Tag: food

One Task at a Time

August 11, 2025

I know what I need to do, we all do. Focus.

But too often we find ourselves stringing together long series of tasks, or, one favorite, doing two to three tasks at the same time, all of them badly. I know that do simply get things done that it’s best to focus on one task at a time and I’m way better than when I started this farm experiment, but I still find myself doing this multitask thing and actually accomplishing nothing.

Just yesterday I felt motivated and put a bunch of things in motion: planting fall brassicas, weed the herbs in the front field, set a trellis for the peas, fix the mower, and harvest for the CSA box. How did I do? Well…2 flats of brassicas planted (two trays still sit in the field), herbs 5% weeded, 6 posts sit next to the peas, and the mower is disassembled now awaiting my attention. But, hey, I did get the cherry tomatoes, carrots, and half the beets harvested for the box!

Maybe if a person lights many fires, stuff will get done, but too many days of too many tasks is a recipe for lots of activity but few things off the to-do list. I know. I’ve been doing it for 20+ years. The best of days, however, are ones where I methodically work through the morning to-do list. Check, check, check. Love that feeling at the end of the day.

So, if this resonates with your own work in finance, HR, or education, just know that the struggles are the same here in farming. Here’s to better work plans, and I wish us all a complete to-do list this Monday.

In the box:

  • Sweet Corn: Yeh! This is a variety called Allure.
  • Cherry Tomatoes
  • Beets
  • Carrots
  • Butterhead Lettuce
  • Garlic
  • Onions
  • A Green and Purple Pepper

Slow Pouty Plants

August 5, 2025

“Where’s the sweet corn?” After being asked the fourteenth time at the farmers market on Friday, I had to admit to myself that plants are running late. Today is August 4th and I’d estimate that we have always had corn in the box by the beginning of August.

So what’s going on? Seems like we’ve had hot days, right? Yes, but think about the nights lately. Out after dark on Saturday night, it felt downright cold and I wore a jacket harvesting yesterday – on August 3rd! We certainly had a little hot streak in July that caused all those weeds to jump up a foot in height, but we’ve also certainly had a number of rainy cool stretches mixed in too. So I think the number of growing degree days is starting to catch up to us and we’re seeing the affects on slow development of heat-loving crops like corn and melons.

But, have no fear. Those ears on on the stalks and the plants are looking good! Melons are vined out well, fruit has been setting well on tomatoes, and, hey, we did finally get a pepper and cherry tomatoes in the box. As for the mid-season beans, I can’t blame the temperatures, but I do think my dog Miso bears some responsibility because deer keep eating the tops off. This never happened when Argo was alive and patrolling the wire.

In the box:

  • Cherry Tomatoes
  • A Couple Green Peppers
  • Sweet Onion
  • Red Potatoes: Maybe the most boring thing for a recipe, but I pretty much make a hash everyday…https://www.thecomfortofcooking.com/2012/09/potato-hash-with-bell-peppers-and-onions.html
  • Carrots
  • Bok Choy: I know this is a head-scratcher for many and it’s the third time in the box (these things just grow extremely well this year). Here’s a bunch of ideas: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/photos/bok-choy-recipes
  • Mini Romaine Lettuces: Most people have 2 mini-heads, but a few had to receive an oakleaf lettuce.
  • Fresh Garlic: This is fresh out of the ground today, so fresh and not cured yet. You’ll see the wrappers around the cloves are not papery/dry. Fine to use just as it is, but you can certainly let dry down. Just leave a in dry, sunny location in your kitchen for 5 days or so.
  • Sprig of Basil: Would pair well with these cherry tomatoes and maybe a cuke from last week.
  • Flat-Leaf Parsley: Dark green bunch with red band.

Involving Others

July 7, 2025

When I started this farm in 2004, I had all intentions of pushing the whole thing along with just my back and good pair of Red Wing Boots. A typical ambitious dude in his 20’s who has energy to burn. I had no intention of working with others or needing the help of others. But, this work being what it is-lots of detailed labor that takes a lot of time-that’s a near impossibility. I certainly never saw myself as ‘the boss’ or ‘the supervisor’ of anyone.

But we age and our energy and ambition wane. Without fresh troops the army just slowly falls apart. But I’ve been blessed these last 20 years with a lot of people in my life who do jump in and take on some effort. We’ve hosted an apprentice each year since 2014 and I’ve done my best to get my own kids engaged in the farm – some days are more successful than others. And when multiple tracks of work are running with multiple people at once, it’s an incredible feeling.

Yesterday I had this feeling like the farm was hitting on a cylinders. Camila was working the pack house to prepare the green onions and cukes for today’s box, Willem was building the lean-to roof, and Graham was pushing stakes in the ground for the tomato trellis. My role was to bounce between them all to help start them and move each project along. Now let’s see if we can finish what we started and hopefully repeat some all-hands-on-deck days this month as it’s clear that the number of tasks is outstripping the capacity of me and Camila to take them all on. Typical for this time of year.

In the box:

  • Green Cabbage
  • Kohlrabi: Weird bulb thing – peel, cut, eat, simple.
  • A Couple Cucumbers: We have both varieties now ready in the high tunnel. The really wrinkly one is an English-type cucumber called Tyria. The other is a long variety called Tasty Jade.
  • A Couple Zucchini
  • A Couple Lettuces: One is a beautiful green butterhead lettuce and the other is a red lollo variety for some color.
  • Green Onions
  • A Bunch of Arugula: Bunch of greens with a red band. You can mix in with the lettuce and cukes in a salad or have on its own like in https://www.loveandlemons.com/arugula-salad/ People also top pizzas with arugula and add to pasta.
  • Daikon Radish: This is pretty mild radish which you can peel and eat just as you would any old red radish. But it’s also very common in Asian cooking like in this pickled Korean recipe: https://urbanfarmie.com/korean-pickled-radish/

New Season New Energy

June 23, 2025

Well, season 21, here we go!

Our lives unfold each year with different color and energy and each farm season is no different with different weather, issues, and crew. For the beginning of the season, we had Gen Z Farm going on with the Sylvia and Camila show (both 20 years old) until Sylvia went to Ann Arbor to study biostats. With this much youthful labor we were keeping up on things even as the weather was throwing us some curveballs – 90 degree heat and dry in May, followed by 34 degrees and wet. Some crops were casualties, but others did awesome. All told, I’m feeling great about the state of the farm as of mid June.

We also try new things each year. This year I went deep into changing up the production system to permanent raised beds in our two oldest fields.

For the last 6-8 years we’ve been moving towards more intensive plantings of crops on smaller 30-inch beds in contrast to a typical 60-inch bed made with a tractor. Although the effort is great on the front end to built up these beds, the end result is beautiful. Each bed is easier to handle, really productive, and standardized so irrigation and covers planted really intensively and producing well. The big thing is we’re focusing our energy on these small intensive plots instead of a larger space and things are going well. I’m sure I’ll recap the experiment as we move through summer, but right now it’s looking good:

In the box:

  • 2 Bok Choy: We made a great rice noodle dish just a couple days ago which used bok choy. An example is at https://choosingchia.com/15-minute-sesame-ginger-noodles/ but I just made one up. Sautee the stalk together with an onion, add the leafy part after the onion and stalk soften just before the sauce (mix of rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, hot sauce, with a T of corn starch or a person could just use a pre-mixed sauce like Bachans). Top this over the prepared and drained noodles, mix, and serve.
  • Basil
  • Garlic Scapes: The bunch of long curly things. Wherever you would use fresh garlic, use scapes. They are a bit more mild than garlic cloves.
  • 2 Big Beets: These greens are about as good as beet greens get, so you can certainly put into a salad, smoothie, or saute
  • Green Leaf Lettuce: This is just straight-up lettuce – pretty delicate with good nutty flavor grown in the high tunnel.
  • Salad Mix: A mix of lettuce colors and varieties in the produce bag.
  • 2 Radish Bunches
  • Swiss Chard: The rhubarb-looking stuff for those of you not familiar with chard. Taste just like beet greens. One idea I do most mornings this time of year is to saute with those garlic scapes and top your morning eggs or fold into an omlette.
  • Kale: Standard curly variety called Winterbor. Can be used fresh or cooked.
  • Fresh Mint: Mojito anyone?
  • Fresh Terragon: Pairs nicely with chicken – think Mediterranean French cooking 🙂

Abundance Sells

September 23, 2024

A long time ago, I stepped away from our farmers market stall towards the end of the market, looked back, and thought, I wouldn’t shop at that stand! On the table sat something like one last pint of cherry tomatoes, a bunch of radishes, and two misshapen cucumbers. It was a sad sight, but also explained the adage I learned from a wise greengrocer at Mississippi Market Co-op in St. Paul where I worked for three years, “People eat with their eyes.”

It’s so true. Even if the three items left over on a market table are good, it doesn’t matter. We as humans are attracted to abundance. Whether the piles of turmeric that caught our eyes when Mar and I visited the spice market in Istanbul or the two stories of toilet paper that reel customers into Costco all day long, the attraction is the same. It’s built into our DNA as mammals who scoured a world of scarcity for millennia to feed ourselves.

That’s why my most popular posts of all time are simply piles of produce. One of favorites from years ago was when my apprentice Sarah and I jammed my Honda Fit to the brim with red peppers like it was some kind of circus act. But pet plus abundance works, so does people plus abundance or pickups weighted down with so much squash that the suspension is strained – you get the idea.

In the box: