Our Aussie farmer friend and past boss Rod May sent us an email last night entitled “Midwest Renaissance.” I noticed the email while sitting in between the pepper and tomato beds taking photos, listening to Pandora and watching yet another breathtaking sunset. Jonathon was fixing some drip tape on our beds and beds of corn and melons and asked me to read it to him.
Rod mentioned the recent Mother Jones article from Tom Philpott “Will California’s Drought Bring About $7 Broccoli?” and joked that “things are looking up for the midwest veggie farmer!” We smiled and reminisced a bit, but I couldn’t help but think there was something ironic about standing in the middle of my own veggie patch reading well wishes and support from the guy who arguably put thoughts of Forager Farm in our head in the first place, just one year ago.
As frustrated as we can get or as tired as we may be at the end of the day, it’s moments like that which make it clear we’re right where we’re supposed to be. It wasn’t the best spring for our first season, but we’ve managed. Since spring was a bit later all of our planting, transplanting, etc was pushed back a bit.
While walking up and down the rows and checking all the young plants I realized just how close we are to having all of our land accounted for. We have a few beds left to make to direct sow and transplant, but for the most part almost everything is in the ground. Which means we are welcoming the rainy weather today to soak in our seeds and transplants and get them growing.
A lot of the past few weeks have been spent setting up our irrigation system with drip tape for the time we don’t get rain, but rain is always best.
Just over a week ago we welcomed Tullah’s three new baby girls to the farm – Clover, Mae and Frieda. You’ve probably noticed photos on Facebook or Instagram, but I’ve really tried to refrain from flooding our sites with baby goat pictures.
So I assure you that although our communications have been infrequent and have left you wondering how things are going, things are going great! We’re getting so excited for our first week and to really get this season rolling. Starting now we’ll be posting more blogs and social media as well as our weekly newsletter email. So please keep a lookout in your inbox for communications from us going forward.
Until then, enjoy some photos from around the farm here…
Phyllis says
Looks great! What a lot of dedication, perseverance, and love!! Can’t wait for delivery 🙂