Weed and Feed SUCCESS!

We would like to extend a huge 'Thank You' to everyone who came to the farm on the 4th for our  Weed N' Feed event!

Volunteers rode bikes and drove from all over the valley to help out!

A volunteer walks through the garden looking for weeds.

Jefe looking his best as usual... maybe trying to eat some weeds out, by the looks of the dirt on his face?

Some grilled flatbread, as part of the morning's feast.  Yum!

All of the above photos were taken by Paul, spending the day in the garden with his dad.

The photos below were taken by Emma.

The green house rolled up for ventilation.

Hey, is that Lori and Karen in the greenhouse?  That's a familiar sight!

Some beautiful summer flowers.  Looks like they recovered from the hail alright.

Volunteers Dylan and Tim pull their weeds to earn their feed!

Tomato plants in good form on their trellis.

A little tree starting to grow up strong.

So much hard work was done by all of our volunteers!  Thank you all so much!  We could have never done it all without you. 


...not to mention eating all that spinach by ourselves!


*All these pictures were so kindly contributed by our volunteers.  Please respect our fabulous photographers and assume every one of them is protected by copyright.  Thanks!

Joys and Frustrations of Farming

Our favorite farm tractor this morning...

Our favorite farm tractor this afternoon...

As it goes with any type of farming, it is all subject to the cooperation of the weather.  After a wet spring and a fairly slow start on most veggies in the garden, a hail storm has lightened it's load here on the farm today.  Most of the leafy greens are shredded, the greenhouse has some damage, and everything is a little beaten down.  Thankfully our hail ranged from pea to golf ball with a majority being about ping pong ball sized.  Some places in Bozeman had tennis ball size hail so we made out alright with out ping pong balls. 

I just documented farm progress this morning... and I re-documented again this afternoon after the hail came through about 4 o'clock.

We had a great spinach harvest this morning before the storm. 8 1/2 pounds in the first batch and another 4 pounds later on.

Here are some before and after pictures:

Hail didn't go through the plastic, but it stretched and welted quite a bit.

Not only did it hail, but it was raining ridiculous amounts at the same time! Notice all the extra standing water...

Green beans didn't do so well with the hail...

The green house had some major hail dents, but it only pierced the plastic in a few places so things inside we untouched for the most part.

Jasmine surveys the damage.

And as always the sunshine after the storm:

 

A few flowers survived... From my count only two from the flower bed...

The only red tomato in the entire garden managed to survive... even though it lives on the most beat up plant around. (A transplant to the garden from Dylan and Tim. It was started at their house on Montana St.)

A spider rebuilds its delicate web in the flower garden after the storm.

4th of July

Breaking Ground April 22, 2009

I'm a little late posting this, but just over a year ago, on April 22, a beautiful, bright, spring day, not unlike this year's Mother's Day, two teams of horses, Harry and Sophie, and Blue and Bell, pranced and danced their way across the tender young grasses sprouting in the field, dragging heavy plows behind them, their drivers bumping and bouncing uncomfortably on the solid metal seat, carving out the very first row of what is now the Harvest House Farm's large garden.  Here are the pictures of the horses breaking ground.

Horse Drawn Plow Pictures HERE

Mother's Day

Mother's Day this year turned out to be a wonderful bright Sunday.  With all the cold blustery weather lately, it was so nice to have just one day of blue skies, and the wind even died down to a strong breeze... how wonderful!  So, we took advantage of the beautiful afternoon to help Lori put the greenhouse together.  Caution, this post is picture intensive!

The greenhouse frame March 3.

A farm volunteer installing the end panels.

Volunteer Dylan cleaning some plastic.

The resident rooster struttin' his stuff.

Shaun helping measure the greenhouse.

Then to measure the plastic...

We folded the plastic accordion style and pulled it into position.

We then borrowed a couple tennis balls from the dogs and a climbing rope from a volunteer...

... and pulled the plastic over.  One rope on each end, one in the middle, one person on each end of the greenhouse keeping the plastic pulled tight to the ends, and Dylan running around inside helping push the plastic over.

The dogs, from left to right, Jefe, Jasmine, Harvey, and Suka, waiting patiently to have their tennis balls back.

Once the plastic was up and over, we used 'wiggle wire' to hold the ends in place.

We then screwed boards to the outside to hold the sides in place.  The bottom portion of plastic will be able to roll up for ventilation.

Shaun trying out the finished greenhouse.

In other farm news... Some really beautiful tulips have started to bloom by the house.  Three different colors, red yellow and orange!

Other volunteers have started replacing the worn fence rails.

Old rails...

... new rails.


And to start off the growing season with high hopes, we took a moment to compare this years developing pumpkin crop to the last of the previous season's.

Huge thanks to all the volunteers who had their hands on the greenhouse and Happy Mother's Day!