Solarific Summer

Welcome to August, the time we've been waiting for at Wonderland Farm, full of fresh field tomatoes, luscious eggplants, perky peppers, and barrels full of zucchini, squash and salad mix! We welcomed eight varieties of heirloom tomatoes three weeks early in our mountainous, Zone Five A, Colorado growing season and have been thrilled at the reception from our Wonderland members and Farmer's Market patrons.  We had a wonderful July Farm Dinner catered by the amazing and illustrious Rachel Reese and Mitty McVay on July 26th and have been running full steam ever since! Amazingly, I am getting around to tossing some pics to you, late as I might be. That said, enjoy the following vistas from our farm and market place:

Jul 14

Our last week of peas and beets!

 Jul 17

Gorgeous color mix carrots in sunset.

 Jul 21

Last week of July, first week of tomatoes!

 Jul 25

Tarhumara Sunflower, with my darling dad on the deck!

 Jul 26 Farm Dinner

Seating for the farm dinner!

 Jul 31

Harvest friend #1.

 Jul 31

Harvest friend #2.

Aug 2 

Our beautiful Graffiti Cauliflower.

 Aug 2

Rachel, harvesting Goldys...Hello?

 Aug 4

Our eight varieties of heirloom tomatoes, ready to go!

 Aug 6

Teddy Edde, guarding the tomatoes.

Aug 10 

Mitty and Rachel, doing their thing at our HIghlands Market!

Aug 11 

Two lovely ladies sporting our Unicorn tanks (they changed into after purchasing!), Mitty and Rachel pairing up in the background.

 Aug 14

Packing one of our beautiful member boxes this week!

 Aug 14

And packing a parcel to go for a little ride!

Aug 14 

Anya, heading home after Wednesday morning harvest for our members!

 Aug 15

Simpson lettuce, getting ready for their fall debut!

Aug 17

My handsome husband, Garett, ready to go for the Saturday Market!

Bonus Foto:

Me. Looking tired, fat... and happy! 

Please continue to come see us at the Farmer's Markets! And check back on the blog every now and then. Thanks to all our family and friends for their remarkable contributions (You all know who you are!!!) Every time I feel down, and our family has definitely been put against the ropes this year, I look at these beautiful vegetables and and people in person or in pictures and I remember just how many gifts and beauty the world can give us. Even through the hardest times, we have been blessed with wonderful family, incredible friends, and food on the table. This year, I'm providing the food. And that makes me feel wonderful.

Love,Val

Picture Bomb!

Hey!! Whoa, it's been soooo crazy! I am sure I've said it probably about ten times already, but I hugely underestimated the amount of time, attention and love I have spent building this tiny farm. Since my last post we have seen in the start of our season with a ridiculously excellent farm happy hour for our families, members and friends, followed by our very first weekend ever at our two great farmer's market locations, and after that, our first membership deliveries! 

I can't believe we just made it through our fourth week at the market, and that I will be up in a few short hours to finish harvesting for our excellent members! I have to shout out to all those who have come to see us at the market, help at the farm, and attend our first farm event!! Seriously, I could not have done it without the help. 

A short recap of the past few weeks in words: We finished the rabbit fencing (finally!), we fenced two rabbits in (whoops!), our peas, beans, beets, spinach, chard, lettuce, scallions and cabbage exploded and went off to fulfill happy tummies; our potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, zucchinis, squash and eggplants are blowing up and getting ready to cause a ruckus at the market, we are selling our purslane to True Food Kitchen in Cherry Creek North (so order the chicken purslane or purslane salad if you go, it's ours!!), and oh yeah, Mitty caught one of our two field pets (the BIG one!)!! See our pics below for back up to the crazy sentence you just fought your way through:

Jun 22

Abby(dog!), Mitty, Katie, Me and Rachel at our first Farmer's Market in the Highlands!

 Jun 25

All Blue Potatoes in blume!

Jun 26 

Me and the Valstar, supermodeling our first Wonderland Farm Membership deliveries.

 Jun 28

First zucchini!

 Jun 29

Um, just some rock stars kicking it in our farm booth. Rachel and Mitty.

Jul 5 

First heirloom Rosa Bianca Eggplant bloom.

 Jul 6

Gorgeous Rachel delivering three cases of purslane to True Food Kitchen.

 Jul 7

So happy! My first tomato, a Tigerella.

 Jul 9

Our first full container of Green Arrow Shelling Peas!

 Jul 11

Oh, it happened! Look at dem feet! Mitty got this little girl, and we gave her a loving sendoff before setting her free over the fence!

 Jul 11

Chioggia Beets! Prepping for our awesome cinnamon curry beet chips recipe!

 Jul 12

Mitty harvesting our beautiful Chioggia Beets!

 Jul 13

Rachel and I at the Highlands Market with our very first tomatoes!!!

Jul 14

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Our booth is starting to look really beautiful!

Bonus Foto(s):

Rachel and Mitty holding our All Red, All Blue and German Butterball test potatoes! Tiny but ready!!

Green Fleshed Pineapple Melon.

Going through recipes from my mother, grandmother, great grandmother and aunt!
This is a small handwritten recipe notebook from my great grandma!

First zucchini harvest! Dark Stars and Goldys!

Pics speak for themselves this post. So overwhelmed. So much love!! Thanks for checking in on the farm! Come see us at the markets!! 

XO,
Val

Growing.

There is something amazing about doubt, and I think it's the fact that, many times, it's linked to nothing in reality. Garett and I have a favorite saying, and that is "Look at it. No! Look at it with your real eyes!" We stole this from comedian Loiue CK, who did a sketch about a passenger trying to stuff a gi-normous piece of luggage into a tiny overhead bin on an airplane. We've all seen it, the passenger crying out 'It'll fit! It fit last time!', without realizing that the circumstances (ie; the plane) may have changed. 

I am delighted today to say that my farmvision today simply was the opposite of this scenario... My brain was screaming 'Nothing's growing and it's not gonna work!', only to arrive in the field today to see cabbage, spinach and cilantro triple the size of three days ago, and the beets, carrots, chard, and onions bright and happy. The sugar snap and shell peas are fighting the Oregon Giant Snows for the height trophy, and my tomatoes are busting a yellow flower or two on their brand new fruit sets! It just goes to show you that sometimes, even when doubt is great, the world's out there just waiting to prove you wrong. You just have to look at it with your real eyes. Here are the pics from the past two weeks:

May 16

Rachel and Monica transplanting eggplant!

 May 17

Anya, laying out our gorgeous tomatoes in order of
color for our Rainbow Row!

 May 21

Megan transplanting red bell peppers in the
Gun Club Road Demo Garden.

May 23

Just a little farmer's market prep and run through!!! Like the booth?? It's not near complete...But! It'll look even better filled with veggies!

 May 24

The reason it's so good is because they put a little love in it. Rachel and Mitty dancing in the kitchen during a Wonderland Farm recipe tasting. 

 May 25

Katie and Teddy sporting the Wonderland UniCorn Tank! 

 May 31

Just makin' sure they're in the ground good...

 Jun 1: Epic Farm Day, Trellis Project

So lucky to have Ryan for the trellising project. Here
he's cross bracing the trellising end post with baling twine.

Jesse stringing twine for trellising out eight varieties
of heirloom tomatoes. Each plant can weigh up to fifty pounds
when fully grown and producing!

Katie, Jessie and Rachel. Trelissing and fence repair extraordinaires.
That was their title for the day.

Jun 7

Our prize Striped Germans!

Bonus Foto(s):

Beautiful Bright Lights Baby Chard. Rainbow Edition, of course.

Rachel and Mitty practicing the "Kaplan Method" for weeding. FYI, this is no (says Katie).

An All Red Potato plant. Notice the rosy interior coloration on the leaves.
They're gonna be spectacular!

Me and Megan's ridiculously great baby, Phoebe, givin' those peps a dirty look.

Mountain dove's nest, view from the deck.

Oh yeah, I took these men to a dangerous old- timey sawmill. And they loved it. Mitty's carrying a whole tree we used for trellising end posts.

Pocket musk melon anyone? So excited to see our Sivan Heirloom Melon making an appearance!

Best crew ever. Mitty, Rachel and Ryan taking a post to the resident carpenter, my dad!!

This cilantro tastes even better that it looks. And to all those haters out there,
even Rachel has created a recipe for cilantro dressing that she loves! And
she's the biggest cilantro hater of all of you!

Rudy needed a place to sit after the end of Jessie's
long day.

Napa Cabbage... See the heart?!

Just so excited! Our first micro harvest! A few leaves
of palm sized spinach leaves to saute for dinner.
It's not much, but it sure did taste sweet!

Well, twenty five pics per blog may be my new record, and I even thought I gave a pretty good life metaphor (simile?) in the opening paragraph. Maybe it's a moral. Something like; No matter what you're thinking, you're still growing. My farm showed me that today. Thanks everyone for viewing and thanks especially to my unmatched and excellent farm team. You are inspiring. 

XO,

Val