Good Life Farm- Fall 2011 Quarterly

A toast to the end of, as one farmer friend put it, a truly funky year.  For some this year was an overwhelming mix of too wet, too hot and dry and then too wet again.  Our thoughts are with those farmers who lost fields and crops to the floods this fall, missed crucial planting dates due to the extremely wet spring or took big hits on yields due to the dry, hot mid-summer.  We at The Good Life found that our mix of perennial crops- established mostly during other, more amenable years-, low summer production and extensive grassland buffered us from the worst of these effects.  For full disclosure, part of our farm plan also includes off-farm jobs in our start up years (now Garrett only), and this economic contribution is not to be overlooked either!  We are grateful for all of this buffering, and contemplate the implications of increased erratic weather and the necessity of climate change crop-planning.  We do our best to use climate change as a lens through which to make planning decisions ranging from large scale farm design for energy and water down to individual variety selection for perennials.  More to come on this over the years- and we’re always interested in your input on this subject.  It takes a community! 

At the Good Life this fall, we reached a peak in farm production as never seen before (on our farm).  This particular fall really demonstrated the extent to which one person (Melissa) on-farm full time, can produce (imagine what it could be like with both of us).  For sale, we had great quantities of ginger- both fresh and pickled, Holiday turkeys, and more greens than we’ve yet done.  While these offerings may sound eclectic, please bear in mind that our farm design focuses on these ideas:

• Fill local market niches
• Emphasize on-farm systems that yield both financially and ecologically (as in Turkey-Orchard-Asparagus)
• Focus on perennials, reduced tillage and irrigation

To keep this short- but I could go on because I LOVE fall!- I will end with thanks.  Over the course of October and November, we hosted many of our family members, who rigorously pitched in to plant flower blubs in the orchard; harvest and process ginger; harvest and clean greens; and get turkeys ready for Thanksgiving.  Special thanks to Samantha and Lee Cuthbert, Cathy Turner, Rick and Molly Madden, Ellen Madden, Jordan Stone, Luke Miller, Jimmy Miller, Katrina Hamer, Meg Jastran and Chris Vogt for these feats of farm care and extreme weather food production.   As always, we are grateful for the ongoing support of you, our friends and customers- you keep us going!