What's in store for 2012....

Hi everyone and welcome to a brand new growing season!  We're excited to be gearing up for our third year, and looking back, it's incredible how far SEEDS Farm has come in the past couple of years.  For starters, last year we built a 30'x60' greenhouse and a glorious root cellar. Both of these structures will be incredibly useful this year for starting our season with seeds in the greenhouse to extending the season with long-term storage for our root vegetables.

Well, for starters, I'm Monica, the new Farm Manager this season, and I am very excited to get the season rolling.  I come to the farm with experience running my own farm, managing a farmers market, and as an education and community activist.  We've already hired a wonderful family as our full-time employees, the Riley's with husband John, wife Jena, and two wonderful children, Matthew and Jane.  We have a crew of three interns from St. Olaf for the spring semester: Gabe, Lara, and Melina and a crew of three farm mentees from Carleton College: Anna, Sara, and Sophie.  It's been a blast getting to know everyone that's involved with the farm this season, the more the merrier!

This season we'll continue to share our land with the Rural Enterprise Center's, "Agripreneur Training Center", it's a wonderful non-profit that is focused on creating economic opportunities for rural Latino families.  You can learn more about their approach and their "Grow a Farmer" program here.


We are also excited to be sharing our land with a new farm, Laughing Loon Farm, that is run by farmer Dayna Burtness.  LLF grows wonderful vegetables that are sold at many restaurants in and around the Twin Cities, you can learn more about the farm here.

SEEDS Farm this season will be farming approximately 3 acres of tasty sustainably grown vegetables as well as raising some pigs and 50 laying hens.  We will be selling most of our produce to Bon Appetit which serves St. Olaf and Carleton Colleges and will also have a Market Stand on-site at the farm.  This year we'll continue to grow our Communal Farmer program, so every week many individuals and families will be logging work hours on the farm with the wonderful return of fresh picked good food.  There will also be some community garden plots, 20 of these plots are folks coming over from Faith Gardens, a community garden run by the Community Action Center.  Oh, and we're establishing a beautiful "Children's Garden" and are excited to extend our outreach and education opportunities for students of all ages (including us adults, one can never stop learning!).  And so so so much more... !

We've started our seeds, the onions are growing strong and eggplants and broccoli raab have just germinated.  This season's been unseasonably warm, it's wet outside right now, but as soon as we get a short dry spell we'll be out in the field planting some cool season crops already, these are our peas, radishes, spinach, kale, etc.

Seeds started in the greenhouse this season (mid-March)

So, come on down to the SEEDS Farm anytime!  And you can always reach me at our email, seedsfarm@gmail.com, please drop a line with any questions or thoughts/ideas or just to say "Hi".

The FROST

So tonight is the first frost of the season. It came quite early, Sept. 14. Average for this region is beginning of October! A visitor this summer said to us 'may the frost come late enough so that you may reap the benefits of your labor, but soon enough so that you do not work yourselves too hard.' Well, I believe it's come a bit too soon!

We harvested in a frenzy today, picking all the crops that will not survive a light frost such as celery, eggplant, peppers, basil, cucumbers, tomatoes, melons and squash. The rest of the crops should be able to tolerate tonights frost. The tomatoes...now, they're another story! We decided to make a quick run up to Jordan's Seeds to get some Floating Row Cover to put over the remaining green tomatoes. This will give us an extra 5 degrees of protection, hopefully enough for tonight. The green tomatoes should have a good chance of ripening with the sun predicted for next week.

In other news, last Thursday we had over 30 Carleton Footbal volunteers! You should have seen the field before and after-they made a HUGE dent in the weeds. You may ask, why weed now? The answer is because we do not want the weed seed in the soil for next season. Pigweed, the most prevalent weed at the farm, can stay viable for 20 years! Also worth noting is we delivered our first batch of fresh produce to the public schools as part of the Farm to School federal program. We are excited to be able to deliver fresh, healthy produce to Northfields kids.

We recognize it has been too long since our last post. This is because we have been very busy out at the farm building the root cellar, harvesting the summers bounty, and continuing working on the greenhouse. We are sorry for keeping you in the dark!

Below are some recent pictures of life at the farm:

Melons for St. Olaf

The watermelon cracked in the field, we just had to eat it

Harvesting carrots

I'm not sure if the goats like the hat or Abby better

Black cherry tomatoes

What do I do with all the veggies?!?! One pot meal

Many people ask me what I do with all the veggie-especially after a long day working and you want something quick and simple. Well, here's my idea of a quick, easy, and absolutely scrumptious meal-all in one pot!

After heading out to the farm, I come back with the bounty (above). Kale, eggs, corn, beets, zucchini, summer squash, potatoes, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, herbs.

I chop up those that take longest to cook and throw them in the pot first with some olive oil-potatoes and squash. Then I'll throw in the onions and kale as I finish chopping them.

I carefully chop the rest of the produce, taking care to avoid the cabbage loopers! An easy way to get htese out of the broccoli is to soak your head in cold, salty water. They'll float to the top in minutes

Can't forget the herbs! I chop up rosemary, oregany, thyme, sage, and basil (not all pictured...)

When the veggis are done, I move them to a side and throw the eggs on the other. Once they're done being scrambled, I'll mix it all together

Okay, I liked, one pot and one pan. I chop up the beets, cauliflower and broccoli to be roasted together. It just takes 5-7 minutes under the broiler. I like my roasted veggies sprinkled with goat cheese from our goats!

Can't forget the corn on the cob.

Eating this feast with a good friend...life can't get much better.

And dishes are a breeze!

Root cellar progress

Today the footings were poured! Below are pictures.

Right as we took the last transit reading, the cement truck rolled in. We got it done just in time...

The step footings proved difficult, but with the vertical column we were able to overcome the frost line under the exposed door!

And here comes the cement. We were able to direct the cement chute to the majority of the area, though had to shovel a lot of cement into the places the chute would not reach.

We will be ready for the class on Saturday when we will build the walls.

Building the footings

The footings will be poured tomorrow. Today we worked on building the frames for the footings.

Step footer

Happy farmers!

Pictures as promised

The big hole...it looks bigger in person, I promise

We had a visitor today-neighbor down the road

And the root cellar begins...

The hole was dug today by Kluzak Excavating for the root cellar! The hole is 12x18x9 with a walkout section/door. While we were standing on the ground before the hole was dug looking at the dimensions, it felt small. But standing in the hole...holy cow does it seem big! We are excited to continue construction. Next up, footings!

We will post pictures soon.
The root cellar construction is part of the following class:

Build a Root Cellar with the SEEDS Farm August 20th 10am-5pm

Interested in learning about root cellars? How about building your own root cellar? Join the SEEDS (Social Entrepreneurship, Environmental Design and Stewardship) Team in building a root cellar on their farm site! Learn about the benefits of root cellars, such as saving energy and extending the shelf life of local produce, while participating in the step-by-step building process. Work alongside local farmers and community members. The cellar will help to supply Northfield and the Food Shelf with local produce throughout the winter and has the potential to change the way our foodshed operates.

For more information and to register, call 507-581-9453. Lunch and snacks provided by SEEDS Farm. This class is not a Co-op event, but is sponsored solely by the SEEDS Farm.

Directions: Take Hwy 246 (Division St.) south. Just past the intersection of County Rd 1, take a right on Falk Trail (County 22).  Turn left on 115th St. and the Training Farm is on the right. The address is 6903 115th St. E.