Markets & Tasty Lessons

The last few weeks of selling our produce in North Little Rock and Jacksonville has rocked!
Re-Connecting with many of my former travel colleges has been a pleasant surprise. I never knew that so many of them supported local agriculture and am thankful for it. We have sold several hundred pounds of squash, zucchini, and tomatoes. Starting soon, our cantaloupe will be here. Now understand I am perfectly happy being Mr. Squash Man. I like it and it has been profitable. But, if I am not Mr. Cantaloupe Man before fall, I will surely be disappointed. Our Sweet Granite’s are starting to mature and hopefully will produce thru the fall. Look for them online at www.cafm.locallygrown.net .
Additional produce information is available at our online calendar www.northpulaskifarms.com/calendar.html .


Last week, I harvested 8 pounds of sun scaled Brandywine’s. Deciding not to sell them was difficult, Brandywines are grown for taste, not appearance and I am selling out each week. Since the scald was pretty bad and for the good of our customers, I sacrificed them and made a marinara sauce. I am not a real cook, but have been known to play one at parties, the Brandywine Tomato flavor was very rich and now I am really questioning the logic in me putting up a shade screen to prevent the scalding from happening again.



This season has started slow for us, but we are stating to find our grove and our crops are maturing.
Meeting new customers and re-connecting with former colleagues, networking with all the local growers and sharing the experience with my daughters has been priceless.


Mr. Squash Man

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.

It's beginning to look a lot like Fred!

Fed is about finished. We have 8 of 11 bays skinned and the 2 inches of rain we received had little affect on the growing areas that are covered in poly.
I could not wait to get inside Fed when it was raining. We have a little bit of trench work in a few of the bays, but overall its fantastic!

We will finish the last 3 bays and install the side walls, but probably not bother with the end doors until fall. Check it out on Barney Cam.

One of the challenges with using high tunnel greenhouses in Arkansas is the heat. Fred is designed to mitigate heat risks with his unique venting systems and his luminance color. Not only does he vent from the ends, he vents thru the gutters.
One of the pics shows the roping system designed to allow us to push the poly up on the sides. This releases the heat build up in the tunnels and allows for more air circulation. Since the gutters are a 5 feet high, the ground area stays cool.

This next week we will be building our beds and transplanting our spring crops. Our first harvest will not likely start arriving until mid-July, but next year will be an completely different story.

Let it rain, let it rain let it rain……

What a difference the Sun makes!

Now that Mrs. Nature’s fit has subsided, the teams are making real progress on Fred.
The leg drilling is down to the last 50 or so stubborn legs. Each of the holes requires jacking multiple times to bust the rocks so that the legs may make it down the required 30 inches.
I have to brag on the teams doing this work, each of them have been patient while it’s been wet and willing to work when it finally dried out. There is a good chance that we might have a few bay’s skinned before the rain comes later this week, and that would not be possible without their Hard work. So, props always to James Franks for his expertise and hard work, props to the Proffit boys, James, Jon, Sam, Rodger, a hellava work ethic is in ya’lls bloodline fer sure, Mike Burges, Dustin Lovell, Tony Hart, Josh Stewart and lastly Cody Ballard for helping at all hours of the night.

Check the www.northpulaskifarms.com/Calendar.html for skinning dates towards the end of the week. Skinning is the process of installing the poly over the bays. It’s usually done early in the morning during non windy days.

Our fierce attack Labrador; Dostaff’s Nasserite Warrior is always on guard for any stick that makes it’s way into the irrigation pond.

Things are starting to come together nicely with Fred, several thousand plants in 2x2’s could not be happier.

Squash Anyone ?

Work continues on Fred, we have a great team of guys working their butts off.
Check out the weather and barney cam's for the best view of the construction.

Ever see what several hundred baby summer squash looks like? Us neither, but James did a great job of tranplanting them and we look forward to getting them in Fred.

Let's hope that witch Mother Nature let's up a bit on her cryin, this farmer and a few hundred others have work to do.