Backward & Forward - Or Is It The Other Way Around?

Whilst some folks are just now seeing the fruits of their labor in the garden, it is not the case here at Hope Farms. What some might see here are weeds, some failed crops, and some crops that haven't not only been transplanted yet, but some that haven't even been seeded yet.

The conclusion is painful, but must be admitted: Hope Farms, on opening day of the Stanly County Farmers' Market, was the only farm present with actual fresh produce being offered. There was kale, collards, Swiss chard, lettuces, radishes, carrots, onions, freshly-cut herbs and more. I don't even recall all that I had on the table, but it was a pivotal moment. To have had all of that by just April 13 after the coldest March on record in who-knows-how-long? But I digress.

That in itself is not the painful part.

The punch-in-the-stomach is this: there isn't enough being produced, right now, to support the busiest and largest market that we attend.

Chalk it up to inexperience. Rain. Bugs. Voles. Rain. Oh, and did I mention rain? How about wind? Yeah, all of the above. Maybe throw in some poor planning. But that would suffice within inexperience, yes?

Here's what it comes down to:

I cannot come to the market on Saturdays anymore until my fall crops begin to come in. 

The goal is to be back to Saturdays at the Stanly County market by the beginning of September.

Meanwhile, we will continue to attend Mondays market at Stanly Commons from 10 am to 2 pm as well as Thursdays market in downtown Troy from 3:30 pm to 6:30 pm.

A great deal has been learned this year, folks, and one of the biggest and most important things I've come to know as priority is honesty.

So there it is. In all of its painful glorious honesty. Our small-timey farm is not big-time. And that's okay.

Those of you who cannot make it to those markets and would like to stop by the farm - please do not hesitate to call or e-mail (see tab above that says, "Contact Us.") We're more than happy to let you know what we've got available and make arrangements for you to pick it up.

There are many thanks to all of those who have supported us, no matter which market, through this season so far. We're very grateful for you!

Gains and Losses = Hope

Yes, it's another one of those posts.

Having a green thumb isn't all it's cracked up to be. Being dependent on weather and the health of the soil from which the garden grows is a large portion of success, or luck, however you look at it. It has always amazed me immensely to look at a seed and contemplate how this tiny speck of hope uses soil, water, oxygen and ultimately becomes nourishment in the form of food or beauty. Either way, the ability to raise plants is a gift. Sometimes it comes in a not-so-pretty package.

Wind-ravaged and rain-soaked, the plants in the garden are each telling their own stories. Some sweet pepper plants have turned yellow and have wilted from all of the water. The tomato plants in the greenhouse are suffering, probably, from some form of humidity-induced fungal issue. Heat and sun-loving okra plants are stunted, yet with stubborn determination flowering and even producing a few pods of little okra babies. My Swiss chard has mushrooms languishing at their feet and the cucumber vines have had holes punched delicately in their leaves by a voracious cucumber beetle and their numerous family members. Squash plants are forlorn soldiers, laying on their sides, awaiting final death from the vine borers and damage from the squash bugs.

Even so. Hope. It's what keeps us all going. Even in the rainiest season in decades. Or akin to the summer of 2007, the driest of seasons in decades. This cyclical change in the weather has been happening for hundreds of years - those that have been recorded that is. It is the reason that the farm is named so.

More often than not we have a tendency to complain, "why me?" when things aren't going the way we'd like. The point, here, isn't to dwell on all of the things that can and do go wrong, but to realize the gift of learning that is within the failure. If I hadn't jumped into a market garden with both feet this year I never would have known what it is like to test the limits of my knowledge and also to have come to the realization that using synthetic herbicides and pesticides are never sustainable!

Having a purpose can go a long way in getting us through the doldrums that too much spring and summer rain can induce.

Sometimes that purpose is difficult to locate in the weedy patch of life. Our gardens can reflect us. Crazy, I know. Hither-thither, vines going astray, weeds filling in the gaps of a once clean palate. Right this very minute, I can relate to that reflection. The weeds have taken over. I'm a bit disorganized (especially inside the house!) and I'm not as vibrant and productive as I was two months ago.

There is a reason for the changing of the seasons. I'm ready for the season of FALL!

How is YOUR garden growing? Is it a reflection of you?

The Lull of July

The lull of July: We enter into it with some denial that it’s really summer. “The end of June already?” we exclaim. The cicadas begin to sing and vie for courting honors. The summer thunderstorms sweep in with the strong breezes turning the leaves of the Catawba and Pecan trees upward. It is this period of time, when the thermometer registers 85* Fahrenheit at just 9:30 am, that farming seems so much less attractive than it did in early spring when the muck boots and hooded sweatshirts were in need.

Chores must be done– the weeds need to be pulled, goat & cow milked, chickens fed, eggs collected, as well as laundry hung out on the line regardless of the temperature. At least the heat assists with the radical civilly-disobedient laundry-drying apparatus in the back yard: the clothes dry at an alarming rate – much faster than I can fold it. Especially when all three lines are loaded down and I’m hoping I’ll have time to get it all taken in before the next thunderstorm rolls in. I’m not at all opposed to the second rinse cycle though, and it happens often. It has been especially common this season – we just ended a 21-day streak of daily rainfall. “Rain much?” is the most common phrase my husband and I ask one another as we don our muck boots, a seeming anomaly in the heat of July, to do our chores.

I spent the last week during the hottest hours of the day in the air-conditioning – sorting, folding and putting away the clothes that had piled up on the couch(es) for weeks on end. Really.


Occasionally, during the heat of the summer, I carve out blocks of time for reading. Having just finished Forrest Pritchard’s Gaining Ground I am seeking for more food for thought. This time it is Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. My favorite thing about Kingsolver's writing is that she skips around a bit – much like the way my brain works – and I find myself very much at home in her books. This book, although new to me, is dog-eared in about 9 different places already – that’s how much I skip around.

 

Rightfully, dubbed the “fair-weather-farmer” by Captain Strong Arms, I've accepted the idea that I don’t like to farm when it’s too cold or too hot. Actually, I’ll take the cold over the heat, but I do not care for more than 6 inches of snow. I’m stubborn: just as stubborn as the July heat and the August humidity. I’ll wake early; greeting the morning dew on the grass with my flip-flops and listen to the birds call and sing while I quench the thirst of the plants in the greenhouse and garden. Then when it gets to be too much, I will slink back into the respite of the air conditioning by 11:30 on those days admitting defeat. With raised beds, the watering schedule will increase to twice daily on those days, also.

Got Weeds?

Call it defeat, or call it the way of nature, taking the spent lettuce plants out of the raised beds might feel like giving in, but I prefer to consider it moving through. In my beginning days of growing food I had a hard time with any seedling that was tossed aside – I wanted to save them all – and the same for the beds of lettuce. Since it is only just a few days from the end of July, I’ll count my blessings that the lettuce lasted as long as it did without bolting to seed.


It’s time to plan for the fall crops. Actually, I feel a bit tardy as I’m about 3 weeks behind schedule for starting seeds. That’s okay, I’m late nearly everywhere I go, so why not late to the greenhouse too? The list of crops I want to grow for the latter half of this year is lengthy; kale, collards, Swiss chard, kohlrabi, broccoli & rabe, cauliflower, carrots, radishes, onions and on. Some will go into the raised beds and most will be tried in the greenhouse.


This summer’s weather has been unpredictable. Life can be that way also. What we need to do is learn to adapt and overcome. Those two words may not bring success; however, they will bring lessons for the next season.

Aspire to inspire, not just make a living.....

That is what I’m keeping my eyes on at this point; the next season. It’s too late to un-do what has been done here in regards to crop failures. It’s time to accept the lull of July and go with nature’s dictation.

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished” Lau Tzu