Finishing up our first year

First I would like to thank Nancy Dockter with the Arkansas Leader for the opportunity to be interviewed about my new career choice last week. Nancy is not only an excellent reporter; she is a local farmer.
She stands as one of the examples of why I maintain you will find no finer group of peers to work with.

It was sad to see our tomato and pepper plants succumb to the cold a few weeks ago, but keeping heirloom’s alive from April to December is one of this years success stories.
One of our lessons learned this year was that while high tunnel greenhouses are very hot in the Arkansas summers, they do a fantastic job of water management.
Keeping the rain off the tomatoes and most of the rest of our crop was most likely the key to their success. Fred was a bear to build and his soil has a long way to
go, but I suspect he will be a very productive growing system within the next few years.

Another success this year was finding great people to work on the farm. None of what we accomplished this year would have been possible without their help.
So thanks to Shawna, James, Sam, Brady, Mike, Gump, Steve-O, Justin, Jon Paul Sr & Jr, Tony, Josh, Tom, Tim, Ryan and Cody for all the hard work.
This group of local workers rose to the task of keeping this years construction and growing schedule on time and I could not be more thankful for their effort.

The next few weeks will be spent getting Fred ready for winter. We have spread leaves, lime & litter and will be lightly tilling it into the soil.
Afterwards we will seed rye grass for our winter cover. This process will help build our soil fertility and assist in the prevention of nutrient run off.
Starting in March of 2010, we will begin building our beds and transplanting our young ones.

Finally I would like to thank all of our customers. Thanks for the feedback and continued support. I am excited about next years crop and look forward to re-uniting with everyone in the spring.


Happy New Year!