Hillary

Hi everyone! This is Brian. Typically, Hillary is the blogger, but I wanted to say something today about her and can't really ask her to write it herself....

I just wanted to share with everyone the talents of their local organic farmer. Sure, I help out every once in awhile, but Hillary is out there every single day (no matter if it is pouring down with rain or 100 degrees outside). She diligently weeds, prunes, digs, plants, seeds, hauls, designs, harvests, etc. She always has her black farm book that she furiously scribbles in so she can record every last detail of her beloved plants. She is a stickler for correcting any mistakes she may have made, so you can be guaranteed you won't see the same mistake twice. Her knowledge in all things farming completely amazes me. This is especially impressive when one realizes she has only had a little over a year in training and experience. She has had a few ups and downs and resounding disappointments (by her own calculation), but she presses on and vows to improve. I have no doubt she will.

She so much wants to grow our little operation and share her harvest with as many people as possible. We are still trying to figure out what is going to happen next year, but we hope you all join us in this awesome community endeavor.

Now, on to more pressing matters...Our corn is just about tapped out. We suspect we had a few unauthorized harvests which is very frustrating. I wish I could blame it on deer, but I suspect a two-legged marauder had something to do with it. We didn't have much to begin with. As we value diversity in our crop selection, we wanted to put in as many different types and varieties. This helps create a bio-diverse environment and pest control naturally occurs in this setting. Therefore, we sacrificed large amounts of corn for variety. So, as ten ears of corn disappear overnight, this puts a damper on our ability to put corn in the CSA boxes every week. Lessons just keep popping up all over the place!

So, to summarize...my wife is awesome and our corn is gone. Thanks for the support, everyone!

Brian

Local Goodness

When we first set out to start a farm our goal was to cultivate an extremely diverse farm environment. We didn't just want to grow lots of food, we wanted to grow lots of kinds of food too. Furthermore, we wanted to be diverse with what we would do with the food and flowers we would grow. CSA, Farmers' Markets, Restaurant sales and even homesteading are all on our agenda. We are happy to report that this year we were successful in both CSA (check out a picture of one of our most recent CSA boxes below) and some restaurant sales (look for our tomatoes at Brix 25 on Pioneer Way in Gig Harbor starting as soon as this weekend, www.harborbrix.com).

If all goes well, in the coming years, Peace of the Earth Farm will expand our CSA, start selling to local Farmers' Markets, increase our contribution to Brix 25 and possibly other local restaurants, and grow significantly more of the food our own family will consume. However, diversity is not enough if we do it alone. A strong community is very important to us and we hope our farm can help build relations ships right here in Gig Harbor and Rosedale. In the coming years we hope to have farm tours and workshops to help educate others who desire to learn more about local food as well as grow some of their own at home. Thanks again for all those who are helping to get us started! Peace!