We’ve been seeding up a storm in the greenhouse in preparation for the spring season! Now that our tomatoes and peppers are happily growing away, it’s time to plant cucumbers, zucchini, and yellow squashes. These varietals are much quicker growers than tomatoes and peppers so they don’t need as early of a start. This will be the first of many successions of cucumbers and squashes that will carry us through spring and summer. You can expect to see them trickling back into season in early April.

An abundance of flower varieties were also planted in the greenhouse this week! One of our favorite spring traditions on the farm is to grow a couple of cut flower beds for bouquets. This year, we’re focusing on planting smaller quantities of more flower varieties than we have in the past. We’ll have some reliable favorites like zinnias and marigolds with newer ones like yarrow and pincushion flowers. If all goes well, we should have cut flower bouquets at the Farm Stand just in time for Mother’s Day!

Aside from all of the seed starting, we took some time to use the flame weeder in some of our beds in preparation for spring planting. The flame weeder is a great way for us to keep weeds in check without disturbing the soil. An added bonus is that it’s much quicker than our other weeding methods! The intense heat generated by the flame weeder sears the leaves of the weeds which causes the plant to die back. As the plant decays, it adds nutrients back to the soil which will benefit future spring crops.

In Season at the Farm Stand: Carrots, Beets, Salad Mix, Butter Lettuce, Romaine Lettuce, Komatsuna, Swiss Chard, Cone Cabbage, Bok Choy, Kale, Collard Greens, Cilantro, Scallions, Fennel, Kohlrabi, Cauliflower, and Broccoli (limited)

It’s already time to pot up our tomato transplants in the greenhouse! The “potting up” process involves removing the small seedlings from their trays and replanting them into larger pots. We try to plant them as deep as possible since the buried part of the tomato stem is able to grow additional roots. The larger pots allow for the development of a deeper and stronger root system which allows our tomato plants to be healthier and stronger. Our tomatoes will remain in the greenhouse until they are ready for transplanting in just a few short weeks.

The field dried out enough for us to do some bed prep for a late winter planting. Once all of the old crops and weeds are cleared out, we use the broadfork (below) to assist in aerating and breaking up any compactions in the soil. This makes it easier for the roots of our crops to grow and access vital water and nutrients. This next round of planting will include a variety of crops we have waiting in the greenhouse including scallions, broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbages. 

After a winter break, our Volunteer Program will start back up on the 22nd of this month! Every Saturday from 8:30-11am beginning on February 22nd, volunteers are invited to work with us on various farm tasks. These tasks will vary each week depending on the farm’s needs and can range from weeding to planting to harvesting. Since we are a working production farm, we ask that any volunteers that would like to attend are able to commit to the entire time slot and can arrive promptly by 8:30am. For additional details, please reach out to our Farm Team at JordanRanch@Agmenity.com.

In Season at the Farm Stand: Carrots, Beets, Salad Mix, Butter Lettuce, Romaine Lettuce, Komatsuna, Swiss Chard, Cone Cabbage, Bok Choy, Kale, Collard Greens, Cilantro, Scallions, Fennel, Kohlrabi, and Broccoli (limited)

Remember the tarp we had in the high tunnel to smother new weed growth? The tarp did its job beautifully and now it’s time to prepare the beds in the high tunnel for fall planting! Each bed has been broadforked to help aerate and break up any compaction in the soil. Once each bed is broadforked, a layer of compost is added to incorporate organic matter and improve the soil structure. Once the compost is in place, we can use the precision depth roller attachment on our BCS tractor to help gently mix the compost into the soil (below). We can’t wait to get these beds planted with fall crops!

The greenhouse is starting to look very verdant as all of the fall crops we seeded last week germinate! Overall we’re seeing really great germination which has us eager to get these crops planted in the field. Farmer Matt is incredibly excited for the broccoli and cauliflower because he loves incorporating them into meals and never gets tired of them. He’s also looking forward to scallions making their way back into the harvesting rotation since they’re fun to grow and smell amazing in the field in the early morning! Which fall crops are you most excited to see return to the Farm Stand?

Our next round of baby butternuts is almost ready for harvesting! This variety is ready to harvest once it turns a tan color and the skin toughens up. The easiest way to tell if the skin is tough enough is to give it the “fingernail test”: if you press on the skin with your fingernail and it doesn’t leave a dent, it’s ready! Once harvested, these butternuts will cure in the greenhouse before making their way to the Farm Stand. We’ll let you know as soon as they’re available! 

In Season at the Farm Stand: Korean Melons, Cucumbers, Zucchini (limited), Asian Eggplant (limited), Roselle Greens, Okra, and Long Beans.

Coming Soon: Baby Butternuts

Our mild fall and winter temperatures make it possible to grow both a spring and a fall succession of tomatoes. We are excited to announce that we will be planting a round of fall tomatoes this year! As you can see in the photo above, they are already off to a great start in the greenhouse. We’ll be potting them up soon to allow their roots more room to grow before we transplant them in September. Here are the varieties you can look forward to: Sungold, Cherry Bomb, and Early Girl.

We’ve reached the point in the season when it’s time to bid our cover crops farewell. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll be mowing down all of our cover cropped sections in preparation for fall planting. Once they are mowed and left in place, they will add beneficial organic matter to the soil. Before we plant the first succession of fall crops, these beds will be broadforked and amended with compost to give them a healthy start.

In addition to using compost as an amendment for our soil, we also use it to make a nutrient-rich tea for our plants! In order to brew a batch of compost tea, we place compost into a mesh bag then place it in a container of fresh water. The compost tea mixture is aerated for 12-24 hours depending on the outside temperature before it’s ready to use! The resulting tea is then sprayed on our crops in order to deliver beneficial nutrients and keep our plants healthy. We typically apply compost tea to our crops once a week.

In Season at the Farm Stand: Long Beans, Okra, Roselle Greens, Slicing Cucumbers, Bitter Melon, Jalapenos, Serranos, Baby Poblanos, Banana Peppers, Aji Rico Peppers, and Sweet Peppers.

It’s time to prepare the farm for spring! We’re bidding farewell to some of our spent winter crops to make way for new ones for spring. In order to prepare our beds, we always start by clearing out old crops and thoroughly weeding the bed tops and furrows. Then, we add a layer of compost to the tops of the beds along with fertilizer to make sure our plants have the nutrients they need. The beds you see here will soon be planted with zinnias, cucumbers, and zucchini!

We have some beautiful beets for you at the Farm Stand. This variety is called “Chioggia” and it has striking magenta and white striped flesh. It has a sweet and mildly earthy flavor that doesn’t “bleed” as much as a traditional red beet when cut into. Chioggia beets can be roasted, steamed, stir-fried, or pickled while the leafy green tops can be treated just like Swiss chard or spinach. Farmer Anna’s favorite way to enjoy beets is to juice them along with apples, oranges, turmeric, and ginger.

Remember the cool season cover crop we planted back in November? We’re mowing it down and leaving the plant matter in place so it can add beneficial organic matter to the soil. We’ll soon be sowing these cover cropped areas with a warm season soil building mix in order to continue improving the health of our soil. Our goal is to be able to plant these areas in the fall! 

In Season at the Farm Stand: Chioggia Beets, Fennel, Carrots, Watermelon Radishes, Kohlrabi, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Collard Greens, Kale, and Parsley.

We’ve officially started preparing the field for fall planting! The first step is to weed and clear any old crops from our beds. Then, we use the broadfork to help aerate and break up compaction in the soil (pictured below). After broadforking, we’ll add a layer of compost and organic fertilizer to the tops of our beds. These will be mixed in by hand with a rake or the harrow attachment on our BCS tractor. After that, our beds will be ready for plenty of delicious fall crops!

Our arugula and radishes are doing really well in the high tunnel! Now that we have more beds prepared, we direct-seeded a round of Hakurei turnips this week along with a mix of red, golden, and Chioggia beets. Just like our arugula and radishes, Hakurei turnips are a quicker growing crop. Once they germinate, they will take about 40 days to reach harvesting size. Beets take slightly longer to reach maturity, about 50-60 days. We hope you are as excited as we are to see root crops make their way back into season!

If you’re eagerly anticipating the fall season, we hope you’ll join us on Saturday, September 30th at 10:30am for our next Farm Tour! This tour will feature the first fall crop harvest along with a preview of what we’ll be growing throughout the upcoming season. You’ll have the opportunity to sample what we’re harvesting and ask any farm-related questions you might have. Our tours are open to the public and free of charge so we hope to see you there!

In Season at the Farm Stand: Long Beans, Malabar Spinach, Armenian Cucumbers, Eggplants, and Okra.

The end of one crop often marks the beginning of the next one! The kale and squash in these beds is being mown down with our BCS tractor as the first step in our bed preparation process. Once a crop has made it through its life cycle, we leave it in place and mow over it rather than digging it up. This chops up the plant matter which can then be left in place on top of the beds as “green manure”. As the plant decomposes, it adds organic matter back to the soil which is incredibly beneficial for the next crop that will be sown in its place.

Last week we planted one of our summer greens: Malabar spinach! Though not a true spinach, the succulent leaves of this tropical plant have a mild flavor similar to spinach. Malabar spinach (pictured above) is heat tolerant, making it a great leafy green option to grow during the summer season. Farmer Anna is really excited for this crop and can’t wait for you to try it! We should be making the first harvest within the next couple of weeks.

Do you remember the Armenian cucumbers we grew last year? We’re happy to share that our current crop will be ready for harvest in the next week or two! Though technically a melon, Armenian cucumbers taste and look similar to a standard cucumber. They’re a great summer crop due to their ability to tolerate the heat. The variety we’re growing this summer is ribbed and has skin that is a lovely light green color. We can’t wait to share them with you!

In Season at the Farm Stand: Eggplant, Watermelons (limited), Korean Melons, Long Beans, Okra, Sweet Peppers, Serrano Peppers (limited), Jalapeno Peppers (limited), Onions, and Cut Flower Bouquets (limited and only on Saturdays).

While spring doesn’t officially start until the 20th of this month, it sure feels like it has arrived on the farm! Always a sign of the return of spring, our tomatoes are being planted this week with zucchinis and cucumbers to follow suit. If you’d like to experience this spring transition on the farm, make sure to come to our next Farm Tour on Saturday, March 11th at 10:30am! Our Farm Tours are free of charge and open to the public but we ask that children be accompanied by an adult. We can’t wait to see you there!

When we shared that we had planted seeds for sweet and mild peppers in the greenhouse, we had a few inquiries about hot varieties. We’re happy to report that we planted seeds for our hot peppers last week! We focused on our three most popular hot peppers from last year: jalapenos, serranos, and habaneros. We’ll make sure to keep you updated on their progress so that you can plan your salsa and hot sauce crafting accordingly.

The beds in the high tunnel are nearly ready for spring planting! You can see in the photo below that we’ve added a layer of compost onto each empty bed. Compost is essentially decomposed organic materials (food scraps, leaves, etc.). Every time we prepare a bed for planting, we add a layer of compost in order to incorporate organic matter back into our soil. This helps to improve the soil structure, making it easier for roots, nutrients, and water to penetrate our clay-heavy soil.

In Season at the Farm Stand: Icicle Radishes, Broccoli Rabe, Kohlrabi, Celery, Spring Onions, Sugar Snap Peas, Salad Radishes, Turnips, Kale, Collards, Cabbage, and Cilantro.

July 22nd, 2021

Our tomatoes are officially over for the summer and even though we know how much you love them, their absence leaves space for more late summer crops. Since we operate a no-till system on the farm, the preparation of the former tomato beds involves a series of tasks in order to get them ready for the next crop. The first step after we cut down the spent tomato plants is to go through the beds with the wheel hoe in order to remove weeds. Then, we go through our beds with the broadfork to help aerate the soil before adding our soil amendments like compost. Finally, we go through with the harrow in order to help mix in the amendments and smooth out the surface of the bed to prepare it for the irrigation lines. Once irrigation is installed, we’re ready to plant!

We broadcasted Sudex seed (a hybrid of sorghum and sudangrass) this week into a block of vacant beds. Sudex is a warm weather cover crop that will work to suppress weed growth by shading out weeds as it grows. As Sudex grows, the root system will work to decrease soil erosion and soil compaction which in turn should create more efficient drainage. Sudex is a fast grower so we’re already seeing signs of germination!

Did you know that both the seed pods and greens of cowpeas are edible? Young cowpea greens are tender with a flavor similar to spinach or sweet potato greens. They are best when cooked and can be substituted into any recipe calling for cooked spinach, kale, or collards. We’ve been harvesting our cowpea greens as a delicious summer leafy green and will have them available at the farm stand on Saturday from 10am-noon if you’d like to try some.

June 24th, 2021

It’s officially summer on the farm! That means tomatoes will be making their way out of season in the next couple of weeks and we will be focused only on crops that can thrive in our hot and humid summer weather. We were able to transplant more of our summer greens this week and we’re pretty excited about the variety that we’ll be able to offer. We’ll be growing purslane, red amaranth, Malabar spinach, and Tetragonia (New Zealand spinach). If you’re curious what some of these crops look like, the red amaranth can be seen above and the Tetragonia can be seen below.

In order to make way for more summer crops, we’ve been focused on preparing our vacant beds for planting. Since we farm predominantly with a no-till method in order to keep the soil food web intact, bed preparation always starts with a broadfork to help aerate the soil. Once we broadfork our beds and add amendments like compost and organic fertilizer, we’ll be transplanting more successions of summer crops like peppers, okra, squash, and luffa.

Have you had a chance to make it out to our farm stand yet? The farm stand (located right on the farm) is open on Wednesdays from 4-6pm and Saturdays from 10am-12pm. It provides a sustainable option within the community as you’re able to get the produce directly us which greatly reduces fossil fuel consumption. A tomato from us travels less than 50 feet before it gets to you while a tomato at a grocery store may have traveled a thousand or more miles. Also, the closest grocery store to our location is approximately 8 miles away by car! This Saturday, we’ll have the following for you at the farm stand: cherry tomatoes, slicer tomatoes, cucumbers, green bell peppers, long beans, okra, eggplant, basil, and fresh cut flower bouquets.