Shoutout to our 10th Anniversary Market Share members!

Things are really feeling like summer on the farm right now! Tomato harvests grow larger and larger each week, eggplants and sweet peppers have started producing fruit, and we are constantly balancing how to harvest everything while continuing to plant fall crops. Oh, did I mention we’ve seen some of the first dahlia flowers of the season as well? Needless to say, July is busy for farmers. 

But, we can always make time to celebrate our amazing customers! We have two specific families that we’d like to celebrate this year - the Jacobsens and Brian Dore and Maria Landers. Both are in their 10th year as Market Share members of the farm. Happy 10th anniversary!

Thank you, Jacobsens! The Jacobsens are not only diligent farmers’ market attendees at Madison; they are also farm party stalwarts! The whole family has shown up to our shareholder parties in all weather conditions, braving farm tours through the rain and wet fields! The only reason they missed our plant sale party earlier this spring is because we rudely scheduled it while they were spending some months living abroad. Even still, from across time zones, they made sure to get their Market Share sign-up squared away for when they returned. We are so glad to have you in our farm community! (And, I still would love to dial-in my kale chip recipe as perfectly as yours, Heather!)

Thank you, Brian and Maria! Not only have Brian and Maria been Market Share members for years, they also participate in our Flower Share as well. We’re told the arrival of the weekly flowers is a highly anticipated event. We’re so glad to bring some thrill and excitement to your summers! They are also incredible cooks. But, no need to take my word for it. Just check out the photos of some of their beautiful dishes. Chinese broccoli, hakurei turnips, and Red Long of Tropea onions are some of their favorite ingredients. Thanks so much, you two! We’re so glad to have customers as excited about local, in-season produce as the farmers are!

For all of us, a huge piece of what makes farming - particularly on the scale of Four Root Farm - feel meaningful and important is the direct connection with the people who enjoy what we grow. It is truly special to get to know the people in our community through your appreciation of our food and flowers. It’s extra special for us when you continue to choose Four Root Farm week after week and year after year.

Thank you, Jacobsens! Thank you, Brian and Maria! And thank you to all of our customers! We’re excited to keep bringing you the best of what summer has to offer from the farm!

-Your FRFarmers

Busy bees!

This month’s update comes to you from Sam. It’s Sam’s second year on Four Root Farm, but she didn’t come back alone this year. She brought a few thousand friends with her….

Our package of bees as it appeared before installing it into the hive.

New to the farm crew this year: honeybees!

This year, I am very excited to be piloting the introduction of honeybees into the ranks of helpers tending the farm. The potential benefits of having these busy pollinators on the farm are so many, including not just increased vegetable and flower production, but more high- quality produce, as bees ensure complete fertilization. The amount of work these creatures do is staggering—one single worker bee visits on average 20,000 flowers in its short life span of 4-6 weeks! And it takes a mind-boggling 2,000,000 flower visits to make 1 pound of honey. Honey is only a secondary motivator for starting the hive—apparently, it’s uncommon to be able to harvest honey in the first year. But if that’s a side benefit of tending to it, I will not complain! I was also just fascinated by bees in general and interested in the overall ecological benefit of introducing more pollinators. My curiosity has only deepened as I’ve started learning the fascinating details of their world, and the world of the people who take care of them.

Standing in the wind and the impending rain getting ready to open the package for installation. Installation involves a few tricky moves of getting the queen out first, then getting the simple syrup out, without letting the rest of the bees out. It was harder than I expected the first time!

We decided to start small this first year with just one hive in order to better gauge how much work it is to take care of a beehive. How do you start a hive you ask? It turns out, as with most beekeeping things, there are many ways—including, for experienced beekeepers, catching a swarm of bees in the spring and giving them a home. But for this initial go-round, I purchased a “package” of bees, which were driven up from Georgia by Stuart Woronecki of Stonewall Apiary in Hanover, CT. A package is a small wooden-framed box with screen on two sides (see image 1), that comes with 3 pounds of bees (roughly 10,000 bees), a can of simple syrup, and a queen bee in a cage. The queen bee that comes with the package is not the mother of the bees in the package—they are raised separately—so the queen must stay in the cage for the first week or so while the workers adapt to her pheromones and accept her as their queen. We are hoping to eventually find a local queen bee, who can help us change the character of the hive from bees from out of state to local honey bees, who may be more adapted to surviving through this area’s winter conditions.

Another view on the hive set up. If you look closely, in the image, I am holding the queen cage.

A quick aside here with some basics on bee biology—every hive has only one queen, whose sole responsibility is to lay eggs for more bees. She actually does not even feed herself or clean herself—that is done by a group of about a dozen attendant worker bees. The majority of the bees in a hive are female worker bees, with a small percentage of the overall hive being male drone bees, who interestingly do not have a stinger. The workers are the only ones that forage for nectar, and the main function of the drones is to mate with another queen. With any luck, we will be able to grow our hive into a strong colony of somewhere around 50,000 bees.

I am using a 4-part hive, with two boxes on the bottom for brood (new bees) and two boxes on top for honey. We started in mid-April with just one bottom box, and will add boxes as the season progresses and the hive expands. In fact, we added the second brood box in mid-May, about a month into the process (see image 3). I have been feeding the bees 1-to-1 simple syrup and supporting them to get established, but the native blooms will just continue to pick up in addition to the wave of activity now erupting on the farm.

Me doing a hive check in early June, pulling out a frame from the second brood box we added in May.

Each time I visit them to check and feed them, I learn something new, and the more I learn about bees, the more my mind is blown! In parting, here are a few bits of trivia that for me, as a novice, have just been incredible to learn:

– Honeybees have been around for about 120 million years, and have co-evolved with flowers and plants as their most significant pollinator

– Genetically speaking, a queen bee and a worker bee are identical. The only difference between them is that queen larvae are fed a greater quantity of royal jelly—a highly nutrient dense substance produced by the worker—which activates a different expression of their genes! This different expression includes ovaries and an enlarged abdomen, making her physically distinct from the other workers in the hive. This happens just through food!  

– Did you know that bees are trucked in from all over the United States to support the bloom of almond trees in California?  It’s called migratory beekeeping, and 30 billion honey bees are brought in from all over the U.S. It’s one of the largest movements of animals on the planet. More than 100 million almond trees flower at the same time, and the bees will need to visit each of them in about 6 days, visiting up to 5,000 flowers in a day.

Thanks Sam! We’re looking forward to watching how the hive grows and expands on the farm (and to taste some Four Root Farm honey one day)!

Breaking down

Farmers wear lots of different hats. Baseball hats, sun hats, beanies… just kidding! Yes, but I really meant in a metaphorical sense. Sure, we spend lots of time planting, weeding, harvesting, and doing the actual work of farming. There are also the hours spent as amateur soil and plant scientists, diagnosing nutrient deficiencies and prescribing treatments for pest damage. Then, there are the financial analyst days spent pouring over numbers and spreadsheets to make sure the farm can continue to operate. Farmers also act as social media marketers and content creators, human resources managers, construction workers, wannabe meteorologists, and so many more roles. It constantly amazes me how many different skill sets farmers possess. 

One hat that farmers don all too frequently is that of the mechanic. Even on a mostly hand-scale farm like ours, there is a plethora of equipment. Given that the equipment spends a lot of time out in the elements and works almost as hard as the farmers do, it only makes sense that it breaks down. Luckily, for the FRFarmers, we’re a handy bunch! We (read: Aaron) can often fix machines ourselves.

Only, we didn’t expect to have multiple machines break down at the same time. And break in some major ways. 

You may have seen on our Instagram that we acquired a second Japanese mini truck last year! These trucks have great bedspace and are low to the ground, which makes it easy to get crates of food and buckets of flowers in and out of them quickly. (Plus, it’s fun to drive manual sitting on the opposite side of the car.) The first truck worked so well that we decided to get a second one, so Team Vegetables and Team Flowers could each be moving food and flowers around at the same time. 

She worked so hard for us! We will miss her!

When the winter’s snow finally melted enough that we could drive around the property again, we started the mini trucks up, ready to be the picture of efficiency this year! … which lasted for about 1 day.  Then, our original mini truck abruptly stalled and wouldn’t re-start. After exhausting our own mechanical skills (“Is it out of gas? Should we try to jump it?”), we called in the pros. They informed us that the engine was blown and would need to be replaced, a repair which would cost more than the value of the truck. In summary, our OG mini truck was no more. 

So, we’re back down to one truck. It’s ok! We can handle it! When you’re on a cooperatively-owned farm, you get good at sharing. We may be a little less efficient than we hoped, but things can only go up from here. 

… and then our mower abruptly stalled and lost steering. 

How many people does it take to put a drive belt back in place?

Aaron and his mechanical prowess correctly diagnosed this problem - the drive belt. It had frayed and come off its track. We consulted the pros again, and they informed us that replacing the drive belt is next to impossible without a lift. The mower would need to go into the repair shop.

Aaron, with a few helping hands, was able to shimmy the frayed drive belt back into place, a temporary fix which allowed us to at least drive it out of the field! However, it’s now at the shop while we watch the grass grow taller every day. 

Mowed paths through the orchard to help us get to the rhubarb!

It’s not just that the tall grass is an eyesore. It also provides great shelter for pests - animal and insect alike. Rachel and Elise have stepped in and used a walk-behind mower around the edges of our fields, creating a space between the tall grass and the crops in hopes of keeping the pests at bay until the riding mower is repaired. We’ve been told the mower will be back in action this week, and we’re keeping our fingers crossed!

Things can only go up from here, right!?

-Kiersten

The things we do for tulips

The sun has been shining, the trees are starting to leaf out, and we are in the thick of tulip season. Tulips feel like a quintessential part of the spring season. We see them everywhere this time of year - incorporated into city landscaping, popping up in our neighbors’ gardens - and so, of course, we expect to see them in the farmers’ market stands of our favorite cut flower growers. You drop a bulb in the ground, and they come back year after year, right? How hard could it be?

Oh, the things we do for tulips! These finicky flowers require a lot of behind-the-scenes finagling to get from a bulb to a vase in a process that takes well over a year!

For starters, Elise placed an order for this year’s tulip bulbs in February 2025. (Yep, 2025!) The bulbs arrived at the farm in late October 2025, and, as mentioned in last November’s blog post, we constructed a raised bed and planted the bulbs shortly thereafter. The bulbs sit snugly under a deep layer of compost, so they’re quite protected from the cold. They also sit securely above a layer of hardware cloth, a wire mesh sheet, which protects them from burrowing rodents over the winter.  

For the next 5 months, the bulbs don’t appear to be very active from the surface. However, they’re doing the important work of growing their root systems. During this time, they need careful water management. If underwatered, the bulbs won’t create good roots. If overwatered, the bulbs will rot. We typically set up sprinklers for our tulip bed in December to make sure their soil stays sufficiently damp. 

In March 2026, tulips leaves finally began to poke above the surface. Now, we can really watch them grow! We also need to watch the weather though. It seems to be the new normal to have a heat spike each April. This year, we saw three days of over 80 degree temperatures. The extreme heat jumpstarts tulip flowering. Tulips are harvested at “color crack,” which is when color just starts to show at the tip of the flower. The stems store best at this stage. They continue to ripen slowly while stored in the cooler before sale and then have the maximum vase life possible as they open up in the vases in our homes. During those mega-hot days, Elise checked on the tulips many times a day. Even still, sometimes they would pass color crack and open up before she could get to them. The jumpstart into flowering can also cause the tulips to flower too early with short stems or small flower heads. To combat the heat, we pulled shade cloth over the bed to keep the plants slightly cooler. 

Unfortunately, we don’t leave the bulbs in the ground for more than one season on the farm. They’re very susceptible to disease, and the quality of the flowers would diminish with each subsequent year once disease struck. Furthermore, the amount of space required to grow tulips perennially would quickly become cost-prohibitive because their yield is so much lower than other types of flowers (let’s put a pin in this, I’ll get back to it in a bit!). So, Elise orders new bulbs each year and makes sure to pull the bulbs out with the stem at harvest time.  

If you’re following the timeline, you may have noticed that we harvest tulips in April, but we place an order for next year’s bulbs in February. This means Elise must place her order for 2027 tulips before she’s even seen the 2026 tulips emerge above the ground! It makes trialing new varieties very tricky and very costly. Elise essentially must bet on a variety for two years before seeing how it performs on the farm. 

It can be an expensive bet, too. Bulbs are increasingly costly, and this year in particular tariffs added $0.03/bulb or 7.5% to our order cost. Additionally, crop losses are consistently high for tulips. In a normal year, we expect about 30-40% loss, so only 60-70% of the bulbs planted will yield a flower quality enough to sell. Depending on the variety (and the weather that year), losses can easily be higher. In the variety pictured here, we experienced a loss of 75% of the bulbs. When you add it all up - the long time-frame to grow and manage them, the expensive inputs, the high losses - tulips have very low margins. Does it even make sense to grow them?  

But, look at these beauties! It’s so hard to imagine spring on Four Root Farm without them. Each year, we watch them unfurl their intricate petals in a stunning array of different colors, and we’re convinced to do crazy things for them. And we’re not the only ones. If you’re so inclined, do a little reading about “tulipmania,” widely considered to be the first economic bubble driven by, you guessed it, tulips. Tulips have a long history of making people do crazy things, and I don’t know if we’ll stop any time soon on Four Root Farm. 

At least not in 2027, that bulb order is already out the door!

-Kiersten

Hello Spring!

Baby bok choy… grow babies grow!

And just like that spring is here! Almost as quickly as last month’s blizzard blanketed the farm in snow, it’s gone. We’ve been left looking at muddy fields, various row covers and tarps blowing about the property, and weeds starting to spring to life in the longer, warmer days.

All the field clean-up that was left pending for months while we waited for the ground to unfreeze and the snow to melt is now possible. Unfortunately, we have some more pressing priorities.

Namely, getting plants in the ground! Our first day back at the Wooster Square Farmers’ Market is April 18th - less than a month away! We’ve been busy seeding, bed prepping, and transplanting to have seedlings, food, and flowers ready for you.

Aaron leads the tunnel re-covering from above.

The first vegetable transplants were scheduled for the first week of March. Before we could plant, we needed to re-cover their high tunnel. As mentioned in January, we cut the plastic off one of our tunnels due for repairs this year. Now, it needed a roof again. It’s an all-hands-on-deck type of job to get a new 100’ x 42’ piece of plastic up, over, and secured to the structure. Luckily, we had a clear day with little wind to do so. With two people on ladders at each end of the tunnel and 4 more people on the ground holding each corner of the plastic, we slid the plastic across the top of the tunnel, pulled it taut, and fastened it down with “wiggle wire”.

Shortly thereafter, Rachel seeded beets and carrots, and we transplanted spring fennel, kohlrabi, and bok choy. Vegetables are on the way!

Ranunculus soaking up the sun

We’ve been transplanting flower seedlings for weeks now into the other high tunnels. Ranunculus and anemones are well underway. Snapdragons went into the ground last week. With the addition of two new high tunnels on the property in 2024, Elise was able to overwinter more crops this season. Flowers like fritillaria, statice, and eucalyptus were planted last November. By taking advantage of warm, sunny days late last fall and early this spring, they get a jump on the flowers planted this year. Most crops seemed to have survived the winter well, so you may see new additions in Mother’s Day bouquets this year!

The last crop demanding our attention in March is a bit different from the rest. It’s endive! We described its unique life cycle in our April 2022 blog post. They require a little extra manipulation to form their blanched heads. And now, I’ll be dreaming of endive salads for the next 3 weeks until they’re ready to harvest.

An early anemone… perfect for elevating farmer hairstyles!

As the days get longer and longer, food and flowers will be here before you know it! Our sign-ups for 2026 Market Shares are open until April 15th, and our Spring Flower Share remains open until the first week of flowers on April 25th. If you haven’t already, we’d love to have you join this year!

See you soon!

Kiersten

So close, yet so far

Spring feels so close, yet so far away! Believe it or not, the first vegetable crops of the season get transplanted in 3 weeks. The ranunculus and anemone transplants go into the ground, like, now. Rachel seeds tomatoes and hot peppers for the plant sale this week, and the cooler-turned-seedling-incubator has started to fill up with trays and trays of onions, Chinese broccoli, bok choy, eucalyptus, phlox, and more. When I’m working in the greenhouse or high tunnels and the sun is shining, spring seems just around the corner. But, step out of the greenhouse…

And it’s a totally different story! It feels impossible to write an update on February without centering the snow. It’s been covering the ground all month. On one hand, it does provide good insulation for our overwintered crops. The snow actually helps keep the soil warmer than if the ground were bare and, as such, protects the plant roots. 

On the other hand, the snow is burying some things that we’d really like access to. Typically in the winter, we pull large silage tarps from the fields into the high tunnels and blanket the bedtops with them. Light deprivation, plus the heat generated under the tarps when the sun is shining, kills off weeds and any remnants of last season’s crops. By March, we pull the tarps off, and the beds are ready for planting. 

This year? The tarps have been hidden under feet of snow for weeks. Without the tarps, we’ve resorted to good old-fashioned hand weeding. It’s not as effective and takes much more labor. But sometimes you just work with what you got. 

This week’s blizzard brought its own set of challenges - chief among them, digging out the high tunnels. If heavy snow accumulates on top of the tunnels, the plastic can tear. In extreme cases, the tunnel itself could collapse. We’re grateful for our super sturdy, well-built tunnels from CT Greenhouse, so we weren’t too concerned about structural failure. Still, we do not want to be replacing tunnel plastic in this weather, especially so close to planting. 

In theory, snow should slide right off the sides of the high tunnels. However, with the amount of accumulation we experienced, massive drifts pile up along the sides. Those drifts prevent further snow from sliding off the roofs and cause more weight to accumulate on top. Armed with shovels, we climbed onto the snowbanks to clear the sides of the tunnels, creating space for the additional snow to slide off the roof as it should.

Before…

… and after! Mission complete!

Despite the stubbornly wintery weather, the days are getting longer, the seedlings are growing, and we are doggedly preparing for spring. Looking forward to sharing flowers and vegetables with you again soon!

-Kiersten 

Elise, the intrepid snowblower!

Jumping right in!

Even though it's only January, we’re jumping right into the 2026 growing season. Yes, we had a few weeks of rest and time with family around the holidays. Even in the first week of the month though, we got right down to business. First up, crop planning! A multi-day process of figuring out what to grow more of (hello, head lettuce and cabbage), what to grow less of (sorry, dwarf bok choy), and where to grow it on the farm (more sweet peppers in a high tunnel this year!). Elise does the same process with flowers. (I’m already looking forward to all the additional mums we should have this fall!).

Farming in January does look a lot more like an office job, but there’s still work to be done requiring suiting up in many jackets and a pair of snow boots. For one, we cut the plastic off one of our high tunnels. The plastic is due for replacement this year. Rather than replace it right away, we’ll leave the tunnel uncovered for another month to allow for precipitation to reach the soil, hopefully helping to balance moisture and salts therein. The foot+ of snow last week should certainly be beneficial!

Flower seeding is already underway as well. Lisianthus, notoriously slow-growing, start their growing season from teeny tiny seeds in mid-January. For the ranunculus and anemone crops, we plant their corms into larger cell seeding trays. Corms are similar to a bulb in that they’re an underground plant structure for storing nutrients. Looking at them though, they seem wildly different from a bulb! The ranunculus corms look like miniature octopuses.

With the start of seeding, we also needed to get our flooler ready to go! (That’s flower-cooler, for the uninitiated.) This is an annual process of converting one of our cold-storage coolers into a temporary grow room held at about 70 degrees instead of sub-40.

Despite jumping right into the 2026 season, there’s still some nagging things from 2025 to take care of. The sudden drop in temperatures in December took all of us a bit off guard! We normally spend the last month of the year cleaning up the fields in preparation for winter. However, the weather had different plans. The numerous days with below freezing temperatures froze the ground much quicker than usual. It became impossible to pull stakes out of the ground, lift fabrics off bedtops, and even harvest the last bed of carrots we had waiting in the field. Unfortunately, we’ll need to wait for the next stretch of warm(er) days for those tasks. Judging by the inches and inches of snow on the ground and the 10-day weather forecast, it doesn’t seem like that will be any time soon!

- Kiersten

Building on: Caitlin's work with Midcourse Design & Development

All the way back in the March 2024 blog post, Caitlin jumped back into the blog writer’s seat and explained how the work of the FRFarmers has expanded beyond the boundaries of the farm. Through years of community building in the regional agriculture space, we’ve all found ways in which our skills and knowledge can be put to work in other ways, including founding new businesses, educating and supporting beginning farmers, and participating in advocacy and policy work. 

Caitlin is no exception. And now it’s time for this blog writer to brag about her a little bit. Last year, Caitlin founded Midcourse Design & Development - an interdisciplinary studio dedicated to designing and developing regional-scale food infrastructure in New England and beyond. She is working to rebuild the processing hubs, aggregators, mills, storage, and markets that are critical for regional food economies.

Caitlin is an architect, and has long focused on the role that architecture and good design can play in transforming our food systems. As she worked for years on building projects in the food world, she recognized that our food system has structures built to support global, industrial agriculture as well as structures to support farmers’ markets and other hyper-local methods of growing and distributing food. However, in between, there is virtually no purpose-built infrastructure. Without this middle-scale infrastructure in place, it’s difficult or impossible to scale the work of our local producers. If our local farmer can’t scale to meet our needs, we’re forced to rely on the industrial system where food is disassociated and disconnected from its source - grocery stores where produce has been shipped from states if not countries away, slaughterhouses whose activities we keep way out-of-sight and therefore out-of-mind, and processing facilities that only make economic sense for super, large-scale producers to access. There’s nothing in the middle. 

This is a real issue for many farmers. We’re great at feeding our local community through CSAs, farmers’ markets, and independent grocery stores. On our own though, individual farms cannot service our school systems or our regional grocery store chains. We simply can’t produce enough food to even start a conversation  with them. If we want to scale our reach, we need to band together with other farmers and producers. However, managing aggregation and coordination like that requires a dedicated workforce, time, funds, not to mention innovative infrastructure that is actually designed to connect local and regional dots. Farmers don’t typically have an abundance of any of those assets.

Midcourse is providing essential support to the people working in this messy middle of our food system. Caitlin is bringing architecture, operations, and capital planning expertise to food hubs, processors, and packers. A handful of her current projects include:

• Hartford Hub: Midcourse has partnered with the Keney Park Sustainability Project to develop a regional-scale produce aggregation and processing hub in the North End neighborhood of Hartford. The Hub will support small- and mid-sized farms in accessing institutional customers for their products.

• Breadtree Farms: Midcourse is supporting Breadtree in designing and constructing the largest chestnut processing facility in North America on their home farm in Salem, New York. The facility will support a renewed industry for chestnut growers in the northeast.

• Brooklyn Packers: Midcourse is collaborating with Brooklyn Packers to design a cold storage, packing, and retail space in Bed Stuy that supports community food access and cooperative logistics. 

By expanding this midscale infrastructure and designing it in an equitable and resilient way, we can create a regional food system in New England that feeds quality, locally-produced food to more people and reduces reliance on global, industrial agriculture.

But, you don’t have to take my word for it. You can read Caitlin’s own words, and those of her business partner, Amy Mielke, in a recent interview with the Yale School of Architecture magazine Constructs (Caitlin is also currently an Assistant Visiting Professor at Yale). She describes this work more succinctly and beautifully than I ever could. 

As 2025 comes to a close, all of us at Four Root Farm have big dreams about where the next year can take us.  We might not radically transform the food system in the next 365 days, but you can be sure we’ll try!

-Kiersten

A flurry of activity

We have a fruitful, festive winterberry crop this year!

The holiday season is upon us, and boy, are we looking forward to a few days of rest and relaxation this week. November brings a flurry of activity - if not actual flurries. The garlic, dahlia, tulip, and endive crops all require some heavy lifting in this month specifically. So, once we flip our calendars to November 1st, the month feels like a sprint to the finish. 

Leaf mulching the garlic has begun! Thanks to everyone bringing us their pesticide-free leaves!

First up, we planted 500 bed feet of garlic – that’s 4,000 garlic plants if all goes according to plan. One team worked on breaking apart the garlic bulbs into individual cloves, trying to stay ahead of a second team planting the cloves in the field. Each clove is planted 6 inches deep, but we’ll still need to mulch the beds with leaves to protect them from the freeze-thaw cycles throughout the winter. 

The following week, Elise started the process of digging, dividing, and storing dahlia tubers from 900 plants. If you tried dividing your own after last month’s blog post, then you’ll know what a feat that is! The crew worked incredibly hard digging up all those plants and washing the tubers on cold November days. Way to go Zach, Sam, Maggie, and Bella! Meanwhile, I was totally off doing something very important elsewhere on the farm. (Probably.)  But, I did jump in for the part that’s done seated in a chair in the warm greenhouse - dividing the dahlia tubers! I learned that it might be my new favorite hobby. Lemme at those tubers!

Next, we built the raised bed for the 2026 tulips, planted 7,500 bulbs, and covered them all in a deep layer of compost. It’s always a big job, but a new technique sped things up this year. In the past, we used the “egg carton method,” carefully positioning each bulb in an upright position (see the November 2023 blog). This year, Elise learned that orientation may not matter, so she simply dumped the bulbs into the bed, we quickly rolled the bulbs around to make sure they weren’t overlapping, and: Scene! We added compost to the bed and called it a day. 

And finally, last week, we dug and stored the endive roots for our spring 2026 crop. We planted the endive midsummer and since then, they’ve grown thick root systems. We dig the plants out, trim the leaves off, and store the roots in the walk-in cooler until March. Then, we’ll replant them in a dark cooler, and hopefully those 300 roots will grow 300 delicious Belgian endive heads for us to enjoy in April 2026. 

All those tasks happened alongside harvesting hundreds of pounds of carrots, washing hundreds of pounds of sweet potatoes, assembling dried bouquets from the thousands of stems we stored throughout the summer, and planting rows and rows of overwintered flower seedlings. Phew! 

December will feel slower on the farm, but the season isn’t over yet! We’ll take a couple days of rest this week, and then, we’ll be back at the Wooster Square market inside the Conte West Hills School for the first three Saturdays in December. 

Looking forward to seeing you there and wishing everyone a happy Thanksgiving!

-Kiersten

Digging Dahlias

The weather is getting cooler, and while we have yet to see a frost on the farm, it’s only a matter of time. A frost will bring an end to dahlia bouquets for the year. If you purchased dahlia tubers from us in the spring, you’ve likely noticed your own plant producing fewer and fewer flowers as we moved through October. 

Now is a great time to start digging and storing dahlia tubers! In the northeast, the cold winter temperatures may prevent dahlias from surviving in the ground. Some growers in southern Connecticut have had luck leaving tubers in the ground and mulching them with 8-12 inches of leaves. However, it’s a risky endeavor this far north. To ensure that we have tubers the following year, we dig out, divide, and store our tubers and replant them in the spring. You can do the same with yours. Here’s how we go about the process. 

Thanks Five Fork Farms for the photo! We start digging ours this week.

Cut the plants back

In October or immediately after the first frost, whichever comes first, we cut the dahlia stalks back to about 6-12 inches. The plants should grow for at least 90 days before they’re cut back. If you, like us, planted yours in mid-May, then the plants are plenty ready by October. 

Dig out the tubers

Use a garden fork to loosen the soil around the plant. Take care not to stab any of the tubers as you do so. We recommend starting to loosen the soil at least 6 inches away from the plant. Then, grab the stalks, and gently lift the clump of tubers out of the soil. 

Thanks to Three Acre Farm for this photo! That’s a nice looking clump o’ tubers.

Divide and store

Next, we spray the tuber clumps with a hose to remove excess soil. Then, we divide the tubers. To know where to divide, locate eyes on the tubers. Eyes indicate the point where new growth will begin to grow next season. Cut between the eye and the center stalk to separate tubers from the rest of the plant. If a tuber does not have an eye on it, it will not grow next year. You can compost any tubers without eyes.

After dividing, we let the tubers cure for about 12 - 24 hours and then nestle them in storage bins filled with vermiculite. You can also use wood shavings. 

And thanks to Columbia River Dahlias for this photo — it’s an example eye!

Don’t feel like dividing yet?

Alternatively, you can wait to divide your tubers until springtime. If you’d rather go this route, all you need to do after digging is trim back the roots from the end of the tubers and cut the stalks even further back - almost to where the tubers begin - where the stalk is no longer hollow. 

Storage tips

Figuring out the best way to store dahlia tubers has been its own adventure over the years. One key lesson we’ve learned has been to move from digging to storing the tubers relatively quickly. Once exposed, the tubers begin drying. So, be sure that the tubers are stored within 2-3 days of digging. 

The tubers prefer 80-90% relative humidity and temperatures above freezing but below 45°F. Check on them every couple weeks in the first month to ensure that the conditions remain appropriate. If you notice that the tubers are shriveling, your storage conditions are likely too dry. If the tubers have mold on them or show signs of rot, then the conditions are too wet. You can readjust your storage medium by spritzing it with water or by setting up a dehumidifier. 

Best of luck to anyone digging dahlias this season! Come chat with us at the market if you have questions about the process. And if you decide not to dig up your dahlias, don’t worry. As long as our process goes well this season, we’ll have plenty more tubers available next spring!

-Kiersten

Until next year, dahlias!

Fall things considered

It’s officially fall, and we’re reaping the rewards of a sunny, warm, and productive summer.

Contrary to popular belief, September is actually peak season on the farm. Fruiting crops like eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes are still producing. Long-season crops like onions are cured and ready to sell. Sweet potato harvest has begun, and the cooler weather brings back kale, bok choy, hakurei turnips, and more! With more crops to harvest than ever—and fewer daylight hours to do so—it’s definitely not a dull time to be a farmer.

Brassicas for days!

Rachel is a carrot harvest extraordinaire!

Stacks on stacks of sweet potatoes curing!

The first few weeks of sweet potato harvest have gone well. Back in spring, our preferred variety became unavailable due to a crop failure from our supplier. A comedy of errors meant we didn’t find this out until the week our slips (rooted sprouts) were supposed to be planted. Thankfully, our strong network of local farmers came through for us. We sourced extra slips at the last moment from Baylee at Long Table Farm (thank you again!). This is a new variety for us, and so far, they look great. They’ll cure for the rest of this week —and then we’ll find out if they taste as good as they look. Radicchio and rutabagas are also looking great and should be available at market and online starting in October.

Sadly, the ginger is not looking so great. We’re not totally sure why. It could be the quality of our seed ginger, the lack of rain this year, the weed pressure that got away from us early in the summer, or something else entirely. We’ll have some ginger at markets for the next 3 weeks. Once that’s gone, that’s it for the season. We plan to brainstorm some solutions over the winter. Hopefully, we can correctly identify the issue to improve the yield next year. 

On the flower side, dahlias are in full swing! If you grow dahlias and dig up your tubers each year, you know they’re a labor of love. If you’ve never stored them before, stay tuned for next month’s blog post—we’ll share a how-to guide for saving your tubers for next season. Fresh flowers will be available until first frost. After that, our everlasting dried bouquets and wreaths will make their annual debut.

Amid all the harvesting, we’re also squeezing in some seed sowing. September is a big month for planting cover crops, plants grown not for harvest and sale, but to support soil health. Their living roots support our soil microorganisms and help prevent erosion. While cover crops take growing time and bed space that could go to cash crops, we believe the long-term benefits to our soil health are well worth the investment.

This year, we’re also sowing some extra seeds as we experiment with winter growing! Farming in New England has a built-in seasonal rhythm: fast-paced summers and slow, restful winters. We love that cycle. But, we also agree that it would be great to have more food ready when markets return in April. 

Sunset on tomato season!

To have more food in April, we need to start some crops now. This month, we seeded overwintered carrots and transplanted scallions. As we head into late fall and early winter, we’ll start broccoli raab and more carrots. It’s a small experiment for now. We’ll see how it goes!

Happy fall!

Kiersten

Here’s the full crew! We said goodbye some of summer crew members at the end of August. Thanks for a great season, Ethan, Hannah, and Julia!

Bugs: the buddies and the bothers

When you work outside, you are constantly surrounded by bugs. Bugs of all shapes, sizes, and levels of concern. They crawl on you and buzz around you while going about their daily lives. Apart from being a nuisance, some bugs are extremely detrimental to our crops. As an organic farm, we’re limited in pest control options. There are some organic sprays made from natural ingredients. Most of the time though, we have to rely on other methods such as exclusion netting - mesh netting with very very small holes that allow for airflow but not most bugs to fit through - or manually hunting for and removing larger bugs, such as tomato hornworm caterpillars, from our plants. 

But, for every pest bug, there does seem to be a natural predator! By thinking of the farm as an entire ecosystem, rather than just cropland, we can cultivate conditions that allow for a diverse population of bugs and insects, and hopefully encourage natural predators to stick around. Here are some predator friends that we love to see around the farm…

Ladybugs! You know them. You love them. But did you know they’re one of our best defenses against aphids? Aphids shelter in the soil, so exclusion netting won’t keep them off the crops. In addition, there aren’t any organic pesticide options that we’ve found to work well. Aphids come in many (not-so) delightful varieties. We’ve seen black, white, and green aphids all on the one crop before. They pierce the plants and suck out sap. So, when we see ladybugs on those same plants, we do a little jump for joy. Ladybugs and their larvae both chow down on aphids voraciously. 

Hornworm Parasitic Wasps! As mentioned above, we don’t have great pest control methods for tomato hornworm caterpillars, and these guys can EAT. One tomato hornworm can decimate a whole tomato or pepper plant in one day. Our best control method is simply hunting for them. Where we see damage to the plants, we literally try to track them down by looking for recent damage and recent caterpillar poop (yes, poop!). They are expert-level at camouflage, so this can be very time-consuming.  That’s why when we see a caterpillar with little white cocoons sticking out of it, we say a little “yippee!” Those are the cocoons of the teeny tiny hornworm parasitic wasp. Now, this next bit gets kind of intense. The wasp lands on a hornworm, lays its eggs inside the caterpillar, and then, when the larvae hatch, they feed on the caterpillar from the inside out. They make cocoons on the back of the caterpillar, and then emerge and fly away as more wasps to start the process all over again. If we see a caterpillar with those cocoons on it, we leave it be. We let those baby wasps do their thing - as grizzly as it is!

Minute Pirate Bugs! While we’re on grizzly hunting tactics, I should give minute pirate bugs an honorable mention. These bugs prey on thrips. Thrips are miniscule winged insects that have a particular appetite for alliums - garlic and onion species - and our dahlias. Again, pest control methods are limited. Thrips are so small that they can fit through most insect netting. This includes the exclusion netting on the high tunnels. Our only defense is planting crops through a reflective plastic mulch. The reflected light can confuse the thrips as they fly by and keep them off the plants for a time. Once they find what they’re looking for though, it’s game over. They also pierce the leaves, suck out sap, and prevent the plants from photosynthesising appropriately. They’re also damaging the dahlia petals and making any flowers they get their mandibles into unsellable. So, if we see minute pirate bugs on our crops we dance a little jig. These bugs have a straw-like mouth part that they use to spear their prey. Minute pirates indeed. 

Black and Yellow Garden Spider! Ok, this one isn’t that helpful, but it is cool. These garden spiders have taken up residence in some of our high tunnels. They are quite large, and they are sometimes called a zipper spider for the zigzag pattern made in the center of their webs. I do feel terrified whenever I inadvertently walk into one of their webs. They’re completely harmless though – to people that is. It just so happens that we’re also experiencing a grasshopper problem in some of our high tunnels. The grasshoppers eat the dahlias and the hot peppers (apparently they can’t feel capsaicin, or they just like it). Lots of spider webs in the tunnels means lots of grasshoppers fly straight into them and get stuck. That’s one less grasshopper that we have to catch in a bug net and remove (yes, we do this too!).

It’s easy to feel fed up with bugs when you’re swatting at mosquitos and deer flies or watching your favorite crop get devoured by pests. For all the lamenting we do about bugs, we really wouldn’t have it any other way. Farming organically means dealing with the good and the bad that comes from working with the natural ecosystem rather than against it. We’ll continue to eschew traditional pesticides and prioritize the sweet, sleeping bumblebees on our flowers each morning, earthworms hard at work within our soil, and all of our friendly predators keeping our pests in check. 

Bugs!!!

Kiersten

P.S. BIG thanks to Julia and Zach for their beautiful, bug photography!

Five surprise vegetable trivia from peak summer at the farm

Kiersten here! While prepping for markets last week, the FRF team started riffing about vegetable facts that we wish everyone knew.  We inadvertently verbally drafted a whole blog post. Sam - this year’s champion greenhouse seeder and cucumber trelliser -  took on the task of writing our conversation down in a usable format. I’ll let her take it from here!

The learning process is always ongoing at the farm—we’re trying new techniques, growing new things, and tweaking our approaches in response to the plants in hopes of bringing you the best, most delicious food at market. At this point in the season, tomatoes are finally here! The farm is flecked with their colors alongside purple fairy tale eggplants, yellow pattypan squash, and glorious zinnias. Our brains are approaching what we affectionately call “August Brain” – the saturation we feel from juggling all of the variables day in and day out as time races full steam towards August. But we’re pausing (briefly) to share five vegetable trivia that run counter to common knowledge, and to collectively raise our vegetable IQ!

1) Basil should not be kept in the fridge! Basil does not like the cold—think of how basil plants brown as the temperature outside drops in the fall—and once it is removed from the ground this browning happens even faster. Keep your basil on the counter in a glass of water and watch it stay vibrant and fresh for many days, up to or past a week. If you trim the ends and keep the water fresh, it may even happily sprout roots! 

Basil happy as could be on the counter. No brown leaves!

Just a bunch of unripe peppers! (See fact 2…)

Thai basil also lookin’ FRESH on day 4 on the counter.

2) You’ve seen different colored peppers at the markets, but did you know that green peppers are actually just unripe peppers? Red, yellow, and orange peppers all start out green. And the Islanders, our purple pepper variety, is also an unripe pepper! Islanders turn orange as the season continues. 

Chinese broccoli? Also a brassica - the same species as kale, cabbage, and cauliflower!

3) The reason scallions are sometimes called green onions or spring onions is that historically they were young onions picked in the springtime! Now we've bred some onions to stay small all the time, but if you pick an onion when the tops are still green it's the same thing.

4) Kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kohlrabi and brussel sprouts are all the same species that have been bred to express different traits—just like domesticated dogs!

5) Some vegetables—like carrots, cabbage, cold-hardy kohlrabi, and more—get sweeter after going through a frost! In order to survive the cold temperatures, the plants convert some of their starch content into sugar to lower the freezing point of their cells. Something to look forward to for the markets in the fall - although there’s plenty of summer still to go!

- Sam

Plenty of summer still to go indeed!

Market Share milestones

As Four Root Farm rolls into its 11th growing season in East Haddam, there’s lots for us farmers to feel grateful for - bountiful beds of lettuce, loads of green tomatoes waiting to ripen, our joyful and hard-working crew, and the fact that a week of 100 degree temperatures is behind us.

We also remain ever grateful for our amazing customers, without whom we wouldn’t have one growing season, let alone 11! It’s because so many of you appreciate local, thoughtfully produced food and flowers that we’re able to continue this work that we find so valuable. 

There are two particular people that we’d like to celebrate this year - Joy Burns and Jessica Feinleib, both of whom are in their 10th year as Market Share members of the farm! Thank you for being part of the Four Root Farm Market Share for the past decade!

Thank you, Joy! We’re overJOYed to have known you for over a decade now, and it’s truly a delight to see you week-to-week in Wooster Square. Joy shared the following with us, “Initially my commitment was to eat local and in season, which was something I had seen my grandmother do. I met Rachel Berg and knew that farms were vanishing in CT, so to support the farm, I purchased a share. Eating fresh vegetables and being introduced to new foods has been a wonderful experience! Congratulations Four Root Farm and may you flourish for many more years to come!” Aww, shucks, we’re blushing! Thank you, Joy! And thanks for always appreciating our squash blossoms!

Thank you, Jessica! You always have such excellent ideas for what to cook with our produce in every season. So much so that some of your recipes are featured on our website and in our newsletters! We feel like we’ve been part of your family for so long. We love seeing you, Ingrid, Finn, and Michael at just about every market! Not only have you all been part of our Market Share for a decade - you’ve also participated in our Flower Share for years. Thanks for your always enthusiastic appreciation of both our food and flowers! (And for consistently encouraging us to make the switch to electric vehicles!)

We acknowledge and appreciate the vote of confidence in the farm that participation in our Market Share program represents. Imagine our appreciation when members choose to participate again and again for years! Thank you, Joy and Jessica, for your decade of partnering with Four Root Farm. It’s a pleasure and a privilege to grow food and flowers for you  - and for our Connecticut community, whether you’ve been shopping with us for 10 years, one week, or anywhere in between!

-Your FRFarmers

Controlled chaos

Look at these pea plants now! I see flowers… peas are soon to follow!

The farm has transformed over the past month! At the end of April, most crops were sheltered in the protection of a high tunnel. Outside the tunnels, we had young pea plants, recently transplanted, and a few other crops bundled under row coverings for warmth. Looking across the field, all you saw were billowing white row covers that you hoped weren’t going to blow away in the wind. 

But a month later, nearly all the beds are either planted, ready to be planted, or tarped in preparation to plant in the coming weeks. The fields have gone from fallow, slightly feral, with weeds germinating and ill-defined walking paths to more orderly, with plants in (mostly) straight rows, weed barriers in place, and food and flowers ready for harvesting. 

And from now until December, we’ll be in a constant struggle against entropy! 

We started the season by re-measuring all of the fields, so every bed would be exactly 100 feet long. Over time, some of the fields shortened as weeds and grass crept in from the edges. We create the crop plan and start seedlings in the greenhouse with the goal of planting into 100 foot long beds.  So, it can be frustrating when transplanting to find out that the bed is actually more like 95 feet long. We measured the fields, laid landscape fabric to delineate the field from the grass, and patted ourselves on the back for making everything so orderly.  Entropy conquered! Somewhat. The weeds and grass won’t go down that easily. They’re still pushing up around the fabric and will probably require us to fork them out or pull them up by hand. 

Although this work is in nature and in constant communion with plants, insects, and bugs, farming is not a natural process. It disrupts ecological succession wherein land moves from bare dirt, to annual plants, to grass and perennials. What we call entropy, nature just calls normal, healthy even. We’re constantly balancing the desire to maintain the field in a hospitable state for delicious annual vegetables and beautiful annual flowers with the benefits of allowing natural processes to occur.

Much of this season’s ranunculus was planted into a field that had lay fallow for years. It’s been an uphill battle to prepare the space for crops, and we’ve needed to weed frequently in order to keep up with the seemingly massive weed seed bank that’s present in the soil. Turns out, Elise thinks they may be the best ranunculus we’ve ever grown.

Could this amazing crop of ranunculus be the result of the soil biology and chemistry developed from the years that the field was untouched? We only have anecdotal evidence, and, really, it’s probably due to a host of factors. However, we do know that working alongside nature, rather than against it, when we can is probably a smart way to go. 

Look at the friend we found in one of the high tunnels!

So, we continue the balancing act! We’ll work in step with nature by continuing to rely on low-till methods which leave soil biology more intact and follow organic standards prohibiting the application of synthetic substances. But, as soon as the next sunny day comes along, you will probably find us out in the field pulling weeds.

-Kiersten 

Support Common Ground!

In last November’s blog, we highlighted some ways in which changes to federal policy may impact the farm. Four Root Farm has been mostly unscathed from the upheaval in federal agencies so far. Coming into the new year, we had already received all our promised federal funds; however, we must wait and see if federal funds continue to be available to offset the costs of ecosystem improvement work on the farm and our organic certification. We also remain curious if the Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program (FMNP), which provides funds to seniors and low-income folks to shop at farmers’ markets, will continue to receive funding.

We’re lucky. We know many farmers awarded grants whose funds are now frozen or cancelled. Some have already spent their own money on projects and now wonder if they will receive their promised reimbursement. One farm that we know has been significantly impacted is Common Ground, a high school, urban farm, and environmental education center located in New Haven.  

The Environmental Protection Agency has cancelled a $500,000 grant funding Common Ground’s Green Jobs Corps, which offered students paid opportunities to work in agricultural and environmental jobs. Teens in this program worked five to ten hours a week contributing to meaningful work being done around New Haven. Students worked for CitySeed to help run the farmers’ markets and worked on Common Ground’s urban farm growing produce and running a composting program. 

Students also operated the Mobile Market. This farmstand moved around to different New Haven neighborhoods offering produce from Common Ground’s own farm and other local farms. They selected neighborhoods where access to quality, fresh produce is limited and aimed to set prices at a point accessible to people from all kinds of economic backgrounds. 

Common Ground’s commitment to using sustainable agricultural practices and contributing to a healthy food system for New Haven residents closely aligns with Four Root Farm’s own goals and values. We all feel saddened that their programs, which we see as quite valuable, may not receive the funding they need to continue. 

We very much support and respect the work that Common Ground does, and, if you’re able, we would encourage everyone reading this to donate to Common Ground’s campaign to raise $1mm this year to offset cancelled federal funds. If you happen to know Joel Tolman, a director at Common Ground (and Wooster Square farmers’ market customer!), you could also donate to his campaign here. If you’re unable to donate at this time but also feel moved to take action, you can spread the word and share the links to these campaigns with those in your own network (full links below). 

This community has shown up for Four Root Farm for the past decade now as Market Share members, loyal customers, and super fans rocking our t-shirts and hats. All of us on Four Root Farm appreciate your commitment to supporting a strong, local food system in Connecticut. We know Common Ground’s teachers, directors, and students appreciate you, too.

Many many many thanks,
Your FRFarmers

Common Ground Rock to Rock 2025 Fundraiser: https://givegreater.cfgnh.org/campaigns/cg-rock-to-rock-2025
Joel Tolman’s Rock to Rock 2025 Fundraiser for Common Ground: https://givegreater.cfgnh.org/p2p/416776/joel-tolman?fbclid=IwY2xjawJs4X1leHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHnjBD9WXHBZ-K_-Oiv2XsIxA_9TCubs0B9xyFFAn-SMwu8fPFKS9u1quizjB_aem_lyJEcxCJdGxSg6GHguYtFg

The exciting days of spring!

Sooooo cute, right?!

This time of year always feels exciting. Each time I open the greenhouse door, I squeal in delight at the ever increasing number of seedlings filling up the space and growing bigger by the day. Each trip across the field takes twice as long because I stop to look at the anemones starting to flower, the garlic peeking through the leaf mulch, and the baby lettuce just… being cute. Even the routine tasks feel exciting by virtue of occurring this time of year. They’re so full of firsts! (Aww, it’s our first time transplanting vegetables this year! Aww, we’re seeding our first scallion succession of 2025!) We seed and transplant - quite literally - tens of thousands of plants every year. And yet, somehow, it still feels novel for me in March.

We’re starting to fill up the high tunnels with early season crops - lettuce, bok choy, broccoli rabe, and Hakurei turnips as well as ranunculus, anemones, and godetia. We’ll transplant our first field crop (another first!) this week when we tuck the sugar snap peas into the ground. 

On the infrastructure side, we’re expanding and redesigning the wash station. It’s been 7 years since the wash station was built, and since then, the business has definitely grown. Storage space was hard to come by last year, and arranging work spaces needed careful choreography to keep vegetable washing water away from flower bouquets and paper sleeves. Now, we have the opportunity to reimagine how the space is used while Aaron builds an extension to the roof, providing more covered space to work.

I think part of what keeps farming exciting for me is how straightforward it feels to change and improve - at least on the small scale. Wishing we had more vegetables in May last year? Let’s plant more in the spring of 2025! Wash station work flows were terrible last year? Let’s revise the layout this year! The tightly time-bound growing season in this region creates a fairly distinct beginning and end to the season. There’s a clear time to make do with what we have and a clear time to make improvements for the future.

On a larger scale, of course, nothing is straightforward. Climate change will continue to alter what we can grow and how we grow it. The price of food poses a significant challenge for so many people trying to feed themselves and their families. Farmland remains inaccessible for most folks. While we hold these issues in our minds and work with our network to make system-wide change, it can feel grounding to make change on a small scale within the boundaries of Four Root Farm.

It’s exciting to look at all the young plants right now and feel almost purely optimistic about how the season will progress. Inevitably, as the months go on, there will be spells of bad weather; pests will arrive; equipment will break. Standing here in March though, it’s delightful to think, “Maybe not this year!”

See you (very) soon!
Kiersten

P.S. If you’re getting excited about planning your own garden, take a look at the list of seedlings we’re offering for this year’s plant sale! We plan to be at the Wooster Square market on April 19th with limited plants and to open the website for plant sale preorders and East Haddam pickup at the beginning of May. Woohoo!

On the list of hurdles so far, the wind carried one of our tarps into the trees. Currently soliciting ideas on how to get it down. It’s very stuck.

3 More Weeks of Winter (But Who's Counting?)

It’s been a snowy February thus far! Despite the sub-freezing temperatures, you won’t find too many complaints here. I’m enjoying the chance to pull on my cozy sweaters and insulated overalls and traipse around the frozen fields. After each new snowfall, I’m delighted by all the different animal tracks meandering around the property. The farm is just teeming with critters when no one is watching! 

The farm is also starting to teem with baby plants. We tucked the first round of anemones and ranunculus into the ground during the first week of February.  At that stage, they didn’t look like much. In fact, it was slightly demoralizing to plant almost 300ft of transplants only to look back at what still appeared to be bare bedtops. It didn’t take long for little green shoots to pop out of the soil though. Just look at them now!

Anemones when they went into the ground…

… and anemones just 3 weeks later!

Baby lettuce on its way!

Last week, we prepared the greenhouse for the impending influx of seedlings. We cleaned and sanitized the surfaces to prevent disease, rearranged the greenhouse tables for maximum space for plants, and dropped the curtain between the “warm side” and “cool side” of the greenhouse. Partitioning the greenhouse with a plastic curtain reduces the space to heat and, thus, propane use. The heater keeps the “warm side” temperate for the new seedlings, and the sun maintains the temperature on the “cool side” above freezing on these cold, winter days. Most seedlings start on the warm side then move to the cool side to harden off in preparation for life out in the real world (a.k.a. the field). For now, it’s just lettuce, fennel, some brassicas, and phlox in the greenhouse. They better make room though… We seeded 60 trays of onions last week. And, of course, there are many more vegetable and flower seedlings to come as we move into March!

60 trays of onions waiting to pop in the germination chamber! As soon as they sprout, they’ll move to the greenhouse tables.

In this weather, the fieldwork is limited. Our compost and leaf mulch is frozen under a few inches of snow and ice, so further bed preparation will need to wait until the materials thaw. Each week, there are more and more seeds to start in the greenhouse. Daily tasks include checking if the seedling trays need water and covering and uncovering the overwintered flowers with row covers. The row covers act like a blanket for the bedtops. We remove them during the day when the sun shining into the high tunnels offers sufficient warmth. We pull them back over the beds when the sun goes down to keep the plants warm in frigid nighttime temperatures.  

Speaking of covering, one of the biggest projects on the horizon is recovering two of our high tunnels with new plastic. After wind ripped the plastic off one of the tunnels last fall, we decided to leave it uncovered to allow for rainfall, snowfall, and, hopefully, their associated nutrients to reach the soil. The plastic on this group of tunnels was nearing the end of its useful life anyway, so, in December, we chose to cut the plastic off a second tunnel as well. Now, we need to recover these tunnels soon, so the soil can warm up in time for the first crops of 2025. It’s not a difficult task when one of the farm owners also owns a greenhouse company. It just requires waiting for a sunny and still day. (Strong winds and big sheets of plastic are not a fun combination.)

Personally, I’m relishing these last few weeks of winter. I’m exclusively wearing my thickest wool socks and cooking endless soups and chilis. I’m enjoying the slower pace of February while simultaneously looking forward to getting my hands back in the dirt when the ground thaws. I know this season isn’t everyone’s favorite. (I’m looking at you, Four Root Farm’s face of the markets, David!) So, for those of you dreading more snow in the forecast, don’t worry! Only 3 more weeks until spring!

- Kiersten

New year, new crop plan

January is the season for crop planning - the most sedentary of farming tasks. We gathered computers, seed catalogs, reference books, notes from the past season, and mugs of coffee and tea. Then, we set out to discuss all the vegetable crops from A to Z (or basil to turnips, as it turns out).

Crop by crop, we reviewed total sales and sales per bedfoot from the prior year. The sales per bedfoot metric allows for comparison of crops grown in different amounts. We discussed what went well, what went poorly, and ways to improve the crop’s performance in the upcoming year. If a crop consistently underperformed year after year, either in productivity or sales, we considered if we should cut it from the team entirely. 

After reaching consensus on how much to grow in the upcoming year, Aaron generated the crop’s schedule in the crop plan. Color-coded blocks indicate when to seed, when to transplant into the field, and when we should expect to harvest. Repeat for 140 varieties of vegetables (and repeat the whole process for the flower side of the business) et voila! You have the crop plan for 2025. 

It may sound complicated, but the most difficult aspect of crop planning was actually just coordinating 4 different farmers’ schedules to have them in front of their computers for 2 days and then some. Somehow farmers are still busy people even in the dead of winter!

Some new additions to this year’s plan include: Thai basil,  another type of not-hot hot pepper, a cherry tomato variety named “Sweet Treats,” and purple cabbage. No promises, but there was also some talk of strawberries for the 2026 season. 

“Roulette” is the newest addition to our not-hot hot pepper lineup. Thanks Johnny’s Selected Seeds for the seeds and the photo!

More new additions! This is “Integro.” Thanks to High Mowing Organic Seeds for the seeds and the photo.

With this year’s crop plan finalized, other activities begin. 

For one, ordering seeds. Earlier this month, we inventoried all the seed stock on hand. We’ll compare the seeds needed for 2025 with what’s left from 2024 and order the quantity which makes up the difference. 

Ranunculus are getting started in the greenhouse!

For two, creating the field map. Rachel takes the crop plan and maps out where everything will be planted. She’s careful to avoid putting crops of the same family in the same bed more than once every 3 years. This rotation helps prevent pests and disease from taking root. It keeps the pests guessing where their favorite plant will be each year. 

For three, seeding! The first vegetable seeds get started next week. Yes, the first week of February! Spring flowers, like ranunculus and anemones, are already well on their way. 

We’re officially off on the 2025 season! I’ll keep you in the loop as the season ramps up, and we’ll be seeing you at markets and on-farm pickups before you know it.

-Kiersten 

Breaking new ground

If you remember, all the way back in July, we built two new high tunnels on the farm. At that time, the days were long and hot, and we were busy harvesting, planting, and repeating, with no end in sight. Once tunnel construction wrapped up, we pulled black silage tarps over the ground inside the tunnels and left the area untouched for months. 

Now, with December upon us, nothing left to harvest, and the last market of the season in the rearview, we were ready to start breaking new ground and preparing the tunnels for the 2025 season.

I may have implied negligence, but using silage tarping is common practice for low- and no-till farmers. We drag a black tarp over the field and place sandbags around the edges to hold it in place. The heat generated from the sun on the black plastic and the lack of sunlight underneath eliminate the grass and weeds growing in that area. By the time we pulled back the tarps late in the fall, the tunnels, which had been filled with grass and weeds, looked much more like bare soil. After digging out some remaining, persistent, weeds (grrrr, vetch!), it was time for bed preparation. 

The BCS walk-behind tractor is the only machine we use in the growing areas. It is relatively lightweight, which limits compaction to the soil, and it’s small enough to fit into the high tunnels. Its rotary plow attachment digs out shallow walking paths and spreads the extra soil onto the bed tops. With this implement on the BCS and the markers for where each path should go in place, I wheeled the tractor into the tunnel and tried to walk in the straightest lines possible. Results varied. 

With the beds defined, we worked on the soil structure next by broadforking. A broadfork has heavy, metal, tines which help to loosen and aerate the soil. Unlike conventional tillage, which turns over layers of soil, broadforking simply creates channels for air, water and nutrients to penetrate into the earth. It minimizes damage to underground networks of fungi and other soil organisms.  

Isa is a broadforking beast!

New beds tucked in under their leaf mulch.

Next step, add organic matter. Isa and I added buckets of compost to each new bed. Then, we covered the bedtops in a layer of leaf mulch. The compost and leaf mulch will add and support soil microorganisms who will, in turn, support our crops in accessing nutrients from the soil. Finally, we pulled the tarp back over the beds to keep them weed-free until spring. Goodnight microorganisms! Or rather, get to work! They’ll be busy decomposing the leaf mulch over the next couple months. 

The next time we enter the high tunnels we’ll be planting our spring crops! Wishing everyone a happy new year, and looking forward to seeing you in 2025!

- Kiersten