Seeds? Check.
Soil? Check.
A game plan and an exceptional crew to execute it? Check.
The 2018 farming year starts in earnest in a little over two weeks on March 1st, and I can’t wait. Seeding the first trays of the year is a religious experience: the earthy smell of potting soil, the feel of seeds rolling around your fingertips, and the beginning of the oft-overlooked miracle that is the transformation of a couple ounces of seed into thousands of pounds of vegetables.
Now entering my 9th year running Second Nature Farm, I remain as humble and hungry as ever. Though we harvested record yields from our fields in 2017, I know these results can only be repeated by applying the same mindfulness, determination, and exertion. I don’t take your patronage for granted either: now more than ever, you have many options for fresh vegetables that extend beyond the grocery store into mobile-apps and home delivery. Since you make the extra effort to support our family farm, it’s only fair that I make the extra effort to ensure you’re eating the freshest, tastiest vegetables around.
I just finished wrapping up our crop plan for the year, and we’ve made a couple changes based on your feedback last year. They include:
- Sugar snap peas! Back by popular demand. There’s nothing like the sweet crunch of a snap pea in June. We’re planting 600ft of snap peas and anticipate loads of them!
- More potatoes! They hold well in the fridge and put the grocery store spuds to shame. A larger crop means we’ll start harvesting them smaller and earlier in the growing season – July 4th is our target harvest date.
- Big broccoli heads every week! We trialed a growing method last year that ended up producing many more side shoots than heads. This year we’ll return to our old method of production and so you can expect big, beautiful heads of broccoli on a consistent basis.
- Bigger, better selection of full-size tomatoes! We’re doubling our heirloom tomato production and increasing the size/diversity of our red tomato plantings, providing you with perfect tomatoes no matter what size or color you’re looking for!
If this sounds good to you, and you want to make sure you’ll be the first to enjoy new vegetables as they mature over the course of the season, I recommend signing up for our 2018 CSAs. In exchange for investing in our farm, CSA members receive preferential variety and selection, a pick-your-own herb crate, and more vegetables for their dollar! You can read more details about our CSA program on our website, and feel free to email me if you have any additional questions.
Thanks as always for your support and I’ll keep you updated as the season begins!
Best,
Adam
Forget the sugar snap peas - Caleb wants to know where the sticks and puddles are going in our 2018 crop plan.