Yearly Archives: 2018

Ask any grower in southeast PA about 2018 and the answer is sure to be the same: this season was a challenge. From the late-March snowstorms to Summer’s record-breaking rains, the weather put up one stumbling block after the next. We struggled to maintain healthy crops and high spirits as our […]

#wintergoals

 in Blog by
This project stayed on the back burner for most of the summer, but the fig tunnel is finally nearing completion. Its success is entirely thanks to Landon, who has worked doggedly to get this thing built before our grant deadline in December. With the end walls up and the frame […]

Sweet Collaboration

 in Blog by
Fingers crossed that the lettuce, broccoli raab, napa cabbage, radishes, turnips, and arugula hiding under these covers get to size by Thanksgiving. As the daylight wanes, the “days to maturity” for each crop stretches into infinity, but we still have another two weeks of growth before things shutdown all together. […]

You’re so immature

 in Blog by
Dang! I’m getting this list to you late for the second week in a row. I wish I had another good excuse like “It was my birthday!”, but really I’m just having trouble keeping my head in the game. Between the devastating rains and the cold weather, there’s not too […]

Still Fightin’

 in Blog by
Since things are a little slow in the fields, I decided to use this space to share another note from the kitchen. First, a little backstory: ever since Frankie was born, I stopped participating in the Saturday harvest and started cooking lunch for our harvest crew. This season, we have […]

Kitchen Therapy

 in Blog by
The heirlooms and slicing tomatoes may be on their last legs, but our Granadero plants are still (miraculously!) cranking out paste tomatoes. Sure, they’re not going to be my go-to for a BLT or a caprese salad, but their flavor really pops after a little time in the oven. I […]

Paste for the win!

 in Blog by
Landon and I had big plans for Halloween this year. We were going to start a pumpkin patch in the former cow pasture and grow enough pumpkins to host an epic carving party. After the festivities, we were going to line the road with all the pumpkin art, illuminated with candles for […]

Pack up your carving knives

 in Blog by
Soil is a mysterious organism. All the lettuce pictured above was planted at the same time. All of the transplants received identical care, and the beds were prepared using identical equipment and fertilizer. And yet, the lettuce on the left is stunted and discolored, while the lettuce on the right […]

Unsolved Mysteries

 in Blog by
With the ground finally dry enough to till, Landon and I are mobilizing to get lots of things planted: kale transplants that have been patiently waiting on the hardening off bench, carrot seeds eager to replace their rotted predecessors, and all those fast-growing radishes and salad greens that can get […]

This week’s MVP: pac choi!

 in Blog by
As inches 8, 9, and 10 for the month of August accumulated outside, Landon and I spent the morning in the greenhouse. We seeded anything we could think of that will get to full-size before the days get too short and the nights get too cold. This plan assumes that […]

When in doubt, plant some seeds

 in Blog by
With all this wet weather, we haven’t had many opportunities to get into the fields to do some proper weeding. It’s hard to kill weeds when their roots are constantly being replanted and replenished by life-giving rains, and the wet soil makes our weeding tools less effective. Some weeds are […]

Unintentional Intercropping

 in Blog by
Testing watermelons for doneness is an art that we have yet to master. For us, it involves cracking open a lot of melons in the field to make sure we’re reading the cues correctly. It also involves tasting a lot of melons and letting lots of juice drip down our […]

Employee Benefits

 in Blog by
Landon and Frankie spent some time this past week in what Frankie lovingly calls “the blueberry cage”. (She’s not wrong–the blueberry bushes are surrounded on all sides by bird netting.) The two farmers picked blueberries side-by-side, with Landon picking for some house guests and Frankie picking mostly for herself (à […]

The Blueberry Cage

 in Blog by
Heat like this on the farm can be a real slog–constant wardrobe changes, desperate searches for that missing water bottle, and popsicle lunches. We spend a disproportionate part of our day dragging hoses from field to field to keep the irrigation rotated. The other part is spent trying not to […]

It’s Raining Sweat

 in Blog by
When we first started out 8 years ago, garlic scapes were all the rage. Customers, anxious to try their newest scape pesto recipe, would buy heaps and heaps as soon as they hit the market table. But as the novelty of the zany garlic flower wore off, scape season became […]

Let’s make scapes cool again!

 in Blog by
One of farming’s biggest perks is the amount of time we get to spend outdoors just marveling at all the spectacular things that occupy this planet. We’re approaching my favorite time of year for natural wonder–peak firefly season–which overlaps with my second favorite natural event–barn swallow breeding. Barn swallow nests […]

Greetings from Argentina!

 in Blog by
When we started this journey 8 years ago, we were committed to growing veggies without the use of plastic mulch. We didn’t like the idea of the expense, the aesthetics, and most importantly, the waste. Fast forward several very weedy seasons, and our stance on plastic mulch has softened. Over […]

Adventures in Plasticulture

 in Blog by
For the first time in our career as chicken tenders, we bought our chickens as pullets (4-month-old hens) instead of raising them from chicks. We sold last year’s layers in January and lived blissfully chicken-free for three whole months. No shoveling snow out of the chicken run, no chicken babysitters […]

Mean Girls vs. Freshmen

 in Blog by
This Tuesday, we’ll be kicking off our 7th season at the corner of Frankford Ave. and Bridge St. at Frankford Transportation Center. The market runs from June 5th until the end of October from 2pm-6pm. Super convenient by public transit, the market is just a 20-minute jaunt from Center City […]

See you at Frankford!

 in Blog by
With the ground too wet to work, the transplants are piling up on the hardening off bench and the weeds are making themselves right at home. It’s been a frustrating week for farming, but all these rain clouds have a silver lining: the soggy fields have given us a chance […]

Wet Weather Work

 in Blog by