Last CSA Box …but We Are Still at Rapid City Farmers Market!

Look at All Those Vegetables!

Rapid City Market

Enjoying a Rest After a Busy Day

You Say Tomato I Say Tomahto

Now We’re Talking!

Yummmmmmmmmy!

Sam's Going Away Farm Lunch

Tomato Face

Our New Favorite...True Black Brandy Wine

Seconds are for Canning...Yeah for Seconds!

Hail, Hail, and More Hail

Today was our third hail store within one week. Quite the contract from last year, we had many hail storms but our garden was spared every time. This year each storm has hit the garden and hit the crops hard. Here are some photos after the first storm.

Turnip Abused by Hail

Wow!

Precious Purslane Totally Stripped

The Beets Lost Their Lucious Leaves

Poor Melons!

Outdoor Tomato Plants

How We all Felt After the Storm

We are hopeful that some of the crops may recover. We are thankful that the one greenhouse that we have was not damaged and that the tomato, eggplant, peppers and baby starts growing in this greenhouse were safe from the storm.

First Ripe Tomato of the Year

Violet Jasper...How Pretty

Baby Lettuce Protected in Greenhouse

Squash Blossom Survivor

Flowers, Raspberries, Grapes & Potatoes…

Sunny Sunflowers

These amazing sunflowers are as tall as me and brighten up the farm. They also attract bees that are welcome on our farm any time. This was our first year growing flowers and we hope to grow more next year. We mostly planted edible flowers…so pretty and tasty!

Borage

Borage is a wonder edible flower that is sweet & taste kind of like a cucumber.

Raspberries After a Light Rain

Picked Just for You!

First Fruits

Grapes take up to three years to produce and this is year three. We are hopeful that we will be able to put grapes in our CSA boxes later this season.

Potato Digger

Potato Digger

Find Us At the Rapid City Farmers Market Tuesday & Thursday

Samantha Head Lettuce for You!

We are happy to announce that we will be at the Rapid City Farmers Market every Tuesday & Thursday until the end of the season. As many of our loyal customers know Samantha is our favorite head lettuce and we have it available now, as well as many other varieties of head lettuce & vegetables. We hope to see you at the farmers market soon and wish you happy vegetable eating for your health!

Scott Having Fun at His First Market!

2011 CSA Starts Today

We are so excited that the harvesting has finally started!

Kale Florest

Packing up the CSA Boxes

Flashy Buter Oak

Ummmmmm Good!

Brody Helping Pick Strawberries

CSA Update

Seeding and Transplanting

With the colder spring and abundance of rain it has set us back a few weeks compared to last year. However, we have been working very hard seeding and transplanting thousands of plants for this season.

Last year our first CSA box was delivered on June 13th…this year we anticipate it will be the last week of June or the first week of July. The pick up this year will be at the Seventh-day Adventist Church, 4703 South Canyon Road or at the farm in Hermosa from 4:00- to 7:00 pm on Mondays. If you are not able to pick up your box at this time you need to arrange for a friend or family member to pick it up for you. If you do not pick up your box it will be donated to a needy family! If you have any questions pleas call 605-255-4101 ext 25 or email michelle@bhhec.org

Red-winged Black Bird Nest

We have been enjoying nature and all that it brings to the farm. We have some new members of our team…a red-winged black bird nest as been weaved around our wintered over kale plants. What a fascinating site…..these happen to be my favorite birds.

The season has had a slow start but with the awesome team of help that the Lord has sent us this year we truly believe that we will have an amazing season.

We look forward to sharing in the harvest with ya’ll this year and we thank you for supporting local agriculture!

Larry’s First Allis-Chalmers G……Definitely Not His Last!

Surprise..Surprise!

What is an Allis-Chalmers Model G?

Well here is a breif discription from”Yesterday Tractor Co.”

“The first Allis-Chalmers Model G was produced in 1948 in Gasden, Alabama, and was designed for vegetable gardeners, small farms and landscape businesses. It is a small compact tractor that came with a complete line of implements especially tailored for its unique design. It featured a rear-mounted Continental N62 four-cylinder engine with a 2-3/8 x 3-1/2 inch bore and stroke. The rear-mounted engine provided traction for the rear wheels while at the same time gave the tractor operator a great view of the belly-mounted implements.”

What an Amazing Gift!

Less than 30,000 ended up being built, making these tractors very unique and hard to come by. The most amazing thing about this tractor is that it was a donation and a total surprise! We are so thankful that “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are of the called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28

Larry has wanted a G for years and we know this was a gift from God.  We are so thankful to the donor of this tractor to our farm….we will take good care of it!

WOW!

Farming Made Even Better!

Cover Cropping, Grapes & Planting Between Rainy Days

Planting Cover Crop

Cover cropping is a very important part of cultivating healthy soil for growing healthy produce. This area of land is where we grew all of our produce last year and we are now rebuilding this soil for next years planting. Our cover crop mixture is 71% Peas, 15% Oats and 14% vetch. The oats are the trellising for the pea’s and they also will store phosphorus from the soil. The vetch will smoother the peas and oats to produce up to 8000 lbs. of green manure to be tilled back into the ground in addition to the nitrogen fixation that the pea’s, and vetch will be doing.

Obtaining nitrogen from cover cropping is a sustainable and balanced way to add nitrogen to the soil, while feeding microbial life and adding humus, which is the organic material that is a product of the decomposition of the peas, oats and vetch. The humus also helps to absorbs water when it rains so that you do not have erosion problems and during drought it holds water for longer periods of time in the soil.

Beautiful Clover Between Grapes

Clover is planted between the grapes to help pull some of the 45 tons of nitrogen from the air to the ground to help feed the grapes…..it also is yummy to add to carrot juice and aids in the health of our blood…healthy for soil and for our bodies…what a coincidence.

Happy Clover

Gerhard Pienarr, Grape Specialist from South Africa

Gerhard is visiting us from South Africa for 3 months and will be helping us with our grapes this season. Many of our CSA members may remember when Larry and I were in South Africa last year in March to learn sea water agriculture from Gerhard. Before farming hydroponically Gerhard owned a vineyard that was his fathers. He has many years of experience with grapes and we are so grateful to have his help this year.

Working Hard Planting Lettuce Before More Rain Comes

Here the interns are working hard to plant lettuce and the brassica family before it rains again. We have been blessed with several windows of opportunity to plant between the rainy days…..and we give God all the glory for these opportunities. After all it is His garden!

The Beauty of High Diversity Farming

The beautiful thing about high diversity farming is that you may have failures in some crops but it leaves you with many more to choose from. The fatal tomato event was quite a blow. However, we have moved forward and are excited about the 40+ other varieties of vegetables…and fruit that we will be enjoying & sharing soon. That’s right we said fruit! Last year we had a good crop of strawberries and this year there are lots of flowers ready to bear fruit soon….we also have grapes that are now 3 years old & we hope to partake in the fruit of the vine this year as well…we also have raspberries that did not bear much fruit last year..which means chances are this year will be better. We are so thankful to God for all of the wonderful things that are growing right now on the farm and for the amazing crew He has sent to work with us this year!

Rob, Scott, Larry, Brody, Jovie, Samuel AKA Sam & Andrea......the Crew

Kale, cabbage, basil, broccoli, purslane, squash, cucumbers, peppers, eggplants,....and much more

Playing in the Strawberry Patch