We’ve got farm hands.

So, you may ask yourself, what’s all this hard work about, what’s been going on on the farm? Well, we’ve been very busy pulling up our Thai purple and China Stripe garlic. These are the earliest stiffneck garlic varieties we have. They are currently strung up and drying out -sounds like they’ve been on a binge- curing for longer storage. We have about 12 more varieties of garlic to go, so we’ve only just begun. We’ve also pulled up our onions, just in time, right before the rains. These are big vidallia type onions, so sweet and tasty.

Some of our early Spring crops are just finishing up, like our spinach, arugula, radishes, and turnips, so we are gearing up to cover crop these beds for the summertime. We are using a variety of cover crops this season- velvet bean, buckwheat, cow peas, and sudan grass, building up the soil again for next season. Now that we are nearing the end of Spring, our summer crops are finally taking off. Soon there will be cherry tomatoes, basil, lima beans, peppers, and eggplant to name a few. And with the rain comes the weeds…we’ve devoted more hours than I care to remember to pulling up these little buggers.  

And, I am not alone, because we have many farm hands that are with us each week, keeping us company, working hand in hand with us, creating their own mysterious grooves of dirt.  We are thankful for these persistent volunteers. We can’t shake them, no mater what kind of grueling task we put them on. Thanks to Jim, Todd, Will, Molly, Sophie, Laura, Carmen, Lily, Ellen, Wallace, Chad, and Claire for coming out and sweating with us. Many, many hands have worked this land over the years. I am thankful for our wonderful community of supporters and for all of those willing to lend a helping hand.  

Spring is also the most favorable time to begin the cycle of life. A constant stream of weekly rains have given our seedlings a gentle nod of encouragement as they begin to stretch their land legs. Carrots, turnips, radishes, peas, and beets have decided the weather is just right for them. The lettuces, asparagus, pac choi, yukina, napa cabbage have also decided they better take advantage of the good weather. The blueberries and apples are loaded with flowers and bees and the fig trees have the cutest little figs on them. There is hope in their infinite beauty and youth, with their lives laid out before us.  

This year, Full Moon Farm also has many of its own hopes and dreams. For the first time, the Farm will be venturing into the public eye at the Athens Farmers Market. We are looking forward to sharing our excitement with everyone about what is growing on the farm. We hope to see you there and hope you will stop and say hello and have a chat about the weather. As always we are ever so hopeful for a bountiful season full of hard work, good times and beautiful vegetables. Thanks to our CSA members and our friends at Farm 255 we’ve had a great start to our season.

So with this great season of hope before us I would encourage you to take advantage of each day. If you could capture that feeling of growth and renewal what would it look like to you?

This temperature fluctuation can be a very confusing life for a young seedling - winter and summer colliding in a day. As good farmers are, we are ever vigilant of their every needs. Watering, heating and cooling…whatever the weather dictates. As Michael Pollan describes in Botany of Desire it makes you wonder who is manipulating whom? Every morning we are surprised by how much our seedlings have grown since we put them to bed at night. Just a little sun and water and they take off on their own.

  It seems, the moon is our guiding light right now. The new moon was on Tuesday, so we are in a planting phase. This means Jack and I will make haste, and if the stars align, the soil will be at the most optimum moisture, the sun will be shinning, the wind will blow at just the right times, and the dogs will be lazily rolling in the grass. So far, on the horizon, we have arugula, carrots, spinach, pac choi, napa cabbage, lots of lettuce, and a few other goodies in the ground.

So, as March approaches, we find that now is the time to practice our  ujjayi breath, to find our peace within, to listen, and await for the perfect moment to plant. It is quite beautiful to watch each moment unfold.

We’ve started the season off with a great start. Before the rains came, Jack was able to run the disc, so we will be planting our first crops of the year very soon. A few days ago we seeded lots off cool season veggies to go into the ground. Just to give you a little hint of whats to come, we’ve seeded cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, kohlrabi, parsley, pac choi, fennel, and escarole, to name a few. And they have taken off beautifully.

Today is the first day of our CSA registation and we are eagerly awaiting our new and returning members.  Please click on the link below for information and registration for 2012.  We are excited to share the season with you all!

fullmooncooperative.csasignup.com/

I look forward to meeting all of our returning CSA mambers and new members for this year. I also look forward to seeing ya’ll at market.

Your farmer,

Iwalani

Follow us on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Full-Moon-Farms/366291523397779?ref=tn_tnmn

In other happenings, the summer routine is pretty serious. I have been spending my nights trimming up garlic that has finished curing in the barn, cooking dinner for my family, and watching summer cover crops grow strong with all this heat and water . I can’t wait to see a field of flowering buckwheat.  Oh the joy of summer.  Believe it or not, I have already begun to mentally prepare for the upcoming fall season.  I have more summer crop successions to get in the ground, but fall visions of lettuce, broccoli, and winter cabbage are dancing around.

Other news in the family since I last updated is the addition a new website for our sister project, Moonshine Meats.  Jason and Darla have energized the distribution of local protein here in north Georgia.  Check it out for more information on how you can get involved. 

Here are the last couple weeks of CSA that I haven’t posted in a while.  Enjoy

Week 6Week 7

Tractor Gospel

Summer in the shade.

Coffee on the brew.

Shake it on down.

2 man crew.

Your farmer, Jack Matthews



Baby Leeks, Cauliflower, Head Lettuce (Greenleaf, Butterhead), Beets, Carrots, Summer Squash/Zucchini, Kale, Garlic Chives

Once again I am happily overwhelmed with the power of support and energy behind this good food movement.  Even as the summer days get hot and patience runs just a bit thin, I am consistently satisfied in the community that a farm can create.  Since I took over this position with Full Moon Farms, I have received more inquiries about lending a hand on the farm or wanting to learn more about farming, or just connecting with a farm in the community.  Just the other day I talked to a high school student for a while who seemed to have such great fire and passion about what we were growing and how we were doing it.   We were shooting back and forth with one another about vegetable varieties on a Monday afternoon.  I could tell he was really interested in working hard towards becoming a farmer himself.  He didn’t have a family background in farming or land to inherit; he just grew up in the burbs feeling like farming fit what he wants out of life.  Go figure.

On another note, June 7^th, 2011 marks the premiere date of Grow! at Cine in downtown Athens.  The film documents the lifestyle and story of many young growers all across Georgia.  Farm255 is also running a dinner and a movie special in accordance with the premiere.  It will definitely be a night well spent!

Tractor Gospel

Better Breathe

Better Breathe in the farm

A Better Breathe

Your farmer, Jack Matthews

Meet this week’s vegetables:

Carrots, Head Lettuce (Romaine, Batavian), Collards, Green Garlic, Sugar Snap Peas, Bok Choy, D’avignon Radishes, Hakurei Turnips, Dill

Not much time for words this week.  Good food, High temps, and irrigation continues. Farm on!

TG

Trace the heat

Sing the sweat

Harvest the food.

Count those lucky stars tonight

Your farmer,  Jack Matthews

I should not have said a word.  About 6 weeks ago I was calling for less rain and more sun, now in May we have sunny days, fluctuating temps, and absolutely minimal precipitation.  Embrace the game I say.  Luckily, we are keen on irrigation, so our plants are sucking up well water as I type.  I am a little late on this post but that is because the field has been a calling.  Last week we had a flush of beautiful broccoli crowns that decided to peak right when the weather hit 93 degrees.  None the less, we had a silly-good spring broccoli harvest.  There was plenty to go around for the CSA and our restaurants to enjoy…

Today, Sean and I had quite an epic tomato morning.  We put yet another succession of heirlooms in the ground, and went through quite a trellis battle in the hoophouse crop.  Like many other farmers and probably many of you, I keep priority lists that I intend to get through but never can seem to complete.  Trellising tomatoes is one thing that has gotten passed up on the list for the passed 10 days.  Well, that means as we finally got around to take care of the needed task this morning it took twice the amount of time that is should have had I been on top of it a few days ago.  But now they are nice and upright, and tomatoes are in our near future.  Yes sir.

Tractor Gospel

‘Sometimes’ is a strange times to feast.

Collards, Carrots, COMPANY.

Snag a beer, pick a tune, cook a beast.

Your farmer, Jack Matthews

Arugula, Hakurei Turnips, Rainbow Chard, Bok Choy, Lacinato Kale, Head Lettuce (Romaine, Batavian Leaf), Green Garlic, Greek Oregano (Greens Week)

I have to say it was such a nice week to work with those highs in the 70’s, but those nights were a tad bit cool for my taste this time of year.  A sister farm out near Lexington has a somewhat cooler microclimate and actually had a light frost on May 6th.  May 6th! Luckily they didn’t have too much plant damage, only losing a bit of mint I believe. 

So another point I want to make involves the trusted leaf.  This is the time to eat as many nutrient-packed green leaves as we possibly can.  I promise they won’t last forever.  Eat them raw in salads, wilt them in a stir-fry, or make a green-hulk-power smoothie. 

As far as weather goes, it looks like the heat is on again and no real sign of precipitation on the horizon.  Time to get those irrigation cycles working. And we farm on…

Tractor Gospel

Ride down the rays

to flat

on the bend.

Don’t make it try

something dies. it ends.

Your farmer, Jack Matthews

Meet this week’s vegetables:

Hakurei Turnips, Collard Greens, Head Lettuce (Romaine, Batavian Leaf), Baby Beets, D’avignon Radishes, Arugul, Green Garlic, Sage

I am sitting here on my porch, enjoying the sounds, smells, and breeze of an amazing Saturday here in Gerogia.  Spring continues….

Although the Southeast, especially Alabama has had to cope with a great deal of tragedy and loss, this last week proved to be everything we could have hoped for out on the farm.  We were fortunate to have been spared by the weather and our crops very much appreciated yet another inch of rain.  There is a lot of food to be had in the fields!

The past couple weeks have been spent getting ready for CSA and harvest efficiency, but also seeding and planting the next succession of summer crops.  The spring routine continues!  Weeds and pests have also started to make farming a little bit more interesting and time consuming.  I have been getting help from the Farm255 crew, as well as Sean the intern, so everything at the moment is quite in check but I know that train keeps on rolling.   

Time to get ready for the bike race…Until next time, enjoy some amazing photos taken by Olivea Sargeant.

Tractor Gospel carries forward

I can’t find yourself a kitchen,

twice affirmed,

better make a fire and quit your wishin’.

Your farmer, Jack Matthews

Olivea SargeantOlivea SargeantOlivea Sargeant

Olivea SargeantOlivea Sargeant