this week at market {april 14}
Hello from Pitchfork & Crow ~
We’re harvesting for the Salem Saturday Market! Here’s a selection of what we’ll be bringing to market:
- Cabbage (overwintered red and red/green savoy)
- Celeriac
- Collards
- Cooking Greens
- Garlic (slightly sprouting, but still tasty!)
- Italian Dandelion Chicory Bunches
- Kale Bunches
- Potatoes (German Butterball & Fingerlings)
- Rapini (Brussels Sprout, Kale, Red Cabbage)
- Rutabagas (aka Huge-abagas!)
- Spring Salad Mix (Chicory based)
- Sunchokes (aka Jerusalem Artichokes)
Many thanks to everyone who made it out last weekend for the opening day of the Salem Saturday Market! We appreciate your continued support, and that fabulous weather didn’t hurt anything I think. Hopefully you’ll be joining us for another week of seasonal veggies tomorrow!
Our week has been a busy one, as they tend to be in the spring. Jeff has been gathering the last of our major supplies for the growing season. This past week we purchased enough irrigation pipe to more than double our current supply. More pipe means less time moving pipe this summer, which we’re both looking forward to. We also had 7 tons of organic fertilizer delivered to the farm, and next week (assuming the weather cooperates) we’re hoping for a lime delivery. These two additions will certainly result in happier vegetables for you!
This week we also spoke to farmers taking the OSU Extension’s Growing Farms course. We had fun sharing our three+ year adventure with other folks interested in farming. And it was especially exciting for us because we took the same course back in 2009 which prompted us to rent that first acre outside of Stayton. Things have changed somewhat since that first year, but I realized during our presentation that we’ve been lucky enough to have some of our same Market customers for four market seasons! Thanks for sticking with us and we hope to see you soon!
We hope to see you Saturday sometime between 9am and 3pm. You can find us at the Salem Saturday Market near the intersection of Winter and Union streets in downtown Salem.
Thanks!
Carri Heisler and Jeff Bramlett
this week at market {april 7}
Hello from Pitchfork & Crow ~
We’re harvesting for the first Salem Saturday Market of 2012! Here’s a selection of what we’ll be bringing to market:
- Arugula
- Broccoli
- Cabbage (overwintered red and red/green savoy)
- Celeriac
- Collards
- Cooking Greens
- Garlic
- Kale Bunches
- Potatoes (German Butterball & Fingerlings)
- Purple Cape Cauliflower
- Rapini (Arugula, Brussels Sprout, Kale, Kohlrabi!)
- Rutabagas
- Spring Salad Mix
- Sunchokes (aka Jerusalem Artichokes)
It’s the first weekend in April and we’re excited to celebrate the re-opening of the Salem Saturday Market! Thanks to a mild winter and good on-farm storage, our booth will be stocked with a nice selection of storage crops and overwintered veggies. This is the time to enjoy the tasty spring shoots of the overwintered brassicas and we’ll have Brussels sprout, kohlrabi, and kale rapini tomorrow! We’ll also be sharing frost-sweetened collard, cabbage, and kale greens and are happy to be bringing some staple root crops including sunchokes and potatoes.
The start of the market season makes it official: the 2012 growing season is upon us. We’ve been preparing for months and now we’re ready to get back to growing vegetables and seeing you at the Market each week. Check out this post for an update on our winter fun. You can also read about us in an article in the Salem Weekly this week! It’s fun to see our little red tractor featured there. We appreciate the support of our local community and look forward to another fantastic growing season!
We hope to see you Saturday sometime between 9am and 3pm. You can find us at the Salem Saturday Market near the intersection of Winter and Union streets in downtown Salem.
Thanks!
Carri Heisler and Jeff Bramlett
field notes: march 11
Here we are in March, well on our way towards full-blown Spring! Can you believe we’ve made it through the darkest days once again?! Our winter break was filled with planning for the upcoming season. We poured over the seed catalogs, discussed seed varieties and crop successions, and calculated our lime and compost needs for the fields. We also attended a couple of good farming conferences where we had the opportunity to meet up with other farmers and hear their thoughts on common issues. It’s always fun to hear how other folks tackle a problem. Farmers are resourceful people!
Our winter months were also filled with farm paperwork. We updated our organic certification paperwork with Oregon Tilth, worked on our business plan, and filed the necessary records with the Farm Service Agency for help in buying the farm we are currently leasing. Our initial meeting with the FSA went well (they didn’t think we were crazy!) and we’re hoping to make some progress on that front over the next several months.
At the farm we’ve already begun sowing seeds and monitoring germination rates. Our first rounds of lettuce and onions are popping up and the cherry tomatoes have surfaced too. We’ve also begun directly seeding into our field houses. Radishes and carrots are on the way! Thanks to a fairly mild winter we had success with our overwintered crops too. Winter cabbages! Purple cauliflower! Winter is an exciting time out there in the fields.
The field work is starting to ramp up, the propagation house is once again filling up with flats of baby plants, the growing season is upon us. The 2012 CSA is also filling up. Many thanks to folks who have signed on early to save your spot. We appreciate your support and are planning for a fantastic season of organic vegetables for you! There is still some space in the CSA, if you’d like to join us for another adventurous journey!
CSA 2012
Hello from Pitchfork & Crow!
We’re ready to begin accepting members for the third season of the Pitchfork & Crow CSA program! CSA’s are supported by community members who pre-pay for a weekly share of the farm harvest. The Pitchfork & Crow 2012 CSA season will last 28 weeks, from May 22nd thru November 27th, and cost $620. In exchange for joining, members will receive a weekly share of fresh, local, organic vegetables and a weekly newsletter updating members on what’s in the share, what’s happening on the farm, and recipe suggestions. Plus members will get to visit the farm at our three on-farm open houses!
Further CSA details can be found on the CSA page. If you decide to join the CSA, you’ve got two options for signing up! Either sign-up online using our handy web form or download the CSA Commitment Form and either mail it to us or sign it, scan it and e-mail it back. Note that no payment is due at this time and all members will receive an invoice in early January.
We will also be returning to the Salem Saturday Market in May 2012. If you choose not to join the CSA we hope to see you at the Market!
Thanks,
Jeff Bramlett and Carri Heisler
field notes: december 6
Hey, it’s cold outside! December has really decided to bring the wintry weather and though it’s been fairly dry we’ve been fully aware of the icy, frosty goodness that is the out-of-doors these days. We’re finding more inside work to do, but trying to enjoy the dry weather as much as possible too.
Jeff has been seeing to tasks that quickly move to the bottom of the priority list during the growing season. The barn is neatly organized, tools have been put in their proper place, and field supplies have been rescued from a long, wet season in the field. He’s also been in his own “Farmall 101″, learning all about the finer points of our little cultivating tractor. We purchased this tractor in the spring and put it to use right away weeding, marking beds, and planting and eventually digging potatoes. Having only done minimal maintenance during the summer and fall, he’s happy to have a little extra time to spend tracking down spark plugs and air filters and to tinker with the internal workings of the machine.
Soon we’ll begin our crop planning for next year. The seed catalogs have begun to arrive in our mailbox and I can’t help but begin pouring through them, looking for sources of our now-favorite vegetable varieties and finding new varieties to try out. Long, cold nights provide the perfect excuse to snuggle up with a cup of hot tea and a stack of seed catalogs! Before too long we’ll be gearing up for spring planting and the push towards next summer, so we’re trying to enjoy the slow time as much as possible.
Finally, we’ll be posting CSA program information for the 2012 season soon, so watch for details!
Carri & Jeff
