Happy 10th Anniversary to our Market Share members!

Daffodils brightening our rainy return to Wooster Square!

As Caitlin mentioned last month, 2024 is the 10th growing season for Four Root Farm! While our more superstitious farmers are hesitant to count our metaphorical chickens before they hatch, we are excited to commemorate this milestone. 

Last Saturday, we returned to Wooster Square for our first farmers’ market of the 2024 season. This means the 2024 Market Share program has officially kicked off! And thus, we DO feel ready to whole-heartedly, unabashedly, and exuberantly celebrate the 10th year of Market Share membership for our most loyal members who have been with us since the very beginning: Susan Klaus, Karen Wang, Andie and Jeremy Asnes,  Mary Zihal, Greg Campora, Lisa and Paul Cusano, and Robin Golden and David Berg. Thank you all for being part of the Four Root Farm Market Share for the past decade! Happy 10th anniversary!

Karen’s kids, Petra and Alex, helping us with new product development.

Thank you, Susan! Susan is a fan of the lettuce mix, okra - particularly the green okra, escarole, swiss chard, cucumbers, onions, and of course, tomatoes! Susan can be found at both the Madison and Wooster Square markets, depending on where her week takes her.

Thank you, Karen! Karen’s farm favorite is shishito peppers with runner-up status for kohlrabi. You may also recognize Karen and her family from last September’s blog post on experiments with sweet potato leaves!

Thank you, Andie and Jeremy! Andie and Jeremy are regulars of the Wooster Square market. Andie and her parents are also longtime flower share members and some of our most vocal flower appreciators.  We love seeing them each week, and I love slowly making friends with their wonderful dog. 

Mary and her amazing family! A huge thank you to you!

Thank you, Mary! While it’s difficult to pick favorites, Mary and Dena love escarole. (And we love them for that! It’s such an under-appreciated vegetable.) Their girls prefer shishito peppers and gai lan (Chinese broccoli). Mary also appreciates how the dried bouquets get her through the winter. Mary beautifully shared that the farm’s care of the land and the environment makes her and her family hopeful for the future. We couldn’t do it without you, Mary!

Thank you, Greg! Greg and his partner Dante (also known as DanteandGreg or GregandDante depending on who you ask) supported us in Wooster Square for years, and now, Greg comes out to East Haddam for our on-farm pickup day! He gets his favorite - sweet potatoes - direct from the source. 

DanteandGreg (or is it GregandDante?!) Thank you!

Can you see the resemblance? Elise and her lovely mom!

Thank you, Lisa and Paul! These two amazing humans also happen to be Elise’s parents! They adore all of Elise’s flowers, of course. The ranunculus may have an extra special place in their hearts though. They’re also huge fans of the carrots, beets, ginger, escarole, and the list goes on and on!

Thank you, Robin and David! Thank you for your support as Market Share members, as parents to Rachel, and as farm workers yourselves! Robin is the farm’s lead carrot weeder, and you may recognize David from the farmers’ market checkout table.

Rachel and her mom/lead carrot weeder.

The Berg Golden family working the market together!

Elise and Rachel making big plans for the future!

One of the joys of eating locally grown food is the sense of community that can grow as well. We see each others’ faces each week. You know the people who are growing your food and flowers, and we know all of you who are eating our vegetables and enjoying our bouquets. 

We hope you see friends and neighbors when you pick up your produce. We hope you see acquaintances and that our food and flowers can be a source of common ground and connection. In last month’s blog post, Caitlin highlighted Four Root Farm’s growing network of farms, businesses, and other food system organizations. There is also a growing network of local eaters and flower-aficionados, which includes you! Whether you’ve been shopping with us for 10 years, one week, or anywhere in between, it’s a joy and a privilege to grow for you. Thank you for being part of this community! 

 - Kiersten

The Many Tendrils of this Root System

Surprise! This is a guest newsletter from Caitlin, the fourth root and delinquent OG blog post writer who hasn't written a blog post in ... 5 years? 7 years? ... and who, very characteristically, is late writing this February post in March! Very few things never change in the world, but apparently my inability to write a blog post on time is one of them.

Somewhat unbelievably, 2024 is our tenth growing season here in East Haddam. Next winter will usher in our second decade on this land, and we have taken this season’s hibernation as an opportunity to reflect on where we started, where we are today, and all the many ways we hope this wild experiment will continue to evolve in the next decade. As you’ve followed along through our first ten years, you’ve seen how we’ve built and designed and tweaked and overhauled, bit by bit making a farm business that can sustain our family on this land. We’re very proud to be where we are today. 

As we map out our next ten years, we are always working to find a balance between planning what we can plan and staying agile and resilient in the face of what we can’t control – so we develop longer-term ecological management practices, weigh the hard math of building a new barn, and work on improved stormwater infrastructure, all while being, frankly, dumbstruck by the amount of rain we’ve gotten this winter and wary of what strange weather this summer will bring. As ever, we live every day with both a sense of immediacy and a long view of time.

Poised at this inflection point between our first ten years and our next ten, lots of things snap into focus. A reality that binds together many of our thoughts is the exciting, scary, hilarious realization that we are not the new, young farmers anymore. Like something that inches so slowly you don’t notice season to season, and then boom you can’t believe how far you’ve moved from where you started, we have arrived at a point where we are now the seasoned ones; we are well-connected in our community, and have developed tendrils outward from our beloved farmstead into many other vibrant and vital parts of our regional food system. 

We are so lucky to be a close-knit team of four partners with four distinct and diverse sets of skills, four different areas of expertise, and four unique callings that get us out of bed in the morning; we don’t take this partnership for granted, and are grateful every day that we’re able to do the work we do together. We are also immensely grateful for our amazing team, the incredible people that have cycled through our farm over the years, taken on leadership roles, started their own farms, and, person by person and season by season, strengthened our regional food system. We see our work as farmers as a piece of a larger project to rebuild that system, and over the last nine years, our work has expanded beyond the borders of the farm to include advocacy, policy work, design and building projects, and community- and collective-building.

We’re excited to give you a fuller picture of this web of enterprises, so over the course of the season we will be doing deeper dives into some of this work. Stay tuned for further information about Aaron’s work founding and growing CT Greenhouse, my work developing design and real estate projects to build regional food infrastructure in our home region, Kiersten’s work providing badly needed bookkeeping and accounting services tailored to farmers, our participation in local commissions and agencies, and more! Along these lines, in case you missed it – check out the feature Kiersten wrote about the Connecticut Flower Collective, which Elise is a co-founding member of, in last August’s blog post.

- Caitlin

What do farmers do in the winter?

It’s a question we frequently hear! What do you do in the winter? It’s reasonable to ask given that we typically don’t attend markets between the end of December and mid-April. The short answer is… we farm! The longer answer is… 

Spreadsheets, spreadsheets, and more spreadsheets

That’s right! Even farmers work behind a desk sometimes. There are actually a lot of analytics that go into running a sustainable farm business. By sustainable, I mean, good for the earth, soil, and local ecosystem. But, I also mean long-lasting. In order for Four Root Farm to continue nourishing the community and the land, it needs to support its owners and employees financially. The farm also needs to grow the types of food the community wants to eat. 

For this task, we turn to Rachel, goddess of math and spreadsheets. As the market season wraps up, her number-crunching season begins. Which crops generated the most income? Which crops had the best yields? Rachel knows! Combine this information with feedback from customers, data on market sellthrough, annnnnnd some personal preferences of the farmers - et voilà!  You get the crop plan for the upcoming year. 

I made the process sound very magical and easy. It actually involves a series of meetings (yes, farmers have meetings, too!), scrutiny of seed company websites for the best available crop varieties, multiple returns to the drawing board, and then, finally, the crop plan for the upcoming year. Maybe not easy, but still a little bit magical.

Seeding and planting 

Seeding and planting flowers, specifically! Believe it or not, we start ranunculus, anemones, lisianthus, and eucalyptus in January. Ranunculus and anemones like the chilly temperature in the greenhouse. The lisianthus and eucalyptus, on the other hand, begin their season in seedling trays in a small, heated room. The room is one of the farm’s walk-in coolers, which is re-purposed to keep flower seedlings warm instead of cold. The “flooler,” as this space is affectionately called in the winter months (flower + cooler… get it??), allows for greater control over the temperature and conditions compared to the greenhouse. It also keeps energy usage and costs to a minimum by limiting the amount of space we’re heating.

500 teeny tiny lisianthus seeds in the palm of my hand!

The flooler!

The ranunculus and anemones will go into the ground in a matter of weeks. So, we also used the past month to prepare their future beds in the high tunnel. Bed preparation includes broadforking to combat soil compaction, amending with compost and minerals to support soil health, and passing the walk-behind tractor over the bed to create an even bedtop. We’ll wait a few more weeks before seeding the spring vegetables. Broccoli raab, hakurei, and baby lettuce will be some of the first up when the time comes!

Those tasks from the bottom of the summer to-do list

You know those tasks you’re just too busy to get to right now? The ones that you keep pushing off until the next day, and then the next day, and then the next? Vegetable farmers get those done in the winter. Cleaning out the greenhouse - check. Organizing that pile of irrigation drip tape and hoses - check. Re-stringing the tomato trellising hooks - up next. It’s gratifying to cross these items off the to-do list and get organized before entropy inevitably sets in again around July. 

The seasonality of farm work offers a change of pace that I find valuable. If you’re a tax accountant or school teacher, maybe you experience similar seasonal rhythms. We’re still working in the slower months, but the type of work and the level of urgency shifts. I enjoy that tasks and priorities shift along with the weather. It keeps me interested, engaged, and excited for the cycle to begin again. While we miss seeing your faces at the markets each weekend, know that we’re still hard at work to bring you an awesome 2024 season of food and flowers!

-Kiersten

Kiwis, and paw paws, and pears, oh my!

The cool, frosty weather may have you believe that your farmers are kicking back, relaxing, and waiting around for spring, and while it does become much easier to stop working and rest when the sun sets at 4:30pm, there’s still plenty to accomplish within the limited daylight hours of November! Now that we no longer need to harvest fresh flowers, tomatoes, and peppers, time abounds for the less urgent but equally important tasks. Recently, the orchard has been the lucky recipient of this extra time and attention.

The former owners (and parents of our lovely and supportive neighbor, Peggy) had grown a variety of fruit trees on the property before Aaron, Caitlin, Rachel, and Elise (or, for convenience, ACRE) purchased the land back in 2014. Check out the orchard map drawn by Peggy’s parents! Many of the trees suffered damage due to severe weather and pest pressure over the years, and ACRE have always been excited about reviving the orchard.

Jaime, Shannon, and Kathleen have done a fabulous job of laying down compost and mulching the orchard. It’s no easy feat on a farm with minimal mechanization!

Two seasons ago, under Elise’s expert management, we planted two rows of hardy kiwis and a row of paw paws. The hardy kiwi vines have been steadily growing around their trellis, which Aaron constructed for them. Both the kiwis and paw paws should begin bearing fruit in about three years. This year, we added even more trees, including seckel pears, Asian pears, quince, and medlar (shout out to Cricket Hill Garden, who started these trees, for their skill and expertise). It will likely take five to seven years until the pears, quince, and medlar provide fruit enough to bring to the farmers’ market table.  It’s exciting to make investments in these perennial crops, and hopefully, they provide something to look forward to for our community of steadfast customers.

The kiwis make themselves at home on their trellis!

November brings other more routine projects as well. 

For one, garlic planting! Rachel, Kathleen, Isa, and I planted 2,400 cloves of seed garlic earlier this month. The cloves must be planted at least 6 inches deep to prevent the freeze-thaw cycle from pushing them up to the soil surface, where they would succumb to damage from the cold. The beds are then heavily mulched with leaves to keep them warm and safe from erosion through the winter and from weeds in the spring. We’ll keep an eye on the beds to see if they need any irrigation in the springtime. Other than that, we’ll work with the garlic next when we harvest scapes in June 2024. See you next summer, garlic!

For two, tulip planting! Our tulips are planted in a 100 ft-long raised bed, which is deconstructed and reconstructed in a new location each season as part of the farm’s crop rotation plan (dutifully managed by Rachel). We lay out the bulbs from earliest to latest blooming variety in an “egg carton” fashion and then cover them in a deep layer of compost. Is it a tedious process? Yes. Is it also very rewarding? Yes, at least for those of us who enjoy order, straight lines, and the look of a smooth bed top at the end.

Caley and Shannon lay the groundwork.

Tulip bulbs, egg-carton-style.

Almost there…

Planting complete!

From all of us at Four Root Farm, we hope that everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving holiday! We hope that we provided delicious produce for your meal and maybe even an everlasting bouquet for your table. We are grateful for you, our community and customers. We are honored and excited to continue growing food and flowers for you; from the garlic and tulips of next season to the kiwis, paws paws, and pears of the years to come.

The most wonderful time of the year

Here’s my hot take: October is the best time to be a farmer.

Exhibit A: The food is the best.

Not only are the sweet peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants still hanging in there, but fall brassicas are back in action. Bok choy, mustard greens, and hakurei turnips have returned. As if that wasn’t good enough, the long season crops like onions and ginger are also available! And, as icing on the cake, fall-only crops like radicchio and collards have joined the party. Literally, what else could you ask for? And don’t say sugar snap peas, smarty pants.

Exhibit B: The weather is perfect.

I have been basking in the sun these past few weeks. In comparison to the August rays from which I make desperate attempts to hide my Scandinavian skin, the October sunshine feels like a warm bath. It makes me believe that I’m the one photosynthesizing. And the cooler temperatures are absolutely delightful. Pulling on a cozy hat and sweater and enjoying the crisp, fall breeze while harvesting is definitely the best way to start the day.

Exhibit C: Cleaning up is fun.

I feel like I’m losing you, but stick with me. Sure, cleaning up isn’t the most glamorous, Instagram-worthy farming activity. Oh boy, is it satisfying though. Landscape fabrics and row covers abandoned in the field during the busy summer months are neatly rolled up and tucked in the barn. Stakes are pulled out of the ground and stacked in tidy bunches until trellising time next year. Cleaning up also includes preparing the fields for winter, which on Four Root Farm means cover cropping with oats and rye. These crops aren’t for market. They’re for the soil. Their living roots will help prevent erosion over the winter and will feed the soil microbiology in a way that bare soil would not. It feels very rewarding to sow these seeds knowing that they’re giving back to the soil, which also worked all season to provide us food.

Of course, not everything’s perfect this October. Those fall brassicas I mentioned earlier? We’d have a lot more available if caterpillars weren’t having a smorgasbord on them right now. Also, a couple fall crops purposely didn’t get mentioned above. Rutabagas and storage kohlrabi have been all but completely destroyed by aphids this year. The tomatoes and eggplants were also healthier and produced much more fruit this time last year. Overall, between the wet weather and pest pressure, it’s been a tougher year than last.

Diversified farming helps to mitigate losses from weather, bugs, and other things out of farmers’ control. Some crops do poorly but others do ok! (Have you seen the escarole recently?! Just wait until you see the radicchio.) For now, we’ll keep harvesting what we have, enjoying the cool October weather, and getting the property buttoned up for winter. Up next: Dreaming up improvements for 2024.

-Kiersten

P.S. If all this talk of fall and winter has you bummed out, don’t fret! There’s still a good chunk of the 2023 season to be had. Dried flowers, sweet potatoes, and turmeric are all on their merry way!

Summer potluck and sweet potato experiments

After being thwarted by wind and rain in July, we were finally able to celebrate our second annual Shareholder Party! Hurricane Lee remained respectfully offshore and allowed us a beautiful, sunshine-y, end of summer day. 

If you’re unfamiliar with our Market Share program, members purchase a share at the beginning of the season. Share purchases provide cash for the farm at a crucial period when we need to purchase seeds and other inputs. Market Share members then use their credit (+ 10% extra) to buy vegetables throughout the growing season. 

Of course, we completely forgot to take any photos of people but DID take pictures of dogs! Here’s my dog, Olive, the Taylor’s new dog, Fig, and Peat of Beets & Blooms Farm fame!

Over the past 10 years, the shareholders have played an important role in supporting and growing the farm, and we were excited to show them where the magic happens. Rachel, Elise, and Aaron gave a tour of the fields, and we all enjoyed a delicious potluck - including dishes like Heather’s famous kale chips, Gerry’s farm-fresh veggie lasagna, and Adrian’s fried rice with shishitos.  

I thoroughly enjoyed romping around the fields and spending time with everyone outside of busy market days. One of the true joys of farming is feeding people that you know and care about. The relationships that I’ve built over the past four seasons are so meaningful to me and keep me motivated through the hot, humid summer days. It was fun to spend dedicated time on those relationships away from the market checkout table. So much fun, in fact, that I neglected to take any photos…

Alyssa’s son, Ezra, was kind enough to share his seat with a lovely bunch of collards!

As we officially enter the autumn season, some familiar vegetables are returning. Bok choy, mustards, and hakurei are back! And collards are here at last. The first beds of sweet potatoes have been harvested as well. They’re curing another week before they make their market debut.

Speaking of sweet potatoes, Market Share member Karen took home an armful of sweet potato leaves from the shareholder party for a culinary experiment. Stir-fried sweet potato leaves is a classic dish in a number of Asian countries. How would the leaves from the sweet potato variety that we grow, Mahon Yam*, work in the dish?

Petra and Alex say GREAT! Karen reported that blanching the leaves first created the best results. The leaves are then stir-fried with garlic, oyster sauce, and sesame oil. There’s a similar recipe that Aaron found in The Vegan Chinese Kitchen by Hannah Che. 

According to Karen, the Mahon Yam leaves tasted just right in the dish. For those of you (myself included) who have not yet tried stir-fried sweet potato leaves, the leaves have a mild, sweet flavor similar to spinach. Should we start bringing this crop to the markets? I think we owe Karen, Petra, and Alex royalties if so! 

-Kiersten

*This is a sweet potato not a yam. Yams are totally different plants, but basically not available in the US. Yam is used colloquially for sweet potato in the US.

Flower Power: A Spotlight on the CT Flower Collective

If you’re a flower fan (and who isn’t, really?), you're probably familiar with our flowers through the farmers’ markets. There’s another location our flowers go - the Connecticut Flower Collective. 

The Connecticut Flower Collective is a collaborative grower’s market, offering locally-grown specialty cut flowers to the floral industry. Four years ago, Elise and five other Connecticut flower growers created this organization in an effort to make local flowers more accessible to florists and designers. Individual flower farms often do not have the quantity and variety of flowers needed by florists. The options for these buyers were:

 1) spend hours coordinating with multiple local farms to source their stems or 

 2) use a larger wholesale provider with whom the origins of the flowers may not be clear. 

Enter the Connecticut Flower Collective! 

Today, the organization has grown to 25+ flower farms and hundreds of buyer members, including florists, photographers, and event planners. The Collective provides a single location where members can access local flowers at a scale previously unavailable in the region. The Collective simplifies the schedules of farmers as well. Rather than coordinating with individual florists and wedding planners, Elise can focus her time and energy on growing, harvesting, and preparing the flowers themselves and then deliver everything to one place. 

I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that the Connecticut Flower Collective is transforming the flower market in the state. By simplifying access for buyers, the Collective makes it easier for local, higher-quality flowers to be used in Connecticut weddings and events. By allowing flower farmers to focus on growing rather than selling, the availability of local flowers should grow as well.

On Wednesday, the Collective acts as a private farmers’ market for members to shop, but on Thursday-Saturday, the market opens to the public! The Collective also hosts events, including two upcoming workshops on lavender and fall flower arranging. If you’re interested in learning more and/or adding more flowers to your life, I would highly recommend a visit! 

Flowers all the way to the ceiling.

Dried flowers too!

If you’re shopping our farmers’ markets this week, you’ll see some of our most anticipated flowers of the year. Lisianthus have arrived! And finally! Elise seeded these plants all the way back in January. Yes, close to 8 months ago. The lisianthus flower looks like a faux rose and comes in gorgeous pastel colors. They’re well worth the wait. Dahlia harvest has begun too! The white varieties are grown in the protection of a high tunnel so that they remain pristine. The added warmth of the tunnel also means that this variety is the first ready to harvest. More and more colors and varieties will continue to make their appearance at the markets in the coming weeks.   

Also, HATS are here!!! All of us on the farm are rocking them, and you can, too! They’re for sale online and at the markets.

- Kiersten

Let’s get ready to tomatooo!

We’ve all been waiting for it. It’s tomato time! Time for tomato salads, tomato sandwiches, fresh tomato sauces, and even biting into sweet, delicious tomatoes like an apple if you’re feeling spunky. Tomato season should last for the next 2 -3 months, but it always feels so fleeting. I know everyone wants to make the most of it. So, let me run you through the roster for this year and answer some frequently asked tomato questions. 

First up is a longtime member of the team, the Goldie. Goldie has a bright orange-yellow color that lives up to its name and an incomparable, sweet flavor. Yellow tomatoes, in general, are usually less acidic and sweeter than red tomatoes. Goldie is also an heirloom tomato - which means it’s been cultivated for 50+ years! You’re clearly doing something right if you stick around that long.

More into pink than gold? Check out the German Johnson. If you’re familiar with a Brandywine tomato, German Johnson looks like its cousin. It has a deep pink, dare I say ruby, color. It’s a hybrid tomato, so it’s newer to the scene than an heirloom. It was also the first tomato to ripen this season and therefore the first tomato we taste tested. It was two thumbs up all around because everyone was too busy eating a second slice to exclaim outloud how delicious it tasted.  

They’re new; they’re flashy; it’s Hot Streak! Your eyes can’t miss this tomato on the market table. The red and orange stripes create a psychedelic kaleidoscope. The first ripe Hot Streak that I saw literally hypnotized me into harvesting it. It will add some glitz and glam to your tomato salad for sure - especially when paired with their fellow striped tomato, Green Zebra. Green Zebras have green and yellow stripes when ripe. Despite the green color, this is indeed a ripe tomato! Great for eating raw, not great for fried green tomatoes. 

Looking for a good ol’ slicing tomato for your sandwiches? Geronimo and the futuristically-named BHN589 have your back. These two red tomatoes are also stalwarts that have been members of the team for years. We like these fruits for their great shelf-life and quality flavor. Want to dabble with a yellow slicing tomato for your sandwich? Try BHN871 (also from the future). 

Let’s not forget the little siblings of these tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes are fun, sweet snacks and great additions to many salads and other dishes. Red and yellow cherry tomatoes are currently being harvested including The Sungolds, a.k.a. candy from a vine. Sauce tomatoes are also available this year. These plum-shaped tomatoes have a lower-water content, which makes them ideal for sauce-making.

How do I know if my tomato is ripe? The first clue is color. The deeper the color, the riper the tomato. The second clue is feel. In order to prevent bruising, we don’t recommend pressing on the tomatoes. However, if a tomato feels firm when you pick it up, it’s likely a couple days away from peak ripeness. If a tomato feels slightly soft or supple when you pick it up, eat it today or tomorrow. 

How should I store my tomato? Tomatoes like to be stored around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. We know that’s not practical for most home kitchens though. If you’ve selected a firmer tomato that’s a few days from ripe, leave it on the counter. Keep an eye on its color and firmness to determine when it’s best to eat. If you’ve selected a very ripe tomato, eat it right now! Or pop it in the fridge for a day or two to keep it from going around the bend before you can eat it. 

How do you grow such amazing tomatoes? Aww shucks! That’s so kind of you to say! We grow our tomatoes in the ground covered by a high tunnel. The high tunnel provides extra warmth to the plants as well as protection from pests. The plants get so much tender loving care throughout their lives. The team spends hours pruning, trellising, and fertigating (see July 2022 blog post). The tomato plants work hard for us, so we work hard for them!

Ready? Set? Tomatoooo! 

-Kiersten

Peas and news

Oh hello! And happy summer! The longest day of the year is just behind us, and the harvests are beginning to show it. I’ve been delighted to see many of you at the farmers’ markets so far this season. I’m excited to be back in written communication too.

The Madison and New Haven farmers’ markets are in full swing! Plant sale seedlings are on their way out for the year. Our food and flower offerings will continue to grow as the plants soak up the summer sun. You can also find Four Root Farm at a new market this year in East Haddam on Wednesdays from 3:30 - 6:30pm at Grange Hall. A variety of Four Root Farmers and other local residents will be representing the farm at this market. I know that the farm founders are looking forward to this opportunity to connect with people face-to-face in the town that they’ve called home for the past 9 years. Come say hi!

If you’re shopping at any of the markets (or on the online store) in the next couple weeks, you’ll be greeted with a variety of food. Salad mix, kale, chinese broccoli, and radishes will all hang around for a while. However, the real treats of June are the ever-ephemeral peas! We harvest them for just a few weeks in June and July, and I happen to think that it’s the most wonderful time of the year. I’ve eaten approximately 84,392 sugar snaps so far and am about to turn into one. If you see a walking, talking pea at the checkout table this weekend, that’s me.

Snow peas and shelling peas are back as well for the first time in years! Try out some of the new varieties and weigh in on whether we should grow them again next year. And speaking of new, there’s been an adorable addition to the farm this year…

Kimi, the mini truck! She hails from Kimitsu, Japan, and she is my favorite thing to ever happen on Four Root Farm (until we get a fluffy cow). Don’t let her size fool you! This girl can do anything a normal truck can, and she can do it with a tighter turning radius. I believe 23 seedling trays in the bed is the record so far? You can count for yourself below, and I’ll let you know when the record gets broken.

And in a final bit of fun personal news, a FRF contingent gathered at Beets & Blooms Farm last weekend to celebrate the wedding of Brittany and Caley! The blog post from September 2022 highlights these two long-time Four Root Farm employees and their new farm in East Hampton, CT. We were so honored to celebrate with them on a beautiful day on their beautiful property. In true farmer-fashion, Rachel secured special permission to take an unguided tour around their fields, Elise saved earthworms who tried to join the dance floor, and Caley lamented afterwards that she didn’t take the opportunity to show everyone their new dibbler (a farm tool used for spacing seedlings while planting). It was such a joy to be part of their celebration, and we stayed up dancing until waaaaay past my bedtime.

Maybe I’ll find Caley still out there in the pea forest!

I would share a photo of the farmers all cleaned up and dressed fancy, but we can’t have that sort of evidence out on the Internet. (Just kidding! We actually just had such an amazing time that I don’t think anyone stopped dancing long enough to take a photo.)

I think that’s all for now! If you need me, I’ll be in the peas.

-Kiersten

Celebrations and dried flower creations

Thank you to our amazing Market Share members for coming out to the farm to celebrate with us in October! We invited our shareholders to the property in celebration of a successful 2022 season. It turned out to be a very rainy Sunday; nevertheless, we carried on with a delicious potluck in the greenhouse and an extra adventurous farm tour through the wet fields.

Our shareholders are such an important part of the business, and we were excited to offer them an opportunity to see where the magic happens. We plan to host the event again in the fall of 2023 - hopefully with better weather!  If you’re not already a shareholder and would like to participate in our Market Share or Flower Share program next year, you can learn more here. Then, send us an email (fourrootfarm@gmail.com) to get on the list for notification when our 2023 programs are open for sign-up!

Even though we chose to pause for celebration, our 2022 season continues! We have sweet potatoes curing, radicchio to harvest, and still more onions to be cleaned and brought to market. The tulip bed is being prepared and planted for the spring 2023 harvest, and the flower team is busy making dried flower creations.

The dried flower process began back in June when Elise started harvesting the first flowers for drying. These flowers are bunched and hung from their stems in Rachel’s attic. (Rachel’s attic happens to be a great place to dry flowers. It’s dry, dark, and protected from the elements.) In the peak of summer, the flowers can dry in as quick as 2 days. In the shoulder seasons, the process may take closer to 2-3 weeks. 

Many of the flowers used in fresh bouquets throughout the summer also work well for drying. Ammobium, sunflowers, amaranth, gomphrena, celosia, broom corn, rudbeckia, – the list goes on and on. Elise is always experimenting with drying different flowers as well. Last year, she even tried drying dahlias. They shrunk to about the size of a quarter. It was crazy. The best varieties retain their color and do not become too brittle after the drying process.

Now, with fall upon us, the office has turned into a dried flower studio. Elise, Caley, and Isa are spending their time bunching and wrapping single varieties for sale at the CT Flower Collective and markets, and they’re making stunning, everlasting dried bouquets and mini bouquets. They’re also getting their creative juices flowing for the dried flower wreath-making that is yet to come this year! Each year, I’m continually amazed by the creations that they design. My apartment keeps collecting more and more of them. I can’t resist. 

If displayed out of direct sunlight (and out of reach of curious pets and/or small children), dried flowers can retain their color and appearance for a year or more! 

You’ll see dried flower bouquets and wreaths at the Madison and New Haven farmers’ markets. Elise will also be attending the Westport market (Thursdays, 10am-2pm) every other week starting on 11/17 until the dried flowers are sold out for the season. 

-Kiersten

Welcoming Beets & Blooms Farm to the community of CT Farms!

Entering September always feels like a cause for celebration - we’ve reached the peak of our season! Rachel recently seeded the last of the 2022 vegetable crops; Elise is beginning to think about where to plant the overwintered flowers; Aaron is harvesting from the final succession of Chinese broccoli for this year. Despite the fact that there is still a good chunk of the season to come and an unrealistic amount to accomplish each day, the second half of the season feels easier each day rather than more demanding. Plus, it’s just much more pleasant to walk out into the field now that the morning temperature is 58 degrees rather than 85. 

And, we’re reaping the rewards from the first half of the season now! This is when the harvests are the largest and most diverse. September is a special time of year when summer crops like tomatoes and peppers are still thriving while the longer season crops like ginger and onions finally arrive. While cooler mornings, long afternoon shadows, and earlier sunsets offer us a sneak peak of more restful days ahead, the truth is that there is still plenty this season has to offer! 

BUT WAIT! THAT IS NOT THE REAL REASON FOR THIS BLOG POST!

Just as it’s starting to feel like life might begin to slow down on Four Root Farm, things are ramping up for longtime members of the FRF team, Brittany and Caley…

THEY BOUGHT A FARM!!!!

These two are now the proud owners of Beets & Blooms Farm, a queer-owned farm located in East Hampton, CT.  They purchased their property earlier this year after a 3-year long search to find affordable, farmable land amidst an absolutely insane real estate market.  They’ve been making strides all summer long to get their business off the ground (or rather, in the ground). Back in June, they planted a variety of winter squashes as well as sunflowers, zinnias, and amaranth.  And now, they’re starting to realize their first harvests.

Brittany and Caley are badass, intelligent, joyful, hard-working farmers and overall amazing people. They’ve played an important part in the success of Four Root Farm over the past 5 and 4 seasons, respectively, that they’ve worked here, and I think I can speak for the whole team when I say we’re incredibly excited for them. 

Beets & Blooms Farm will be at the New Haven Pride Festival on September 17th with flowers (fresh and dried), winter squash, and some of the most punny merchandise you’ve ever seen. They plan to start a small CSA in 2022 and potentially become a vendor at farmers’ markets in the Middletown and New Haven area. You can find updates about where to buy their products on their website: https://www.beetsandbloomsfarm.com/. And you can follow them on social media: @beetsandbloomsfarm.

Here’s to September, to Beets & Blooms, and to Brittany and Caley! <3

-Kiersten

In the thick of it

And just like that, we’re in the thick of it! Harvesting 1000+ pounds of tomatoes each week and 110 pounds of fairy tale eggplants in a single day. Meanwhile, the rows and rows of sweet peppers appear increasingly colorful, and the okra plants grow taller right before your eyes. I’m cherishing any day the temperature stays below 90 degrees.

The lisianthus are on the scene in a big way. (You’ll be seeing the “lizzies” at the market for the next few weeks. These stems have a long vase life, up to 14 days!) Buckets and buckets of gomphrena and celosia stems continue appearing in the cooler as well. Between wedding floral arrangements, a stint at the Westport market selling bouquets, and a summer flower conference in Massachusetts, the flower team has been, to put it lightly, busy.

Needless to say, it’s a hectic time of year. During a recent team lunch, Elise posed the question, “What are you most looking forward to in August?” At least half of us responded, “September.” 

I’m not typically one to wish the time away. Admittedly, the idea of a crisp, fall breeze sounds delightful during these hot and humid days. There’s plenty to appreciate right now though.

Including, but not limited to…

Hot peppers! We’ve had jalapenos and cayennes for the last few weeks, and now some of the more niche varieties are ready to harvest. There are new varieties this year, some lower on the Scoville scale. The Aji Sugar Rush Peach and Aji Rojo are Peruvian hot peppers that are just slightly hotter than a jalapeno. The Numex Suave Orange has the the flavor of a habanero but little-to-none of the heat.* I’ve been thoroughly enjoying taste-testing hot peppers and trying new recipes with them this year. If you have a go-to salsa recipe, please share. Oh, and for those who like heat, don’t worry. The Death Spirals and Ghost Peppers are on their way, too.

Your friendly neighborhood spider!

Aphid-chomping lacewing eggs!

Helpful bugs! This time of year typically includes the task of hunting for the destructive hornworm caterpillars in the cherry tomato plants. This year, we’ve had a lot of help from a friendly, little wasp. The braconid wasp is teeny-tiny with clear wings, and it lays its eggs on the hornworm caterpillars. When the eggs hatch, it doesn’t go great for the caterpillar. We’ve found lots of hornworms that the wasps have gotten to first. Elsewhere on the farm, Caley discovered the eggs of aphid-eating lacewings by the scallion plants, and I stumbled onto a contingent of (I’m told) friendly spiders in the eggplant high tunnel. It’s nice to have some extra friends on your side.

Market days! It’s exciting to have so much food (and more tomatoes than ever before) and flowers to share at the markets. It truly is a highlight of my week to see the excitement of our customers as their favorite summer crops arrive to the market. It definitely makes this time of year special. 

-Kiersten

*Results may vary. Every once in a while, a pepper plant does something crazy and produces fruit waaaaay hotter than it’s supposed to produce. Just a friendly note to proceed with caution if spice isn’t your thing!

July, July!

The cutest of eggplants

Well, following spring’s halting beginnings, the farm suddenly feels like it’s on the cusp of a food and flower avalanche! Tiny eggplants are appearing on the fairy tale plants, Rachel harvested the first okra last week, zinnias are popping up, and the rudbeckia are blooming in full force. The harvest lists get longer every week, and I’m actually looking forward to harvesting tomatoes. When we’re harvesting hundreds of pounds of them in August I’ll probably be eating those words - but only between bites of delicious tomato sandwiches.

In other exciting news, the farm has a new well! The well that was put in at the very start of the farm’s first season sadly never lived up to its promise, and ended up hindering operations for years. Lack of water slowed crop growth and created inefficiencies day-to-day. When the old well pump kicked the (increasingly empty) bucket early this spring, it jump-started the process of getting an already planned new well in place quickly!

Pictured below: a six-year-old’s method for digging a trench from the well into the greenhouse (involving adorable child sized carhartts, an old tupperware for scooping dirt, and a Rachel to dangle one by one’s belt).

We use the well and irrigation systems to supply water to plants covered in high tunnels, to supplement water to field crops during periods of drought, and to fertigate, a process that combines fertilization and irrigation. The four farm founders have spent years building soil health on the land with methods like cover cropping, compost application, and crop rotation. However, because our crops are harvested, consumed, and, um, disposed of off the farm, much of the organic matter created by the plants does not decompose back into the soil and return nutrients. In order to re-introduce important nutrients, we regularly add nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium into the irrigation water for crops that require a lot of nutrition, such as tomatoes, peppers, and dahlias. Fertigation allows for precise application of nutrients to the plants’ roots through lines of drip tape. We waste less water and less fertilizer, and the plants are happier and more fruitful - literally! The tomato plants especially have been measurably more productive with fertigation. Rachel, our lead vegetable grower, hopes that through continued refinement of this technique we can reduce the amount of bed-feet used for tomatoes while continuing to harvest the same amount of fruit. 

Even though we’re about to enter the thick of summer, preparations for the fall are happening now. Fall successions of vegetables will continue to be seeded for the next few weeks. Elise has even begun the process of drying flowers for everlasting bouquets and wreaths. 

The farm produced more dried flowers than ever last year, and we loved sharing their brightness with our customers throughout the winter. Each year, Elise forecasts the number of stems she will need for fresh bouquets versus dried bouquets and wreaths, and she balances a mix of focal flowers, filler flowers, and greenery. Most of the flower varieties that she uses for drying are harvested in the summer and early fall.  Bunches of delphinium and ammobium are already drying in the attic, and many more varieties will follow!

Bunches of flowers hanging to dry

Despite all the autumn preparations, I’ve been enjoying what July has to offer. Not so much the hotter and hotter weather. But the kale, escarole, and summer squash have been delightful. I’m eating different varieties of kale salad basically every day and devouring escarole and white bean pastas for dinner. Last week, Brittany whipped up amazing, vegan, bibimbap-style bowls full of sautéed squash and carrots for our team lunch. So. good. 

Come and visit us at the Madison and Wooster Square markets to grab some of these July goodies for yourself!

-Kiersten

A Slow Start to Spring

Summer is just around the corner, but you may not have realized it by looking at our vegetable offerings these past couple of months. In truth, it’s been somewhat frustrating and disappointing to have so little food available for our customers recently. The dearth of harvestable crops originated from April and early May, which - if you remember - was cold.  We direct-seeded and transplanted crops into the fields according to our usual schedule diligently planned each winter, and we waited for the weather to warm. However, instead of gradual warming, there was persistent cold and wind, punctuated by short bursts of unseasonable heat. This dramatic weather pattern stunted germination and growth. For instance, the direct seeded broccoli raab, which can germinate in as quickly as 5 days, took almost two weeks before their first leaves began to appear out of the ground. And we continued to peek at the kale under its protective insect netting, checking if this would finally be the week to harvest it.

Most of the vegetables brought to market during April and May were grown in our high tunnels (also known as hoop houses). In a typical spring at Four Root Farm, as we finish harvesting the tunnel plantings of bok choi, hakurei turnips, and radishes, the outside field successions of those crops are ready for their first harvest. We can transition seamlessly from harvesting in the tunnels to harvesting in the field without any disruption to the products brought to market. This year, we finished harvesting in the tunnels and have been anxiously waiting as the field crops continue their stubbornly slow pace of growth. 

The farm has seven high tunnels on the property of varying sizes and one tunnel even has the ability to roll between two different plots. Crops grown in the tunnels are planted into the ground just like the field crops, but they enjoy the benefit of warmer, more protected conditions and thus, can be planted earlier in the year.

We believe that high tunnels are an indispensable tool for farming in New England and for improving regional food sovereignty. Season extension - growing earlier in the spring and later into the fall - allows our community to access locally-produced vegetables for a greater portion of the year rather than relying on products shipped here from California. High tunnels will also help farmers to be more resilient in the face of climate change. As severe weather events become more frequent, tunnels help to protect crops from damaging rains, wind, and hail.  

Thank you to all of you, our lovely customers, for diligently stopping by our market stand and checking the website each week. Conditions the last few weeks have been much better, and I promise the food is coming, albeit slowly! We will continue to have lettuce, chinese broccoli, bok choi and turnips - with kale, sugar snap peas, cucumbers, squash, scallions, carrots and garlic scapes just starting. And fan-favorites like fairy tale eggplants, shishito peppers, and tomatoes growing happily in their beds. 

I’ll have more to share on tomatoes and all of the TLC they require in next month’s blog post. Until then, I will see you at the markets - hopefully with more and more food to offer throughout June!

-Kiersten

The Blog is Back!

Hello, and happy spring! I’m Kiersten. You may have met me at the Madison and Wooster Square farmers’ markets over the past two years. I’m starting my third season working at Four Root Farm, and this year, in collaboration with the rest of the team, I’ll be publishing regular updates to our blog and social media. It has been a great pleasure getting to know our customers at the markets, and I feel excited and honored to further connect with our community through this online medium. 

Here on the farm, spring has definitely arrived and the signs are everywhere! Trays of seedlings are multiplying at a rapid pace in the greenhouse. Anemones are beginning to bloom in the flower tunnel. And most excitingly, some of the farm staff - Brittany, Caley, and myself- returned to work on the farm last week after a winter respite. I’ll be highlighting our team members and OG farm founders in the weeks to come. Needless to say, the farm is now bustling in preparation for a productive season!

Priority #1 for the team last week was planting rows and rows of sugar snap peas. These babies have been growing in the greenhouse for the past few weeks, and it was finally time for them to “peas”-ce out of their comfortable home. Planted at one of the tightest spacings on the farm, each bed holds 800 pea plants! After a couple weeks and a thorough weeding of the beds, we will put up trellis netting for the plants to begin to climb. Expect to see sugar snap peas at the market in June. But, it’s never too early to get excited for this sweet summer snack!

For our eager Wooster Market shoppers, we’ll be back at the market this Saturday, April 16. One of the special products you’ll find at our stand in the early weeks of the season is Belgian endive! The journey of this vegetable from seed to your plate started way back in the summer of 2021. The seedlings are planted in the field in August. They soak up the sun and grow leafy and lush for months. Before winter sets in, we dig the plants up, cut the leaves off, and store the roots in the cooler until spring. When we’re ready to sprout them for market, we clean up the roots and replant them in crates of soil. These are then kept at around 60 degrees for 2-3 weeks, and, most importantly, in complete darkness to keep them from turning green.  Although Belgian endive may be small in size, these blanched tight heads pack a punch in any salad. Try thinly slicing endive and tossing it with green apples, toasted almonds, feta, and a sweet balsamic dressing - you will not regret it. Or halve your endive and roast it (cut-side down) in a cast-iron skillet or in the oven; pair with a dressing of honey, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. It’s a quick, easy way to enjoy our first vegetable offering of 2022! Already know your favorite way to prepare endive? Please share! Message @fourrootfarm on Instagram, send us an email, or chat with us at one of the markets!

-Kiersten

Spring time updates

As June approaches with alarming rapidity, it occurs to me that amidst all the work and renewal that spring has brought to our Four Root Farm family, this blog has fallen to the wayside. Perhaps an update is needed.

First, let me say thank you thank you to everyone who showed us love and support when the weather left us battered and limping across 2018's finish line. It has been a joy returning to the farmers’ markets and seeing the commitment and optimism of our loyal customers and friends. We had a hard end to last year, but it was not the end of us. The challenges of this work are precisely the thing that make it important, and we are excited and inspired to use the lessons we’ve learned to continue building our little piece of a more resilient and sustainable network of small farms.

When we sat down this winter for the farmer’s long-awaited respite of cozy fires, infinite mugs of tea, and innumerable spreadsheets, flowers immediately jumped out as a bright spot amidst the gloom of 2018’s numbers. While some of us (Rachel, Aaron) may have been late to the realization that there can be value in growing things that aren't food, Elise, with Caitlin’s constant and enthusiastic cheerleading, has quietly become a brilliant flower farmer and designer. And she has started 2019 off with an amazing burst of productivity and gorgeous blooms. When vegetable seedlings were barely in the ground, our market stand was overflowing with perfectly timed mothers' day bouquets, astonishing tulips, and technicolor ranunculous. This winter and spring Elise was also involved in creating a Connecticut flower growers' collective, which is an inspiration to all of us who believe in a more cooperative approach to agriculture.

Meanwhile, although I know at times she misses the simpler days of being our lead flower designer (and blog writer), Caitlin's work off the farm as an architect has, incredibly, aligned itself over the last year with the work of Four Root. As the director of the Food Lab within MASS Design Group, Caitlin is leading projects that exist at the intersection of design, social and environmental justice, and the food system. On any given day this spring she might have been found on a turkey farm in Kansas working to preserve the knowledge that remains of pre-industrial poultry farming, in a South Carolina prison talking with incarcerated people about what they want to see in the design of a new communal kitchen space, or in a Poughkeepsie middle school, helping Brigaid develop new design standards for the project of reforming the nation's school kitchens.

I (Aaron) too have found myself off the farm an unusual amount this spring, having started a new business over the winter, Connecticut Greenhouse Company. I still haven't worked out exactly how to be in two (three?) places at once, but I remain optimistic. We built two new CGC high tunnels here at Four Root earlier this month, more then doubling our tunnel space, and hopefully improving our ability to withstand future seasons of less then perfect weather.

Crucially, Rachel has become the steady hand at the center of our vegetable operation. As our head veg grower (and data guru) she is charting a course for what we hope to be our best season of produce yet. Each season we gather more data about what works for us in our soil and conditions, what we like to and are good at growing, and what gets our customers excited. With a year of excess water behind us, we are planning to grow more of the things that have worked best across seasons of both drought and flood. We're expanding into the last section of our fields that had yet to be cultivated, and moving more production into high tunnels.

As for our Fifth Root, Ellis seems determined to spend every possible moment of daylight digging holes, spraying hoses, and "helping" me on building projects. He can't wait for the Sun Gold tomatoes to be ready, and neither can the rest of us.

- Aaron

…

Hi this is postscript from Rachel and Elise- 

Aaron authored this lovely blog post and we want to add a few things to his very modest section about what he's been up to. 

Connecticut Greenhouse Company fills a service gap in CT agriculture by being the only company in the state to provide high tunnel manufacturing and installation. Aaron and Toby are using their many years of experience as farmers to manufacture higher quality tunnels that farmers need. In doing so, CGC is helping farms all over Connecticut to become more resilient in the face of ever less predictable weather. Starting a second business while raising a three year old is no simple feat, and Aaron is knocking it out of the park.

Fall Failures

Since we started our farm we have generally brought you positive news, thoughts, and stories on our blog and in our social media presence. This is not to obscure the fact that farming can be hard at times, or that there have been moments (like, say, every single August) when the exhaustion and stress can start to feel like too much. We just prefer to focus on the good things. We believe that what we are doing is important and valuable, and we want you, our friends and customers, to feel the excitement of our successes and progress along with us.

However, there’s no denying that this has been an incredibly challenging couple of months for farming here in Connecticut. Now that we’re into October and a turn-around seems increasingly unlikely, it would be dishonest to not say as much.

It’s incredibly wet. In the last 12 weeks we have received over 30 inches of rain. That’s about 250% of the average rainfall for this time of year, and it’s more than fell in the entire 12 months of either 2015 or 2016.

The excess rain and humidity started mid-July, halting fruit production and accelerating disease on squash, cucumbers, tomatoes and eggplants. It continued in August, leading to an explosion of devastating fungal diseases such as black rot on garlic, cercospora on beets and chard, and alternaria on celery and carrots. In September, moist conditions provided a prime habitat for aphids to thrive on fall plantings of turnips, radishes, and bok choi, and then two large storms flooded and subsequently rotted much of our late season lettuce, radicchio, and celtuce.

I guess we have hydroponic lettuce now

As if that wasn’t enough, this year we planted a large field of winter squash, pumpkins, and melons for the first time, and almost all of them were lost to deer. Our carrots, which have been noticeably absent from recent markets, were already struggling to size up in saturated soils when the deer got to them as well.

Beyond all these individual disappointments, perhaps the hardest thing is showing up to the farmers’ market each week with a limited amount on offer. We are incredibly grateful for the dedication of our market customers, and it is doubly painful to see their disappointment every time we are missing or sold out of something they were looking forward to.

It’s bad. But here’s what I keep telling myself: In farming there are always going to be good years and bad years; bumper crops and crop failures. This may be true now more than ever, perched as we are on the edge of what could become the most volatile and uncertain climactic era since the advent of agriculture. This was a hard year, but we are going to survive it. We can still pay our bills, and we will be back in the spring with another season’s worth of lessons learned under our belts. This is a triumph in and of itself.

It is also a good reminder that learning to survive tough seasons is not just a financial necessity for our business, but also part of the ideological basis for our work. Industrial agriculture, and by extension the whole American food system, is a massive but frighteningly fragile beast. Monocropping, loss of genetic diversity, reliance on vast amounts of chemical inputs, and shrinking water resources are all points of vulnerability that will be tested by a changing climate. We are part of a movement of diversified and regionally focused small farms trying to build resilience into the food system, and the few successes we have had this year illustrate the point. While failures have piled up, they have by no means been universal. Notably, we had our best onion crop ever. We’ve just started harvesting sweet potatoes, and though picking them is a bit like digging for clams, they are doing surprisingly well. And the ginger, native to tropical climates, has actually been thrilled by the unexpected rainforest-like conditions.

Jungle ginger

Muddy yams

These mixed results are thanks to the diversity of crops on our farm (nearly 200 varieties of veggies and over 300 flower varieties). Our tomatoes and eggplants were a disappointment, but imagine if they were all we grew. Imagine what crop failure looks like in a vast monoculture of corn or soy. We grow so many varieties because it’s fun, because it gives us a marketing advantage, and because eating a varied diet is good for us and for our customers. Happily, as in nature, genetic diversity on the farm and in our food system broadly is also the key to survival.

So, thank you to all our customers for your support, understanding, and patience this fall. We’re sorry for the short tomato season, the weeks of no carrots, the absent arugula. We are doing what we can to eke out a few more successes before winter arrives, and we’re already looking forward to the improvements we can make next year. When the weather is against us it means everything to know that you are still with us.

- Aaron

This is not our farm, nor our car, but it’s just around the corner from us: Mitchell road, washed out down to the bedrock in one of the September storms. That’s how wet it’s been.

May 2018

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the Four Root Farm blog writer was fired months ago. In actual fact, the farmers miraculously haven't fired me yet mostly because they are too busy to be anything but tolerant of my extremely delinquent blog writing. There have been many exciting developments on and off the farm this spring that have us all feeling weary, optimistic, exhausted, sore, happy - but have nonetheless kept a blog update midway down my ever-lengthening list of things to do, never getting further from the top but also never getting done. 

But I'm ducking my head into this oft-neglected blog on a moody foggy mid-spring day to provide the quickest of updates. Like some minor miracle, the trees have leaves! The baby is now a child that says many hysterical and very wise things! The fields are filling every day with straight rows of small plants. Tulip season is already behind us, phew, thank goodness, oh my god it was crazy they all bloomed in one week. We are midway through our biggest construction project to date. The wet spring is bordering on too wet, with more rain in the forecast.

All is crazy busy happy chaos on our verdant and muddy little patch of earth. Come to one of our markets to stock up on the early spring greens, radishes, and plants for your garden! 

August

When I sit down to write this, the temperature has dropped and the hot muggy days of high summer have already started their slow recession into the backs of our minds.  I have to remind myself four times what day of the week it is. I think I can safely admit that I've failed my 2017 resolution of weekly blog posts. Somehow it's been four months (really four?!) since the last one, and I can't even really provide a good excuse. The specific quotidian excuses for not keeping up with this blog amount to an exciting-to-us-but-boring-to-the-world day-by-day account of our wacko 2017 summer, so I'll spare you the gory details. The briefest summary possible: we've been... busy. 

Photo by Andy Heist

We're in the unique and relatively short season when high summer harvests overlap with the almost imperceptible suggestion that fall is on its way. The truck is weighed down by boxes of tomatoes and crates piled high with eggplants and peppers, but the crisp morning air quietly tells a different story - one that we know to expect but somehow never quite believe about how, as long as the earth revolves around the sun, sweater-cool fall will always follow summer. This morning I was wearing actual SLIPPERS.

Summer is definitely waning now though, we have to admit it. The sneakiest cool breeze whispers through our trees in the evening. Every day we are positively shocked by how early it gets dark, how few evening hours we have before night falls hard and we're forced inside or, more often, forced into a huddle around the barn sharing the dim light to make bouquets and pint tomatoes and sort the cooler contents late into the night.  

From the deck of the infrastructure department:
We're very excited to have received a state grant to build a new wash station and cooler building this fall and all of our most modest dreams are coming true. A wash station with a concrete floor and proper drainage! A cooler that is more than twice the size of our current one, which we outgrew about three years ago! Drop-down shades that block the afternoon sun instead of the shabby white bedsheet we use now! Bigger sinks and tubs to replace the 3/4 length bathtub that was taken out of the Taylor family house during the Great Botched Renovation of 2015 and repurposed into a wash station basin. Now all we have to do is... tear a hole in the time space continuum in search of an extra month this fall to build it before the ground freezes?

The eclipse was a rare opportunity to gather outside in the middle of the day and sit in the grass to marvel at the cosmos. We enthusiastically seized the opportunity and, though it was pretty hazy and we didn't get to see the crescent shadows of the sun cast through dappled tree canopy, we were impressed and humbled by the eerie golden tint of the briefest 60% evening in the middle of the afternoon. 

Completely magical photo by Andy Heist of the Milky Way above Rachel's house on the night of the solar eclipse.

And lastly, the smallest update with the longest range migration: our perennial butterfly weed bushes have been taken over by a small army of monarch caterpillars! We tiptoe around them desperate to not disturb their delicate chrysalis-making, and will do everything we can to protect them until they migrate in an incredible feat of bio-location and endurance. 

Photo by Andy Heist

Spring Tulips

Happy spring from the hills of East Haddam, where the shadows are still long, the nights are still cool, and the fog and mist linger for hours after daylight has arrived. It's easy to forget how volatile our spring season is in Connecticut - too cold then too hot then too wet then too dry - but every 12 months like clockwork, April arrives to remind us.

Our greenhouse is bursting at the seams with vital seedlings that are growing daily before our very eyes. They love the cozy incubation of the greenhouse, but tray by tray Elise tells them gently that they're ready for the real world and Rachel loads them up, takes them to the field, and plants them firmly in a row with their colleagues. Seeing all the baby plants learning how to grow, how to fruit and how to flower, under the big sky and ever-changing weather of early spring is so powerful. There is a special moment before weeds, pests, and diseases arrive, before wacko harvests and immeasurable bounty, when farming looks an awful lot like something you can control. Let's enjoy it for just five minutes, shall we?

Aaron is building our movable high tunnel in the south field, the future home of the legendary tomato harvest of 2017 (power of positive thinking, etc?), to be followed quickly by three more tunnels. Rachel and Elise embark on more science experiments every year, turning the greenhouse into a surgery ward where they wield scalpels and knives to graft heirloom tomatoes, and turning their kitchen into a biochemistry lab in order to heat treat seeds to precise temperatures for improved disease resistance.

Elise and Caitlin go on optimistic (but increasingly desperate) ramp scouting missions every spring wondering how it's possible that in our swampy, hilly, shady neighborhood of deep woods and literal fern gullies, there are no ramps. We convince ourselves that around every bend in every stream we will find the center of the universe, green blue ramps spread in a lush carpet as far as the eye can see. But so far, no luck. We must live in some mysterious supernatural ecosystem where normal rules of micro-ecology don't apply, where shady streams lined with skunk cabbage don't lead you straight uphill to luscious meadows of ramps. Torture!

We are learning the logistics of tulip harvest in the way that you can only learn something you've been told a million times once you have to do it yourself. It's true: once they start blooming harvest becomes an hourly countdown. On sunny warm days when you can practically watch them grow, I swear we harvest every three hours. Bringing some inside, we've watched in awe as their colors deepen and flush over the course of many days; more than almost any other flower we grow, they continue to reveal new secrets long after their harvest. Come to our markets over the next few weeks to bring our first ever spring tulip crop home with you, for which we all have Elise to thank. We have singles, doubles, and parrots in unusual varieties -  some deep rich black colors, some with stems as long as your arm, and the most luminous orange glow you've ever seen.

My completely unreasonable dream for this summer is to spend a quiet day every week (haha) sipping tea, wearing a linen dress, and researching for you the cultural, economic, ecological, and political history of each crop we grow one by one - revealing as I go the lurid love triangles, international intrigue, careful manipulations, cultural fads, grunt work, acts of god, and gangsters, yes men, and operatives, that have tugged and coxed each specific crop all the way through the agricultural history of our planet and onto your plates. 

But in lieu of the mythical extra day of my week, or the cosmic pause button, you'll instead have to forgive me for these rambling blog posts that haphazardly provide account of our farm through the season at irregular intervals.  I'll try to keep my straight-faced obsession with the human-made climate apocalypse out of it, and instead will regale you will the charming stories of Ellis's first watermelon and every crazy hot pepper we grow. 

And in the meantime, please come visit us at one of our weekly markets to share in the bounty of our 2017. You can expect our normal insane array of veggies through the season, but first up are greens, lettuce, radishes, leeks, and tulips tulips tulips. Happy spring! 

Black parrot tulips, I mean seriously?!