WHAT IT TAKES TO RUN A QUARTER ACRE FARM
People often see produce without realizing how much work goes into growing it. At least I didn't before I became a farmer.
I thought it would be fun to journal my days as they happened and document an entire week, a day-by-day, play-by-play look at what it takes for two people to run a quarter-acre farm.
Here are all the juicy details from last week (rarely glamorous, often repetitive, occasionally chaotic, but always rewarding).
MONDAY - STARTING THE WEEK WITH A BANGER
In the morning, we harvest and deliver to all of our wholesale buyers. We've really enjoyed building relationships with other local business owners. They're incredibly supportive and just as invested in providing great food and service to our community.
Harvest days are long, but they're methodical and, when paced well, surprisingly low stress. The most stressful moments are when an order comes in and you realize a mouse has eaten all of the lettuce you planned to harvest instead.
After deliveries around town, we sneak in a quick lunch back at the farm and jump right back into harvesting for our CSA farm share program. Over the past few weeks we've also started hosting a consistent Monday farm stand, so we harvest a little extra for that too.
By 3:30 we're rushing to get the farm stand set up, the CSA pickup organized, and the signs out before everyone arrives at 4. Check out the photo below for this past week’s share.
Hosting people at the farm is one of my favorite parts of the week. I love watching the community see the garden grow and change from week to week.
By 6:30 pickup wraps up, we tear everything down, and usually head home around 7.
One unique challenge of our farm is that we don't have power yet, which means we don't have much refrigeration. Nearly everything we harvest needs to reach its final destination quickly. It's always a balancing act between not harvesting too early and making sure we have enough time to get everything done. The upside? Almost everything we sell was harvested that very same day.
TUESDAY IS OUR FIRST FIELD DAY OF THE WEEK
If we're feeling especially organized, Jake and I have a quick morning meeting to map out the week. Lately we've settled into a rhythm where we both just know what needs to happen. One perk (and occasional downside) of driving to work together every day is that commute time becomes meeting time.
This week's to-do list felt especially ambitious.
A direct quote from my Notes app:
“Irrigation and squirrel traps
Turn compost
Clear broccoli transplant lettuce and edamame
Clear Lettuce and radicchio and seed yayas
Mow and tarp spinach
DS mustard for mighty mix
Weeding everything!
Pulling garlic and sowing cc -> buckwheat and one longer term
Wheelhoe plot 4 isles
Plant leftover lettuce
Wood chip path”
The moment we arrive, we're usually being pulled in ten different directions.
The squirrel traps need attention. Did we water everything? Is there new damage on the lettuce? Why was this left outside overnight? There's always something.
For some reason, we started the day by cleaning compost dust and grime out of the tractor hood. Oddly satisfying.
Jake repaired irrigation lines that had been chewed by squirrels while I cleared out a broccoli bed. I was honestly pretty excited by the soil quality underneath, all those healthy roots and earthworms. I transplanted more Mellow Mix and head lettuce and seeded edamame into that bed.
Then Jake and I tag-teamed another bed: clearing the old plants from a Mellow and Moody bed that was used up last week, adding compost, and direct seeding a trial variety of carrots (yayas), Jake pictured below!
One easy win was mowing down a bed of cilantro, dill, and spinach. We use our baby tractor (BCS walk behind with a mower attachment for you NERDS). We cover it with black plastic to terminate the crop, the process is called occultation, and the plastic does most of the work over the following weeks when it will be uncovered and planted into again with kale and chard.
We wrapped up the day by turning the compost pile and watering it with EM. One of these days I need to convince Jake to write a newsletter entirely about the fermentation concoctions he adds to our compost.
Tuesday is also the day I send our wholesale availability list for the following Monday. Farming always means trying to stay a few steps ahead.
WEDNESDAY IS OUR SECOND FIELD DAY
Morning projects are reserved for the really important work. If something gets scheduled before lunch, you know we mean business.
We started by weeding Plot Four.
If you haven't heard the story, Plot Four was our Hail Mary addition back in February. We were equally panicked and excited to grow more food. Jake and I have wanted to grow the Three Sisters in a market garden system for years, and we simply couldn't wait another season.
Because we skipped one of our normal weed suppression steps before planting, we've had a lot more perennial weeds pop up than we'd like. Every couple of weeks we spend several hours digging bindweed and dock. Honestly... it's kind of satisfying.
We also tucked extra head lettuce into random gaps throughout the garden, kept up with watering, and continued Jake's dedicated campaign against the squirrels.
That afternoon we harvested garlic. We actually pulled it a few weeks early because rust, a fungal disease affecting the leaves, was spreading quickly. Thankfully it doesn't hurt the bulbs directly unless it completely kills the plants first. Some varieties handled it much better than others, and we're still hopeful for a great garlic harvest this year.
Shoutout to everyone who helped us plant garlic back in November. We'll definitely be hosting another planting day this fall, so keep an eye out.
We also seeded one of the cleared beds with a cover crop and I squeezed in a second attempt at a dry bean variety that didn't germinate well the first time. Fingers crossed.
Wednesday is also prep day for the farmers market. I make harvest logs that tell us exactly what to pick and where to find it, then reset the wash station so every harvest bin is clean and ready for Thursday morning.
As summer ramps up, Wednesdays will also become cucumber and zucchini harvest days. Those crops have a habit of doubling in size if you skip a day. And the best news? Persian cucumbers and cherry tomatoes are almost here. We've eaten our first few this week and I cannot tell you how exciting that feels.
THURSDAY IS MARKET DAY
We're usually at the farm by 7 a.m. (maybe earlier if there is a lot in the garden) and spend the entire morning harvesting and washing produce.
Around noon we pack up the truck, hopefully sneak in lunch, and head to Morro Bay.
From 2–4:30 you'll find us at the farmers market.A huge thank you to all of our regulars. It's genuinely one of the highlights of our week getting to see you all.
We stop back at the farm on the way home to drop off our market stuff, and take one more quick look at the tomatoes before calling it a day around 6:30.
When people ask us if we’re going to join any other markets this short answer is “in the future”. Now you can see that the logistics of adding another farmers market to the weekly schedule is a lot more complicated than that. And yes, we’ll get there one day, but for now, we’re leaning into the farm schedule we already have, and doing that well, before over complicating things.
FRIDAY - THE SELF PROCLAIMED OFFICE DAY
It's what keeps this farm going as much as the other days of the week.
I spend time bookkeeping (and learning bookkeeping), organizing CSA reminders, onboarding new members, responding to emails, ordering seeds and supplies, and writing the newsletter. There's always planning to do. Farming feels like constantly trying to stay a few steps ahead.
We're also working toward building a house on the farm, a project that will almost certainly take years, so there's a steady stream of meetings, permits, and coordination that we don't have time for.
On Fridays, Jake is jonesing to get back to the farm for watering, weeding, planting native trees, and knocking out all of the smaller projects that somehow never stop appearing. He also does is weekly compost runs, we pick up food waste from a few local spots to help boost our homemade compost piles!
PHEW, THE WEEKEND
Weekends are hopefully filled with a lot of rest and play, plus a little watering, and what we call "boop bopping." That's our made-up phrase for leisurely farm work. Think hobby gardening, barefoot, moving as slowly as possible, and getting delightfully distracted every five minutes. Thats what the weekends are for.
Farmers are educators as much as they are growers. We love sharing what goes into growing healthy soil and food because so much of it happens behind the scenes. I hope this gave you a little glimpse into what it takes to run a small farm. Did we get everything done on our to do list? No… but there is always tomorro.
THIS WEEK’S VEG
Visit the farm for our open Farm Stand: Mondays, 4-6:30!
Find us at the Morro Bay Farmers Market: Thursdays 2-4:30!
This week's predicted veggie list:
• Bok Choy
• Radishes (nearly perfect this week!)
• Hakurei Turnips (limited)
• Chioggia Beets (likely the last of the season for a little while)
• Fennel (likely the last of the season for a little while)
• Moody Mix - radicchio blend
• Mighty Mix - braising hearty greens blend
• Walla Walla Onions
• Zucchini
• Endive Frisée
• Sage
• Tarragon (looking especially beautiful right now)
• Oregano
• Thai Basil
• Genovese Basil
• Tulsi Basil
I've been teasing you all on Instagram with the persian cucumbers and tomatoes. We've tasted the first fruits, and trust me, they're worth the wait. They're not quite producing enough to share yet, so the countdown to summer bounty continues... but we're getting close.
Your busy bee farmers,
Jake and Jesse :)