Hello, friends!

What a chilly week it’s been. The few flowers remaining in our tunnels and fields are now dead, and it looks like quite a few of our veggies took a hit as well. Such is the nature of farming in the cold months. This was our last week with a full crew, so we’ve attempted to wrap up some of the more tedious projects around the farm in addition to continuing to harvest produce and make lots of wreaths. There’s still quite a bit of work to do before we can wrap up the season, but we’ve also been able to slow down and begin thinking about what next year will look like.

As we wrap up each year, we spend a lot of time reviewing our growing season and planning for the next. We try to hop on planning as soon as possible, so that our memories of the year are fresh and easy to consider. We look through the entire crop plan from the last year, and talk about each item, asking lots of questions as we go. Does the crop as a whole work for us? Should we try a new color, or cut something out? Should we time our succession plantings differently, or try a new spacing? For each crop, we take note of all of these considerations, and then we try to fit everything into our crop plan and field map. Throughout the winter, we spend a lot of time assessing what crops to add to the farm, how to manage crop rotations, and how to fit everything we want to grow into the plan for our small farm. It’s always a puzzle, but the process is crucial to the coming year’s success, and it’s a great joy to do it well!

Perhaps the most exciting thing to happen this week was the arrival of five goat visitors to the farm! We’ll be hosting these goats for the winter so that they can do some farm cleanup. Goats do a great job of grazing on brambles and overgrown vin… — Perhaps the most exciting thing to happen this week was the arrival of five goat visitors to the farm! We’ll be hosting these goats for the winter so that they can do some farm cleanup. Goats do a great job of grazing on brambles and overgrown vines, and so we’ll let them do some weed-whacking for us in areas of the farm that are historically challenging to manage for us humans.

It may not look like much now, but we dug 1/3 of our dahlia tubers this week and got the remainder of them tucked in under a foot of mulch, where they’ll overwinter. We’ll cover the mulch layer with silage tarps, and this should keep them warm and … — It may not look like much now, but we dug 1/3 of our dahlia tubers this week and got the remainder of them tucked in under a foot of mulch, where they’ll overwinter. We’ll cover the mulch layer with silage tarps, and this should keep them warm and dry enough to give us a good crop next year! We’ll use the tubers we dug to fill in any holes in the crop, and for next year’s tuber sales.

We’re still accepting preorders for wreaths! We are in the process of uploading photos of all of the wreaths we make so that you can place orders for specific wreaths in our online store, or if you prefer, you can still place an order and receive a… — We’re still accepting preorders for wreaths! We are in the process of uploading photos of all of the wreaths we make so that you can place orders for specific wreaths in our online store, or if you prefer, you can still place an order and receive a wreath of our choosing! We’re just getting started adding wreath to the store, so stay tuned for a lot more in the next few days. Place your wreath order here.

Here’s where you can find us this weekend:

November 22nd, 8:00 am - 11:00 am: Johnny’s

We’ll be at market with broccoli, butternut squash, chard, collard greens, hakurei turnips, kale, lettuce mix, spinach, sweet potatoes, watermelon radishes, wreaths, and eucalyptus bunches.

Please note, we will not be at Johnny’s the week of November 29th!

Wishing you good health and happiness,

Amelia and the rest of the Two Boots Farm crew

Winding Down