Now taking orders for Garlic!

We are now taking orders for Culinary and Seed stock Garlic! 

Garlic is one of our most popular crops, and we are increasing our planting each year and are able to offer seed stock garlic for planting. Our garlic is harvested in July and allowed to cure and dry in the barn. We guarantee that all garlic is clean and disease free. 

Please email Farmer@dailyharvestfarm.com for more info and to place an order.  We accept check and paypal.

When ordering please take careful note of the following:

Quantity:  Both culinary and seed garlic is sold by the pound, with discounts over 25 pounds.

                Culinary garlic is $10/lb. Premium Seed Garlic is $15/lb

Size:        Culinary garlic is great for cooking and bulbs range in size from 1 ½ - 1 ¾ in. diameter.                Seed garlic bulbs are 2 in. diameter or larger and are the ideal size for planting. 

Shipping: We usually ship using United States Postal Service (USPS) using Priority Mail which usually arrives in 2-3 days and provides shipment tracking. We ship starting mid-September. Remember to remove your garlic form the box immediately and store it in a cool, dry place until you are ready to plant. 

We grow three great varieties: 

German Red: The standard Rocambole variety that we all love. This was one of the first stiff necked varieties to become widely popular. White wrappers with a slight pinkish-red tinge over flattened bulbs. The easy to peel cloves have a spicy, rich garlic flavor with a little fire. Loves to grow in the cold, northern winters.  

German White: Very winter-hardy porcelain variety having a large root system to help withstand the freezing and thawing cycle that heaves the bulbs out of the ground. Large well-formed heads have a strong and robust flavor. Stores well. 

   

Pskem River: This hard-to-find large-clove garlic was collected from the Pskem River Valley in Uzbekistan. This garlic has beautiful purple stripes and a superior complex flavor. It is our first garlic to mature. It is also a great garlic for storage.

The start of a new, and very different, season

Today, the first of May, it seems finally that Winter has lazily moved over for Spring. The silence and sleepiness is now replaced with insect emergence, frantic nest building, and busy farmers feeling rushed to get soil plowed, minerals spread, and seeds and plants tucked into the warming soil.

 

 New life finally emerges from deep below the frozen earth. The new vibrant green life has a way of inspiring the hard work and long hours of Spring field work.

 

I have been busy in the greenhouse starting seeds and potting up tiny plants to get them strong enough for their new life outdoors, outside of the protective shell of the greenhouse. 

And the start of Spring is always marked by the little babies prancing around the pasture for the first time. Jumping and running far enough away from mom until you hear the reassuring call to come back. Napping most of the day in the warm sun.This Spring seems quite typical around the farm, everything is in it's place and happening in it's time. 

This Spring is quite different for me, however, as I am preparing to welcome my own little farm baby this August. All that napping in the sun is very tempting and I do give in occasionally. But there is still so much to be done. There are many changes this season and more to come, but one thing that will never change is my desire to grow and be apart of something larger. There is always the chance to start anew and nothing ever stays the same, but I believe we are richer for these changes.

 

CSA enrollment now open!

2014 season about to begin!

So, I can admit that I dropped the ball on the blog last season (the last update was in early May before the peas really even needed that trellis!!). I don't think I need to tell anyone that farm work is hurried work, and between juggling the expanding CSA, weekly market demands, and the challenges of weeds, pests, and diseases something usually has to give. I apologize to the faithful supporters of this blog that you have drawn the short stick, maybe a few pictures of last season will make up for it?

Cabbage and Kale with flowering peas in the background

Close up of those peas. I experimented with varying the number of rows planted tightly in each bed. It was a great pea year, although they came on a bit later. CSA members enjoyed coming out to the farm for pick-your-own!...

 

 

...when it wasn't a monsoon.

 

It rained a lot last season! In fact, the CSA pick-up at the farm seemed to trigger the downpours. There were many days "off" from working in the fields because of the wet conditions and mud. It was hard to stay on top of the weeds and disease was always on my mind.

Tomatoes thrive on the black plastic but this year we had some crazy grasses to deal with in the aisles. We decided, instead of trying to cultivate them we would just keep them mowed. It's cheaper than mulching, although we will have to deal with them at some point. This season, the peas will use the same bed structure at the tomatoes, so we can keep mowing these aisles. Then some heavy cover cropping to choke out the grass for 2015. 

 

So there you are, the annual "year in review" in pictures to make up for an absentee blogger. I can't promise this year will be any better, but I do know it will be a better, brighter season on the farm! I am so excited about some new, exciting crops we are growing and will share them with you all soon. 

 

It's also Daily Harvest Farm's 5th Anniversary!

It feels like such an important milestone for me and I am determined to enjoy and celebrate it.

April came and went, first plants and seeds went in.

 The focus these days has been to get the plants and seeds into the ground and time it just right that the rain can water them all in! So far things have worked out well, although overall the soil has been on the dry side and we have been irrigating quite a bit already.

 

 We'll take a break from planting (and plowing, spreading compost and amendments, laying drip tape and securing row cover) to do some weeding and clean-up over the next few days. Then,it's full steam ahead to empty the greenhouse of all the summer crops!

 

Tomatoes looking strong and spending increasing amounts of time outside the greenhouse in the bright sun and wind to get ready to move to the farm.  

 

 Basil and Celery

  

 It looks like a sea of peppers in the greenhouse! Sweet bells of all colors, Jimmy Nardello, and a variety of hot peppers!

 

The dogs have been enjoying the warm, sunny Spring days, and I love how they remind me to pick my head up from my lists of never ending tasks and just enjoy the farm!

Spring thaw

With the snow finally gone, I have been able to work out at the farm cleaning up the harvest supplies, sharpening tools, adding to the rock heaps, and obsessively plan where all of this season's crops will go. No matter how much I work on crop rotation during the winter, there are always changes to be made depending on cover crop growth and which fields are drying quicker than others. There is also the need to make room for new crops to trial and the last minute must-have seed purchases. In my efforts to make the farm as efficient as possible, I am always cycling varieties in and out of production. I grow a lot of crops on the farm, 50 is a safe number to throw out there, and many different cultivars of each. It's an interesting puzzle that fills me up.

Part of gearing up for this season is unpacking and laying out the irrigation lines that serve as the lifeblood for the farm. Last year was a dry year that devastated crops we were not able to keep irrigated. With sharpened pencils, I did some serious farm math this winter to make sure we have enough drip tape and hours in the week to keep everything irrigated should this year be even worse than last. However, I don't think Einstein could come up with an equation to keep me sane should this happen!

Farm kitty checking out the irrigation. 

I love Spring. It's not the intense colors of a season winding down, but dull, muted colors of a season just beginning. I let feelings of renewal wash over me in the bright greens, blues, purples, reds, and yellows that will soon be in abundance on my small farm.

Agriculture Works

Every Spring I sow seeds either in flats in the greenhouse or outside into the soil and hold my breath until the first germination. Why should I be surprised when the little white shoot just barely breaks through the soil, slowly turning into a bright green seedling? It's what is supposed to happen! It reminds me of a quote, "The person who entrusts the seed to the sun and the rain is a person of hope", or something like that. I can't find who said it, but I know we all think it.

I plant the seed, and care for it of course, but that's it. Its the seed that is enacting its genetic destiny. Upon sprouting, the leaves start to develop the capacity to absorb nutrients from the soil and air. Roots develop to further support the plant growth. This photosynthesis in the leaves is used to produce the chemicals secreted through the roots as they grow. The specific fungi and bacteria beneficial to plant growth feeds on these secretions and cells sloughed off by root growth, in turn providing nutrients to the very plant it's roots attracted, by being consumed by larger microbes. Plants are orchestrating this whole process by controlling the chemical secretions and hence attracting the specific bacteria and fungi they need during their growth cycle. It's a completely natural system that doesn't need me at all. Great! I'm taking a vacation!

No, it's not time to hang up the Carhartts just yet...somebody has to plant that seed!