A few weeks ago was Emily’s birthday. To celebrate, we held a party out at the farm. It was a sortof double-header; the inaugural event of the farm and the first time that many of our guests had ever been out to the property. It was fun to bring together the variety of friends we’ve met over the past year, enjoy a meal with them, and celebrate the coming of fall. The potluck barbecue format brought in seasoned squash, a pair of fresh-caught salmon fillets, cupcakes, and a pile of vegetables.
Ginger’s blender, plugged into her generator, provided blackberry jargaritas for everyone (they are “jar”-garitas when made in Ball canning jars). When you get a bunch of hippie farmers and foodies together, there is often to much food to be eaten, but it’s tasty enough that you’re never lacking for volunteers to take it home.
It was nice to see our farm through fresh eyes, and it really helped us to appreciate how much work we’ve accomplished. In less than a year, we went from a bramble-covered hillside to a working (albeit small) farm, producing a wide range of stuff. Here’s a picture of some of last Friday’s harvest. That’s just over 50 pounds of veggies this week. We are expecting a lot more in the next week or two, including things like corn and pumpkins as they come in. We’re about a month behind where we’d like to be. Part of that is the strange weather we’re having this summer, but lack of a greenhouse is also to blame. I’d like to get one in before next year, to get that extra month jump on the growing season, especially for things like tomatoes and peppers. We have hundreds of tomatoes hanging on the vines right now, but they are all green, and it will be a big race to see if we can get them ripe before winter descends.
We’ve also been busy at the farmers’ markets, in both Tillamook and Manzanita. We’re selling a token amount of produce, but I’m not really concerned with the dollar amount this year, as the main point right now is to capture data on production rates per square foot and growing times. Next year, we’re going to have stands at both. A more exciting development, though, is that a few local area restaurants have approached us about growing product for them next season. One of this winter’s projects is to get orders from them, and knock on doors to find more customers.
