That’s not a tomato. This is a tomato.
“Aussie” heirloom tomato variety. If you visit our farmstand to buy one of these, rent a trailer.
High & Dry Farm Self-Serve Farmstand
32814 120th St SE, Sultan, WA 98294
As Crocodile Dundee would say-
A huge crop of cucumbers
This is our wash/pack room at High & Dry Farm. This morning we picked 200 lbs of cucumbers and we will be picking more daily for the next 6 weeks. Does one of these have your name on it? Three varieties are available now at our self-serve farm stand, along with heirloom tomatoes and a variety of other produce items. Everything is Certified Organic.
32824 120th St. SE, Sultan – off the Basin road. Payment by cash, Venmo, Paypal, Zelle or, if you happen to catch us nearby, credit card or WIC.
Join us at the Farmers Market!
High & Dry Farm will be vending today at the first meeting of the season of the Snohomish Farmers Market. Join us on Cedar Avenue in Snohomish, 3 pm-7 pm.
For sale today:
- Red radishes
- French Breakfast Radishes
- Cilantro
- Head Lettuce
- Mint
- Salad (hakurei) turnips
- Tomato starts
Persephone 2023
Fans of Greek mythology know Persephone as the Queen of the underworld, the dead, and of Spring. Farmers understand the Persephone period to be the days when the period from sunrise to sunset is less than ten hours, causing vegetables to struggle to grow. (And farmers to struggle with seasonal depressive disorder).
Sadly, at our latitude, the Persephone period has begun. We will count the days until Februrary 8, when we emerge from Persephone and our veg commence to thrive.
Complete, and Certified
Construction of our new 30′ x 96′ high tunnel is now essentially complete, and USDA NRCS just inspected it, and certified that it meets their specs, so they will be wiring funds into our account from the grant they awarded us.
Kim Schrier visits our farm
Yesterday High & Dry Farm was honored by the visit of our congressional representative Kim Schrier.
Representative Schrier was the first customer at High & Dry Farm’s new farmstand. Talk about a grand opening!
Funded!
Our USDA EQIP high tunnel grant application didn’t get funded initially, but then USDA found some loose change behind their sofa cushions and belatedly awarded the grant to us. Follow us as we race to get our 30’x95′ veg cathedral completed soon enuf for a Fall crop.
Here is a list of some project milestones:
- Grant contract signed -Done
- Rototill site – Done
- Fed approval of contract – Pending
- Set position of 4 corner posts and check for square
- Order high tunnel kit from Oregon Valley Greenhouse
- Site visit by archeologist and NCRS Cultural Resources approval.
- Preassemble bow assemblies.
- Rent stump grinder to remove 3 stumps
- Roughly level site (max 5% incline allowed) and sculp drainage channels along sides
- Set 4 corner posts
- Install perimeter landscape fabric
- Set side posts
- Mount bows
- Install diagonal bracing on sides
- Construct endwall frame
- Cover endwalls with polycarbonate
- Attach baseboards and hip boards
- Attach wigglewire channel
- Mount poly skin
- Install side roll-up devices
Dry Farming
This was our first experiment in dry (non-irrigated) farming. And what a test it was! This was one of the driest summers in recorded history, with a total of 0.7″ inch of rain-fall July through September. Yet a single 100′ row produced 150 lbs of winter squash! The key, I expect, was that we had one of the wettest Junes in history, creating a reserve of soil moisture that lasted all summer.
WSDA Grant Awarded to High & Dry Farm
Our request to the Washington State Department of Agriculture, for a Local Food System Infrastructure Grant in the amount of $26,416.00 was awarded in full. This will allow us to upgrade our vegetable wash station and install a walk-in cooler for food storage.
Persephone
In northern (or southern) latitudes, vegetable growth virtually ceases when day-length becomes less than ten hours. Days are shorter than ten hours for at least a few days any place on the globe above latitude 30 or below latitude -30. This includes almost all the United States except the most southern parts of Texas, Louisiana and Florida. The calendar months during which there are fewer than ten hours between sunrise and sunset have been dubbed the “Persephone period” by Eliot Coleman. Although plants grow little during the Persephone period, mature plants may remain healthy. Thus, winter harvest of many salad greens is possible if they are planted in Fall, allowing enough time for them to reach maturity before the beginning of Persephone.
Johnny’s Select Seeds has published a chart that helps chose, depending on the date at which Persephone begins at your latitude, the best Fall planting date for various salad greens to allow winter harvest. However, the chart is awkward to use. Based on this chart, I have created a free database that automatically calculates the best Fall planting dates for your location. To use it, sign up for a free Airtable account here. Once you have signed up, download a copy of the Fall Planting for Winter Harvest to your Airtable account here.