Strawberry Production 101

By Andrea Yoder & Richard de Wilde

FlavorFest Strawberries packed in
pints and ready for CSA boxes!

Strawberries are in the peak of the season right now and we are picking nearly every day just to keep up with the pace of their ripening!  We do not grow many fruits in our valley, but we take pride in our strawberries and try to deliver the best tasting berries possible.  It is no small task and requires planning in advance to make it happen.  In fact, right now we are managing two strawberry fields.  We have the field we are currently harvesting and we have a new field that was planted this spring.  We only harvest from a field for two seasons before we destroy the field, but in order to have a continuous supply of berries from year to year this means we have one year where we have two fields to manage!  So this week we thought you might find it interesting to learn a little more about how we produce these tasty little berries.

At Harmony Valley Farm, we use the “Matted Row” system of strawberry production.  This means we plant bare root dormant strawberry plants in early spring.  We source our plants from Nourse Farms in Massachusetts.  When they arrive they are frozen and don’t look like much.  Our goal is always to get them planted as soon as we can after we receive them, weather permitting.  We space them about 16-18” apart and plant two rows on a bed.  The first year we do not harvest fruit from these plants, which are called mother plants.  While they will produce blossoms, we snip them off to shunt the energy in the plant towards producing daughter plants instead of 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 and allow the plant to become more established.  The main strawberry plant will send off new growth called runners.  These runners will produce the daughter plants that will set their roots into the soil thus propagating our strawberry crop!  As the daughter plants become established the rows start to fill in and widen.

Freshly shaped beds with black drip irrigation
lines coming out of the ends of the beds.

Before we can transplant the strawberry plants, we have to prepare the field.  Despite the fact that Richard has been growing strawberries for over 30 years, we continue to find ways to improve our production system every year.  In recent years we’ve started burying drip lines under the beds so we have a way to deliver water and nutrients to the plants.   This can get a little tricky because the lines have to be buried deep enough that they don’t get tangled up in any mechanical cultivation equipment or get damaged by transplanting and weeding crews.  Their placement on the bed and the depth of the placement need to be correct for these reasons as well as others.  In a drought year these 

drip lines are crucial for keeping the field productive as we cannot use any overhead irrigation 

methods once the plants have started to set fruit.  

In order for a field to be productive and efficiently managed, we need for all the pieces of production to come together in near perfect alignment.  This year Rafael got innovative and used his experiences and observations gleaned from previous strawberry field challenges to create a modified implement.   He calls this new tool a Canoe Shaper and we used it this year to prepare the beds and lay the drip tape.   The purpose of the shaper was to prepare straight beds for planting by shaping the beds and laying the irrigation drip tape all at one time.  This new method also increases our options for mechanical cultivation.  The canoe shaper uses the dirt from the middle of the bed to shape two mini beds that are able to better support the plants and allow the drip tape to be buried at an appropriate depth.  Essentially, this modified implement allows us to build a solid foundation for all the field activities that need to happen throughout the life of the field.  So far Rafael is very pleased with the results.  The irrigation team is also pleased with the field.  Having the drip tape properly buried means less damage to the lines from weeding and cultivating tools, which in turn means less leaks they have to repair!  While we will have to hand weed the field at some point, thus far we’ve been able to deal with most weeds with mechanical cultivation.

Transplanting the mother plants.

  We’ll see how things go the rest of the season, but so far it seems that a little innovation may have helped us achieve our overall improvement goals!

This year we also widened the spacing between each bed so we have more room for the harvest crew when they are picking.  They utilize little picking carts to keep the harvest totes off the ground.  We don’t want them to damage the plants so we ask them to walk gracefully in the field, like ballerinas.  None of them are classically trained dancers, and while they are graceful, we found it is easier to preserve the plants by just giving them more space to walk and place their carts.

Over the course of the first year, we control weeds with mechanical cultivation and hand weeding.  We also provide nutrients and watch for any disease or pest problems that may need our attention.   In late summer we seed a cover crop of Japanese millet in the field which helps to shade out weeds.  Japanese millet cannot survive a frost, so it will die off with the first hard frost we get in the fall.  The benefit of this is that the millet will then become mulch for the field, how convenient!  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.  In addition to the mulch created by the millet, we will also heavily mulch the field with straw after the ground freezes but before it snows.  All of this mulch helps to insulate and protect the new growth in the crown from freezing and thawing over the winter.   When spring rolls around and the temperatures start to warm up, we have to walk through the field and loosen the straw mulch with a pitch fork so the new growth can push through.  We leave the mulch in the field where it helps to fill in the spaces between the plants, choke out the weeds and provide a clean bed for the strawberries.

Japanese Millet planted
in between rows of strawberries

  The mulch isn’t removed too soon though or the plants will start to blossom and are at greater risk of being damaged by frost.  If the blossoms are damaged by frost, they will develop a black center and will not produce a berry. This spring we experienced a late freeze, after the plants had already started to blossom.  In situations such as this we have to be ready to respond by covering the field with large row covers.  These are basically huge blankets to keep the strawberries warm and protected from frost.

Black centers in blossoms mean no fruit will form.

This year we planted 5 different varieties of strawberries.  We select the varieties based on their ripening season, flavor, color, disease resistance and production.  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.  The hot, dry weather we’ve had this year has resulted in berries that are smaller in size, but they are quite tasty as the flavor is concentrated into a smaller package!

Jaime & Gerardo removing
 the blossoms from the mother plants.

After the harvest is done in the first year of production, we “renovate” the field.  This means we destroy some of the plants to promote more runners and daughter plant production for the next year.   When harvest is finished in the second year of production, we destroy the field.  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.  A young, clean patch will usually have greater production and yields.

As you can see, there is a lot involved with strawberry production!  We hope you are enjoying this year’s crop and perhaps next year we’ll be able to resume our Strawberry Day event.  While eating strawberries out of a CSA box is a tasty experience, nothing compares to standing in the field and eating a freshly picked strawberry right off the plant, still warm from the sun.  That is one of life’s simple pleasures. 

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!

Strawberry Day 2017…What a Fun Day!

 By Farmers Richard & Andrea

Last Sunday we hosted our 24th annual Strawberry Day event at the farm. While this day is sometimes a scorcher, we were pleased to have a very pleasant day for the party. With just a little rain overnight and a few clouds passing through, we made it through the day with just a few sprinkles of rain. The cloud cover and temperatures in the 70’s was the perfect backdrop for comfortable strawberry picking. We had an estimated 120-130 members in attendance. One member referred to our visitors as members of our “fan club.” Our “fan club” included people ranging in age from the very little ones riding in carriers with their moms to seasoned veterans returning to the farm for another visit to check in on us and make sure we still know what we’re doing!  

We started off the event with our annual potluck. We enjoy seeing our vegetables return to the farm in various forms. Jars of fermented vegetables and salsas preserved from last year’s bounty, pasta tossed with garlic scape pesto garnished with sugar snap peas and baby white turnips, and strawberry-rhubarb lemonade were just a few of the foods that made their way to this year’s potluck. We also enjoyed a delicious and refreshing batch of Strawberry Basil Kombucha made with our strawberries and basil by NessAlla. Of course a farm party isn’t complete without Iced Maple Latte made with cold brew coffee from Kickapoo coffee!

After the potluck, we loaded up the harvest wagons and made our way to the fields to check out some crops.  We enjoy taking members to the fields every year and feel that it makes your CSA experience so much more personal and meaningful when you can see for yourselves what it takes to grow and care for your vegetables.  Field tours have also proven to be a very meaningful and formative experience for children who visit the farm, and this year was no different.  On our first stop, Richard took a group over to check out the onions.  He showed them how to pull the purple scallions, clean them, and then of course you have to eat them!  This year’s purple scallions are pretty pungent, but that didn’t deter some of the kids and adults alike to try eating them raw right there in the field.  Richard was afraid the hot onions might leave a negative impression on one young member, but quite the contrary.  She did acknowledge they were hot, but described it as a “good hot.”  Not the kind of heat you get from hot salsa, but rather a healthy kind of hot.  She didn’t even fall victim to onion crying!  On the other side of the field, Andrea showed a group of members how to pick basil and rainbow chard.  Everyone commented about how fresh the basil smelled when it was picked right there in the field!  A few people who had never tasted fresh basil were able to pick some and get their first taste right there in the field.  Next to the basil we found the rainbow chard.  There were a few children and adults who were not familiar with this vegetable, so we found some big leaves to pick and sample.  Everyone who tried it agreed that it was pretty tasty.  What a sight to see children munching on a chard leaf in the field!  Awesome!

The next stop on our tour was the potato field.  One member made an observation when we were in the field that when Farmer Richard picks up a carrot fork and starts walking, everyone follows in anticipation of what he might find!  We wanted to stop at this field so we could dig some potato plants and check the progress.  First we had to identify the early variety, Red Norland.  Once we found that variety in the field we looked for plants with blossoms and hopefully some cracking on the ground around the plant which would indicate potatoes swelling and growing underneath.  We dug a few plants, and did find some potatoes, but they were tiny!  We did make the assessment that we need to give them a few more weeks before we start harvesting them, but we observed great potential on the plants we took a look at!  There were as many as 10 potatoes forming on one of the plants. With a few more weeks to grow, we should get pretty good yields on our harvest.  As we walked back to the wagons we took a look at the winter squash crop which looks pretty nice.  At this point we paused to take a vote as to where to go next and the consensus from the group was to move on to STRAWBERRIES!  

As we approached the field, we could smell the scent of the berries wafting our way.  Even though we were at the tail end of the season, there were still nice berries in the field.  It just took a little more time and patience to find them, but we didn’t have the hot sun beating down on our backs so everyone just settled into picking and took their time.  There was plenty of sampling in the field, but no one declared themselves too hungry for strawberry ice cream!  There were over 200 pounds of strawberries picked on Sunday.  We didn’t weigh any children or adults before and after picking, so this is just an estimate of the berries picked and eaten in the field as well as those that were taken home.  

When the wagons returned to the farm, we all enjoyed a bowl of strawberry ice cream.  This is a highlight of every Strawberry Day as this is one-of-a kind ice cream made for us by Castle Rock Organic Dairy using our very own strawberries in a higher ratio than normal.  It was described as the “best ice cream ever” and many people commented about how creamy it was….as they ate a second serving!

Over the course of the day we enjoyed our conversations with members, both those we have known for years as well as new members visiting the farm for the first time!  We watched children playing together throughout the day.  Some used their imaginations to pretend the wagon was their pirate ship and they showed us handfuls of their “gold,” which we usually just call gravel.  We had some runners in the group too.  When they got off the wagons they started at one end of the field and ran the entire length of the field and back!  What energy!  It must be all the organic vegetables they are eating!  It’s wonderful to see children feeling free to run, play, experience and enjoy their day on the farm.  

We are grateful to everyone who took the time to come and spend the day with us.  We appreciate the opportunity to visit with you, show you our farm, and get to know you more personally.  Your faces and stories stay with us and we think of you throughout the year as we work.  We would also like to thank our crew members who volunteered to help us set up, clean up, assist in the strawberry field, drive the tractors, etc.  We couldn’t do this all by ourselves and we appreciate their willingness to participate in making this a fun and memorable day for everyone.

If you weren’t able to make it to the farm for Strawberry Day, we hope you’ll consider joining us for the Harvest Party in the fall.  We’ll have field tours, pumpkin picking, live music, games and another delicious potluck!

Strawberry Day…We had so much fun!

by Andrea Yoder

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

   

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

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

                                                                                                                                                                   

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

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

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

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

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