they call me... Mr. Squash Man.....

Despite what the thermometer said, Saturday June 27th was a very cool day.
Our first market was a huge success, if anyone had told me we could sell over 80lbs of squash in the middle of the summer I would have asked them to share whatever they were smoking! A special thanks to my daughter Danielle for getting up early and letting me exploit her cuteness and charm. She not only weighed all the baskets we sold, but handled many transactions herself.

Thanks to all our customers who purchased our squash and tomatoes. Growing quality produce is our farms first priority, if you folks are not satisfied for any reason with your purchase, we will gladly provide a refund. We consider service a privilege and are grateful for the opportunity to provide it.

I have been called many things in my life and a good portion of it is not fit for this blog. Saturday I was called the Squash Man by a few of our customers. I think it has a nice ring to it.

Mr. Squash Man

p.s. just wait until our cantaloupe come in

To Market We Will Go!

Greetings folks, it has been a very busy two weeks, training, tweaking and testing all the growing systems here at the farm.
Minus a few small leaks in our irrigation system, things are starting to settle into a summertime pattern.
The heat has driven us to night shifts and we have removed Wilma’s poly in anticipation of the shade screen scheduled to be installed next week. We are still waiting on word regarding our organic certification and hope to have positive results before this weekends opening market.

North Pulaski Farms will have summer squash and a small amount of Grape and Brandywine heirloom tomatoes for sale this Saturday at the Certified Arkansas Farmers Market in the Argenta district of North Little Rock. I cannot express how much I look forward to this. One of the things I miss from my IT/Travel career is the relationships made during the course of our business. I look forward to the relationships built with this one. As always, props to James Franks whose effort and expertise is constantly evident at the farm. This weekend would not have happened without his help.

Wow What a week!

This last week we finished Fred, built 44 325 foot beds, installed an 8 stage irrigation system and transplanted several thousand seedlings.
The end of the week was capped off with our organic inspection by Jeff Stearns of the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture. One of the differences with certified organic farmers and others, is the inspection process to get certified. Annual 3rd party inspections and audits of our farm and its systems is a requirement of the certification process. Jeff toured our farm, took soil samples from Fred, Wilma & Barney, reviewed our seed and fertilizer documentation, and reviewed our Organic System Plan with our actual practices. He commended us on our runoff prevention techniques and our water management design. It’s nice to know working all those buckets to catch the run off from the seedling tables and the design efforts for our drainage and irrigation systems did not go un-noticed. True Organic farming is more than just not using synthetics fertilizers and pesticides; it’s about doing so in a sustainable manner that actually enhances the land used. This inspection was our first chance to show how we plan to do just that.
Jeff advised they should have their results by the end of the month.
Thanks to all the teams that made it happen.

Later this month our Brandywine’s will be ready for market, check www.cafm.locallygrown.net and www.littlerock.locallygrown.net for details and of course you can watch their progress on Wilma cam.