Life Lessons and Celebrations

New hoop house:  early May

New hoop house:  mid-June

Within a garden grows so much more than fresh fruits, flowers, and vegetables - life lessons lurk around every leaf, just waiting to be gleaned.  Set-backs this spring reminded us of the importance of foresight, vigilance, humility, adaptability, and detachment.  Oh, and humor....though that admittedly took awhile!  Thankfully the garden is growing so beautifully now you would never know if not for the confessional.

We are coming up on our third Farmers' Market of the season already.  June has blessed us with gorgeous heads of lettuce, rhubarb, and radishes.  This week we will also have those beloved garlic scapes from our hard neck garlic varieties.  Click here for a link to recipes and ideas for cooking with garlic scapes.  Coming soon:  beets, carrots, and cucumbers.

Sometimes it can be a challenge to keep up with life on a small farm with a 2 year-old (and one on the way!) in tow, but life is good.  We love to see you down at the Klamath Falls Farmers' Market, where we can usually slow down a bit and enjoy the happy faces reminding us why it is all worth it!

Happy summer solstice!

New Hoop House for Tomatoes

With the mild weather we were able to get a jump start on some projects we've been wanting to do for years, the largest of which was constructing another hoop house.  This house will hold two more racetracks of tomatoes and essentially eliminate all of our outside plants.  Personally, we think this is great news since our outside tomatoes only produce for about 3 weeks due to our short season.  We figure tomatoes in the hoop house produce a higher quality product for about 10 weeks.  We won't be increasing the number of plants we plant each year, which is around 600, but just change how they are grown.  Lastly, if you didn't know already, Darrin has started another blog related to producing vegetables in high desert climates.  This blog will address some of the techniques we use to produce food where the climatic conditions can be challenging to say the least.  The posts are at theupturnedspade.blogspot.com  Enjoy and we look forward to seeing you more often once the Farmers Market starts.

For us, the 2012 growing season really began last October with garlic planting. I love this crop for so many reasons.  I love that we are still enjoying the long-storing soft neck varieties in our hearty winter meals.  I love that sprouting garlic is one of the first signs of life when the snow melts in the spring.  I love how the hard neck varieties send up garlic scapes in June, just when we are running out of last year's supply and are anxiously anticipating that first, fresh taste of the new crop.

We're gearing up for the 2012 growing season, and will soon be seeding peppers and tomatoes.  We will be at the Klamath Falls Farmers' Market again this year, where you will find us every Saturday between June and October.  We will be growing a wide variety of produce, including:  head lettuce, cabbage, radishes, carrots, beets, tomatoes, sweet peppers, chile peppers, cucumbers, strawberries, seasonal tree fruits, winter squash, sweet onions, shallots, garlic, dahlias and sunflowers.  Hope to see you there!