Vegetable Seeds – Page 4

Weather Update…It’s Still Cold!

Well it’s still freezing here in Oregon on the farm. We did get a little insulation for the crops in the form of snow, but not sure it’s enough to make a difference.

I get a lot of questions about what this will do to our crops. So far I’m really only worried about our vegetable seed crops that were planted in the fall. We have both cabbage & swiss chard that is still pretty small and not looking too happy with this cold weather. I am told not to worry too much until 12 degrees, we have gotten down to 14 so far, hopefully that is the lowest we get!

This is a photo of some of our younger hazelnut trees. These trees pollinate in the winter, however not when it’s this cold!

Just another reason why being a farmer is truly so risky, no one can control the weather, and no one can tell you what is going to happen. Would we have changed our planting schedule last fall if we had known this was going to happen…probably so! But once again (I feel like I say this a lot) that’s farming!

Yukon sums up how we all feel about all this cold weather & snow pretty well…we know how you feel old dog…and we are right there with ya!

Happy Friday folks and stay warm!

Harvest Excited, Harvest Tired

I finally sat down and took a deep breath today. We are in the heart of harvest here and there’s a part of me that thrives on all that we accomplish in a day. And there’s a part of me that’s just exhausted and wishes I could sleep for days. I am harvest excited and I am harvest tired.

Catching a quick lunch in the shade of our seed truck.

There’s a part of me that sees harvest as dragging on forever then there’s a part of me that laughs at that part because we aren’t even close to being done. There’s a part of me that gets so excited with good yields and very frustrated with fields that aren’t producing. Because for us, this is it, this is when it all either happens or doesn’t for our whole year.

A very rough, very awful cabbage field….wondering where the crop is? So were we unfortunately.

Harvest has been long, long days, long nights. Days filled with paperwork that still has to get finished, bills that still need to be paid. Logistics of who goes where and what needs to get done, what fields to irrigate, what fields to harvest…a constant triage of priorities. Then evening comes, the boys in tow, and dinners and family time out in the field. Which moves us straight into nights of infant cries, and the many needs of a toddler at 3am. We are smiling, because that crazy spirit in us, that now 4 generations of harvest, heat, dust and dirt…we just can’t shake it.

And the truth is, I already know I’ll be sitting in the same pickup, watching the same beautiful sunset next year, looking forward to the harvest on the horizon. I am continually excited at the potential, and feeling of a years worth of hard work, just hoping it all pays off. This farming thing, it isn’t easy, it’s tough on levels that you put your heart and soul into. It’s something that maybe only a farmer understands and only a farmer would sign up for. It’s our life though, at times it’s beautiful, at times hard…but either way here we go again for another day!

Crop Farm Tour

Here in Oregon, we grow over 250 different crops. So it’s no wonder that in our soil this year we have 10 different crops growing. And while in the next three months they will all get harvested, currently everything is at all different stages. Some crops are just getting planted, some starting to flower, some are pollinating, and others are already ready to be harvested!

So here is your photo tour of our farm and the 10 crops we are raising.

First stop the grasses, both perennial and tall fescue are grown on our farm.