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.
Large healthy certified organic tomato plants in “trade” gallon pots, are now available for purchase at High and Dry Farm. These are $9 each, including tax. This is slightly cheaper than the big box stores charge for plants that are not certified organic.
Plants can be picked up at our self-serve farmstand at 32814 120th St. SE.
Maintaining organic certification requires keeping complete, extensive and detailed records about all aspects of farm work, and requires keeping copies of receipts for all purchases of seeds, fertilizers, etc. Even market gardeners that do not seek organic certification must maintain extensive records to be compliant with food safety laws as codified in the FSMA. As I am an intrinsically disorganized person, I have created a relational database to facilitate keeping and maintaining the required records. The database is now on its third iteration of improvement. The beauty of the database is that it runs in the cloud on Airtable, which allows access by smartphone from the field, as well as via web browser from a laptop or desktop computer.
Annual recertification of an organic farm requires an inspection that typically takes two to three hours, with most of this time devoted to auditing farm records. During High & Dry Farm’s most recent certification inspection, Airtable allowed me to power through the audit, which was completed within one hour, with no significant issues reported.
We am now making this database system, Organic Farmer 4.0, available to farmers completely without charge. Sign up for a free Airtable account here. Once you have signed up, download a copy of the Organic Farmer 4.0 database to your Airtable account here. Detailed instructions for use of Organic Farmer 4.0 can be found here.
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.
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.
After some thought we decided to build our new high tunnel with 4′ hoop spacing, instead of 5′, for added strength, so the planned dimensions are now 30′ x 96′. A big unexpected roadblock is that we cannot perform site leveling or post installation until an archaeologist assesses the site, and NRCS has no idea when the archaeologist can visit, as they employ only one to cover the whole state. WTF?
The hoophouse kit arrived on June 5. 7000 lbs of steel. Today we are in the middle of assembling 25 hoops with trusses. The hoops weigh about 200 lbs each, so muscling them around in 85 degree heat ain’t a lot of fun. We are a little more than half done.
Updated progress report
Grant contract signed -Done
Rototill site – Done
Fed approval of contract – Done
Set position of 4 corner posts and check for square – Done
Order high tunnel kit from Oregon Valley Greenhouse – Done
Site visit by archeologist and NCRS Cultural Resources approval – Sept.5 Done
Preassemble bow assemblies – Done.
Rent stump grinder to remove 3 stumps – Done
Roughly level site (1.5% grade allowed) and sculp drainage channels along sides – Done
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
Making progress. The site has been leveled and forms put into place to pour a concrete foundation. Our trusty farm truck has hauled big loads of construction materials. The base and 4 walls for the walk-in cooler have been constructed and await assembling on the concrete foundation when it is complete.