By Alexis
Anytime I mention to someone, and I mean anytime, that i work on a farm the response is always the same, "oh, what do you do there?". Today I decided to give you all a VERY brief overview of the labor that goes into your food. This does not include any of the meat.
Spring
Filling seed trays with soil and spend hours sowing trays of seeds, making sure they are labeled, watered, and in an adequate location within the greenhouse.
Water greenhouse (yearround) - as we get into the season the greenhouse and shadehouse become so full it can take an up to an hour to water everything.
Start transplanting into tunnels. This means we must prepare the plant beds by broadforking, wheelhoe-ing, and raking each bed. Then placing compost at the start of the season.
Cover fields with tarp using tractor and sandbags to prepare for planting. This helps to kill weeds, grass and make a new clean slate of soil. When its time to plant, we will uncover the tarp/sandbags as we go.
Redig multiple field trenches for main irrigation lines. Re- establish 200 ft irrigation lines, making sure all the connections are accurate and lines are drained and inspected for holes/leaks.
Summer/Fall
Use tractor and attachments to transplant greenhouse babies into the fields. Sitting on the attachment that places plants in the soil is an arm workout! But the use of the tractor makes a big difference on a farm of this scale. We also have a water tractor to heavy water plants directly after being planted. Some plants are hand planted.*
Spend hours weeding the fields and chatting about anything under the sun, listening to podcasts/audiobooks/music.
Harvest, harvest, harvest. CLEAN tons and tons of fresh produce from the field. Some of these are preserved in the freezer to use throughout the year so we will also bag/store some.
We also carry these 50+ lb bags from the freezer to the CSA barn every week of the year for your CSA shares.
Winter
Clean up everything we put into fields, including irrigation, trellises and other. Clean the barn, office space and other spaces.
Make soil potting mix. Combine material from several resources to make a nutrient dense bed for seeds. Haul over huge bag of soil to potting shed with forklift, as needed throughout the year.
Order new seeds. Prune back perennials. Process Dahlias.
Process all the herbs and make tea blends. Sow seeds for spring plantings/greenhouse plantings.
Like I said, this is brief and I'm sure that I am missing many activities. But I hope this helps!
Open Field Farm 2024 | The "ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW" guide for members
CSA Barn Hours:
Summer hours start this week: 2:30-6:30 pm!
Pick List:
Eggs
Sangre Red, Harvest Moon Purple, La Ratte Fingerling, and Yellow Finn Potatoes
Yaya Carrots
Purple Daikon and Watermelon Radish Radish
Rutabaga
Parsnips
Celeriac
Sweet Spanish Colorado #6, Cabernet Red, and Cortland Yellow Onions
Leeks
Red and Green Cabbage
Kossack Kohlrabi
Scallions
Rubro and Rosalba
Kale
Rhubarb Chard
Regiment Spinach
Lettuce Mix
Fava Greens
Cilantro and Parsley
Ground and Whole Dried Hot Peppers
Herbal Tea Blends
Pick your own flowers and herbs (from the herb garden and perennial field)
Sonora Wheat Flour and Cornmeal
Beef Bone Broth (Made by Olla Products)
Saltonstahl Olive Oil
Revolution Bread for sale on Tuesday and Friday
FAVA beans are very versatile, you can replace them for spinach in your recipes. And you can replace them for basil in your pesto! They are rich in vitamins and minerals like folate, manganese, copper and phosphorus.
Pasta With Fava Greens
Bring a large stockpot 2/3 full of water to a boil. Salt liberally. Cook pasta according to box instructions. In the last 30 seconds of cooking, add in the fava greens. As soon as they turn bright green (this should only take a few seconds), immediately strain and transfer the pasta and fava greens to a bowl.
Garnish with olive oil, grated cheese, and pepper to taste.