Humble Pie Farm

Good week to you dear friends of HPF! Hope you're having a lovely one. Our first CSA deliveries went out yesterday and we're beginning to deliver to all you. We're trying to be wise and not over-commit, even though we'd love to offer flowers all around if we could. Thanks for being patient.

We're rehabbing land that's been in conventional production for years; sprayed with chemical fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides, and it's proving to be challenging in some areas. Residual herbicides may be an issue, and weed seed banks, fungi and disease that were previously managed with chemicals are rearing their heads. We need to farm this land to pay our mortgage, and so don't have the luxury of resting the soil in a cover crop for a year or two to build health and organic matter. We just have to feed the soil with the organic inputs we have, foliar feed our plants with fish emulsion and hope for the best. Managing all this, and farming in a completely new location with somewhat erratic weather and wind, we're having a wild ride. 

This is where it becomes so important and meaningful to support beginning small family farms. The statistics don't point in our favor; between 2007 and 2012 the number of farmers in the U.S. with 5 years or less went down almost 24%. Those with ten years under their belts fared a little better. We have a lot of farming experience prior to buying our own land, and knew what we were getting into. But the variables (weather, soil, etc) are killer, and our stress-level is high. Our markets that we can count on make all the difference. Thank you for that!

Here's a glance at the farm this week. Everything is on the brink of bloom. It's exciting to see all these lovely blooms in our new beds.

 Strawflower coming on

Larkspur too

 And sunnies of course

 Cerinthe

 Heirloom dianthus

 Amazon dianthus

 New harvest queen Sarma

 Lilies getting ready

And the infrastructure is somewhat functional...

 The compost bin and hydrant

 Inevitable coffee cup, tricycle and bucket drying station

A little oil for the delivery van

 Not-yet hung order whiteboard

Airing up the gator tires, nevermind it has no battery

We're glad to be your family of flower and food farmers. No matter what the ultimate outcome of this whole endeavor, we're glad of that, and grateful to be putting in our hands in this dirt. The honey bees, bumblebees and hummingbirds are making more and more appearances, and we think they like us around too.

Breathe deep and be well,

J,M+E