plant a wide variety of crops! One of the tricky parts of growing so many different crops is learning how to manage all of them, both in the field and in the packing shed after they are harvested. Each crop is a little different. Some crops are “heavy feeders” and need a lot of fertility while others can grow with minimal support on sandy soil. Some crops require post-harvest refrigeration at a temperature of about 35°F while others can succumb to chill injury at that temperature and require a warmer storage environment around 45-50°F.  And then there’s differences in how each of the crops may be planted.

Lettuce transplants in the 
greenhouse...almost ready 
to go to the field!

We have a variety of strategies for planting crops. Let’s start in the same place we start at the beginning of the season, in the greenhouse!  About 50-60% of our crops are started in the greenhouse. With the exception of strawberry, rhubarb, and asparagus plants as well as sweet potato slips, we produce all of our own transplants.  We set up the first of our 4 greenhouses in February and start seeding as early as February 15.  We plant seeds into greenhouse flats filled with potting soil and provide a warm place for the seeds to germinate. Then we water and care for them anywhere from 4-8 or 9 weeks until they are ready to be transplanted to the field. When they go to the field, we typically use one of two main types of mechanical transplanters. The first, which we call the “3-row transplanter,” is used to plant crops that are planted onto “bare ground.” This means they are planted directly into the soil. These crops include head lettuce, celeriac, broccoli, cabbage, etc.

Transplanting broccoli plants into "bare ground"
with the 3-Row Transplanter

Our other main transplanter is called a “water-wheel transplanter.”  We use this machine to plant crops that are grown on raised beds covered with plastic mulch. We use plastic mulch in our production systems for several different reasons. One reason is to help with non-chemical pest control. We use a type of material to cover the beds that looks like a giant roll of tin foil because it has a reflective surface. This reflective surface disorients pests and keeps them off our crops! We plant our onions on this type of material to deter thrips while we also use this material for eggplant, zucchini, cucumbers, and melons to deter cucumber beetles! For other crops, the main purpose of covering the bed with a plastic material is for heat gain. In the case of heat-loving crops such as tomatoes, jicama, and sweet potatoes, we use a dark green or black material that helps to trap the heat of the sun and warms the soil to facilitate growth. 

Planting Peppers
with the Water-Wheel
 transplanter

Now, back to the water-wheel transplanter. If you cover a bed with plastic mulch, you have to have a way to poke a hole in the plastic so you can put the plant in the soil.  This transplanter is mounted on the back of a tractor and has wheels that we set up to turn and poke holes in the plastic at whatever our desired spacing may be. This machine also has a tank of water on it and when the wheel pokes the hole in the plastic, it also puts water (with fertilizer mixed in) in the hole right where the plant goes (hence the name, water-wheel transplanter). There are seats on this transplanter for anywhere from two to four people to sit in. They have a flat of plants in front of them and pull them out one at a time and drop them in the hole. While these are the two main machines we use, we do have a third style of transplanting machine that we use for a few specific crops including strawberries and leeks.

Most of our remaining crops are “direct-seeded.”  This means that we use a planter to plant the crop in the field from seeds. We have several different machines to help us with this task. Crops like beets, carrots, sweet corn, green beans, storage turnips, winter radishes and chard are planted with a vacuum seeder called “The Mater-Mac.”  This planter has boxes where the seed is placed. There are different seeder plates that are 

Rafael selecting the correct plates before
direct-seeding with the Mater-Mac planter

mounted onto the machine at the base of the seeder box. We have a set of plates that have holes of various sizes and select the plate that is most similar to the size of the vegetable seed we are planting.  When the machine is running, a vacuum system sucks the seed from the planter box and holds it in the hole on the plate. When the plate turns and reaches the bottom of the rotation, the vacuum releases the seed and it drops into the seed bed formed by the machine. This machine helps us achieve very precise spacing and eliminates the need to thin crops to remove extra plants if the seeding is too thick.

Rafael and Silvestre setting up the Vegi-Mac
planter in preparation for planting 5-row crops

We also have a group of crops that we plant nearly every week from as early as we can in April through September.  We label these crops as the “5-Row Planting.”  We plant these crops weekly so we can have back-to-back plantings to harvest. The crops that are included in this planting category include baby bok choi, red radishes, cilantro, dill, and mustard. These are important crops for our farm. While we do include most of these crops in CSA boxes from time to time throughout the season, these crops are also very important wholesale crops that help to keep a steady revenue coming in throughout the growing season.  These crops are planted with a slightly modified version of our Mater-Mac vacuum seeder that is called the “Vegi-Mac.” 

Manuel & Juan Pablo planting 15-row crops in 
the spring using the Sutton Seeder

Early in the spring and toward the latter part of summer and early fall, we also do weekly plantings for 4-6 weeks that we call our “15-row” plantings. These crops include our baby greens (arugula, spinach, salad lettuce & greens) that are harvested when the leaves are small. We seed very dense plantings of 15 rows on a bed so we can mechanically harvest these crops.  For these plantings we use a machine called “The Sutton Seeder.”  This planter uses a little different type of technology to plant the seeds and requires us to calibrate each seed based on seed size and desired spacing for the crop.  We use these calibration values to determine the planter settings which control a GPS system that helps us more precisely plant the crop.

Direct seeding carrots and beets with the Mater-Mac
vacuum seeder

So, as you can see, our planting schedule extends far beyond spring planting! This week we will be planting our final fall broccoli crop. We are also preparing fields over the next two weeks so we can start planting our winter storage radishes (daikon, beauty heart and black Spanish radishes) and storage turnips. This week we’re also scheduled to plant storage kohlrabi that we hope to deliver in your boxes in November or December.  We typically wrap up our direct-seeding in mid to late September.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re finished planting!

Transplanting tomatoes onto dark 
green plastic using the Water-Wheel 
transplanter.

In mid to late October, before we’re even finished harvesting crops for the current season, we start planting for the next season!  We save our own seed for our garlic, horseradish and sunchoke crops. We plant all of these crops by hand, approximately 7 acres in total.  The crew is usually motivated to get these plantings finished because once they are completed, it usually signals their return to Mexico!

And that is how we accomplish plantings at Harmony Valley Farm. As you can see, our operation is very detailed and requires a lot of planning, record keeping, oversight and management to make sure we not only execute the plantings on time, but also are ready when it’s time to plant!  This means making sure we have the correct seed; the fields are ready and our crew members have the direction and support they need to get the job done.  It truly is a team effort, and we really appreciate the skill our crew members bring year after year to help us manage all of these moving parts and pieces!

June 2023: Late Spring Farm Update

By Richard de Wilde & Andrea Yoder      

Onion field with cover crops planted 
in the aisles between the beds

Our world of farming, and all the decisions that face us on a daily basis, are often sculpted around the weather forecast.  As we look back on the past few months, we have to admit it has been a bit of a wild ride!  We had some nice, warm, sunny days back in March and early April, making it look like a promising start to the season. Overwintered parsnips and sunchokes were ready to be harvested, the mulch on the garlic needed to be loosened, and the greenhouses were filling up with plants that needed to go to the field. The only problem was we didn’t have our field crew!  Our H2A visa crew members were delayed by about two weeks this year. Delays with visa processing are commonplace this year and we’re just thankful they made it here without further delay! 

While we waited for our guys to arrive, we continued to do the best we could with our small winter crew and there were a few days when we were all in the field (Andrea and Richard included) harvesting parsnips! Rafael did some of our first direct seeded plantings as conditions were looking good.  Then, on March 31^st a storm passed through and nailed us with hail! We have never seen hail as big as we saw that day and by the time it stopped falling from the sky, there was a solid layer of hailstones accumulated on the ground. Unfortunately, the hail was big enough that it punctured holes in all four of our greenhouses which have sheets of plastic for covering. While we usually don’t see too much wind in our valley, the month of April was unseasonably windy.  With holes perforating the greenhouse plastic, it was hard to keep the houses inflated and the plastic was whipping in the wind. We did the best we could to patch the holes, but there were limits to what we could do. Thankfully, we were able to secure all the houses and keep them intact while we waited for more crew members to help us change the plastic!

June 13, 2023:  Frost on frozen strawberry leaves!

Shortly after our field crew arrived from Mexico, we were blessed with about 10 inches of heavy, wet snow!  It was time to harvest ramps, so there were a few days when we had to wait for the sun to come out and melt the snow before we could go harvest! Once we got past that snow event, we were able to carry on with our field operations.  We started putting transplants out in the fields, continued with some early spring harvests, did our direct seedings, and hoped everything was moving in the right direction. We had some warm days, but no rain. No rain, no problem (well, less of a problem), we’ll get set up to irrigate when and where we can.  But then on May 25 there was a threat of overnight temperatures dipping below freezing! What happened to our standard of the last frost happening by the 15^th of May?!  We scrambled to put covers on vulnerable crops for frost protection. Thankfully, our efforts paid off and we saved the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and basil. After the frost, the temperatures shot back into the 90’s and then we were scrambling to get the covers off, so we didn’t cook the crops!  We made it through that fiasco, but it was a little too close to disaster for our comfort level!  We thought we were past the point of frost, but earlier this week we woke up to another frosty morning!  This one took us by surprise and thankfully, no crops were damaged.  The strawberry leaves did have frost on them though!

Overhead irrigation using sprinklers to water 
a new planting of rutabagas so they'll germinate!

We are now in a state of dryness, as in one of the driest springs ever. Everything we have planted needs water, but we only have irrigation capabilities for some properties. We’re also limited by hours in the day and equipment.  So we’re doing our best to keep all of the crops in the game and we’re thankful for any bit of rain that may fall from the sky!

Despite the wild weather wave we’ve been riding, most of our crops look quite nice!  This has been a pretty good strawberry season with great tasting berries, one of the benefits of a dry year.  Our onion crop is also looking quite nice as is this year’s garlic crop! Garlic harvest will likely be happening within the next month, which seems unbelievable!  As you can see by the contents of your box this week, we’re at that point in the season where we’re starting to shift to more of the summer greens (kale, chard, etc.) as well as some brassicas (e.g., kohlrabi) and soon we’ll have some root crops coming in.  Beets and carrots are right around the corner! Despite the fact that it is technically not yet summer, some of our summer crops are starting to make their way into our harvest schedule.  For example, the zucchini in this week’s box and the cucumbers that just might make it into next week’s box! As for other summer crops, we have three plantings of corn in the ground, with two more planned. We have some nice crops of green beans and edamame, and our first tomato field looks great!  The melon and watermelon field look quite nice. Sweet potatoes are in the ground and have taken root, so cross your fingers that we have a bountiful harvest in 3-4 months!

June 2023:  First tomato planting!

In the midst of farming, we’ve also found some time to continue rehabilitation work on a new piece of property we are leasing.  We’re also doing some experimentation with planting a variety of vegetable crops into no-till soil.  We planted our fall pumpkin crop as part of this experiment, so be certain to come to the fall party and see how it turned out!

Yes, it’s been a wild, whirlwind of a ride this spring, but there’s one thing we can always say with 100% confidence—Mother Nature will always take care of us and keep food on our table!

Spring—The First Stop On Our Seasonal Eating Adventure!

By Andrea Yoder

Richard de Wilde, Our Founding Farmer

Welcome to the start of the 31^st Harmony Valley Farm CSA season! My name is Andrea, and I am one of the owners of Harmony Valley Farm along with Richard de Wilde and Rafael Morales Peralta. For those of you who may be new to our farm, let’s start with a brief introduction.  Richard is our founding farmer and is often described as a “pioneer in organic farming.”  He has been farming since the early 70’s, even before organic certification was an option!  Over the years he has continued to push the envelope of possibility and continues to implement new strategies and systems to adapt, grow and respond to changes in the marketplace and climate changes while continuing to evolve our farm to become stronger and more resilient. He envisions the continuation of Harmony Valley Farm well into the future, hence his decision to create a path to ownership for others. And that’s where Rafael and I come into the picture!

Andrea Yoder, Co-Owner

This will be my 17^th growing season at Harmony Valley Farm. I originally came to the farm as the seasonal farm chef shortly after graduating from The Culinary Institute of America. Prior to pursuing a career in culinary arts, I trained and worked as a dietitian at the University of Virginia. I am fortunate to be able to blend my interests in nutrition and culinary arts here at the farm as we strive to grow vegetables that are nutrient dense and taste great! Every week my mission is to provide you with resources to guide you along the way and help you to find success with every box! I create and share recipes and cooking ideas with the intention that you will find the inspiration you need to create delicious, nourishing meals! Rafael has been working with us for over ten years.  He loves operating tractors and machines, figuring out ways to kill pests and weeds, and is innovative in coming up with ways to upgrade our farming systems for greater efficiency, productivity and resilience.  He is quickly downloading Richard's

Rafael Morales Peralta, Co-Owner

forty-plus years of farming expertise, which is no small task! Introductions would not be complete without mentioning our talented farm crew of nearly fifty individuals.  Each person at Harmony Valley Farm brings their own unique skills and talents to the table and contributes in their own way toward our collective success. Most of our crew members have been working with us for 10-20 years and we could not do what we do without them! 

We often describe the experience of eating out of a CSA box as “A Seasonal Eating Adventure,” which is exactly what it is! It’s a different way of eating in which we let nature guide us, partaking of the gifts each season brings forth.  Spring can be a challenging time of year to eat a seasonal midwestern diet, especially in some years such as we’re experiencing right now!  Over the past month, we’ve had nice, warm, sunny days along with cold, blustery days with snow and rain, including 10 inches of heavy, wet snow just a few weeks ago!  Overall, we’re running about two weeks or so behind where we’d like to be, and yet we know that Mother Nature will continue to provide for us.  Spring is a season of creativity where we have to think outside the box.  It’s too early for carrots, tomatoes, sweet corn, green beans and broccoli, so what are we going to eat?  Thankfully, we have perennial spring crops such as chives, sorrel, asparagus, and rhubarb. We also rely on wild-harvested vegetables such as ramps, nettles, and watercress. Over the years Richard has learned some useful strategies for how to overwinter some crops in the field including overwintered spinach, sunchokes and parsnips. We plant them in the fall, store them in the field over the winter and harvest them in the spring. So while these may be less common vegetables, if you’re willing to commit to eating seasonally I guarantee you’re going to be fueling your body with just what it needs for this time of the year in our climate. 

Green Garlic

While we are getting creative with the crop line-up, you have an opportunity to get creative in the kitchen as well! This may be a good time to remind you, “Never Be Intimidated by a Vegetable!”  If you encounter a vegetable along the way that is new or less familiar to you, don’t worry.  Use the resources we provide you each week to guide you and apply knowledge you have about other vegetables that may be similar. Some vegetables may require a little more preparation than others, but you may be surprised by how many vegetables actually qualify as nature’s fast food and require very little preparation.

Asparagus just starting to poke through!

Once the season starts and the vegetables start coming in, the offerings will change week to week. Asparagus spears are already starting to emerge in our current fields as we invest in planting a new field that we hope to start harvesting in 2-3 years. Richard just brought a few pieces of green garlic in from the field and it’s clear they’ll be ready for boxes very soon as well!  Rhubarb, sorrel, radishes, baby arugula are all very near on the horizon.  When you take a moment to list everything coming our way, it’s clear that spring is bountiful in its own right!

We are sincerely grateful that you’ve committed to supporting our farm through your membership in our CSA program this year and we will do our best to reciprocate the support back to you in each box we pack.  Together we will make this journey through the seasons, and I know we will both be stronger, more connected, and more deeply nourished in body, mind, and soul at the end of the season. Enjoy the ride!