Post Farm...

Hey! So... Not quite Sunday, but I promise I will get right back on track starting this week. It will be my pre- New Year's Resolution. It has been an adjustment to say the least being away from the farm, but I have to admit that it has been so cold out that I am happy to spend my days inside lately!! This will be a quick post. One vintage foto (okay, two) to remind us of some warmer times this past 2012 season:

May 24th at Grant Family Farms. Look how green and bright!!

Nate's first day working with the interns in Greeley, planting peppers.
No one told him to put sunscreen there... It was our first day working in 100º heat!
We called it his tramp stamp, and somehow I have it documented. Sorry, Nate!

  I hope we all feel a little warmer now... Next week: one more vintage foto (okay, two), and maybe one of me trying to get a little season planning done for next year! 

XO,
Val

The Grande Finale!

It was a surreal and bittersweet week for me. Also, fairly boring and laborious in terms of what was going on with us on the farm... We ripped up plastic every day. I've had a hard time writing this last post. I just really don't want to do it, I think because it'll mean that my last week really did happen and I won't be working at Grant Farms anymore. It has been such a tremendous season for me. I have gotten the first real tan I've probably every had in my life, worked my booty off (literally) in the blazing sun and freezing cold, celebrated way too hard (and often!) at the end of a long week, had more than a few late night farm adventures, and fell in total love with farming and vegetable production. Not to mention the amazing people that I've had the chance to work with and call my friends. I know we'll see each other again, but I wish it could still be every day. I don't know what I'll do without you this winter!! This post can't touch how much you all mean to me, and what this experience has done to change my life for the better. So here, after a great season, are the final week's pics of the week:

Nov 26

Dark and dreary Monday. It was so cold I was shaking! Here are all the guys: Austin, Joshua, Nate, Mitty, and Chris. Katie and I were the last girls standing this week. This is the top of Pie Four, the field where I laid the most plastic. I had the honor of tearing up the first beds, and the last this week. Wow.

Nov 27

Katie, driving the tractor on Tuesday.

Nov 28

Mitty and Chris ripping up the drip tape irrigation in Pie Four.

Nov 29

View from the tractor. Getting down to the last zone on Thursday. The harvest road is to the left, and only zone seven with the determinate tomatoes remains. Austin, Katie, Chris and Joshua to the right.

Nov 30

It's my last day. I couldn't decide on just one, so here's five.

Joshua driving Nate in the front end loader to pick up all the plastic and drip tape in Pie Four.

The last load! Chris, Abby, Katie, Mitty, Nate, Joshua, and Austin.

Up in the bucket with a beer and the dogs at the end of a long day. Austin, Abby, Mitty, Val, Maddy, Nate, Katie, and Chris.

Nate and Maddy.

About to rip up the last plastic bed. Mitty gave up the tractor for me and took my pic. I'm gonna miss driving beasts like this. 

Bonus Foto(s):

Katie and I took this picture of the full moon having one last field beer of the season in Pie Four on Wednesday.

Asleep after a long, hard season!

Thanks for a terrific year! Sunset on the season.

So, don't shed a tear quite yet if you've enjoyed the blog this year. I'm not done yet. A few things will happen with it here in the future... Although it's the end of the season here in Colorado, I am planning to continue with a little something every week, just to keep it rolling. Check back with me for a unique, never posted, *vintage* farm foto every week featuring our 2012 interns... maybe even some party pics? Maybe even some video!? Who knows! You will have to just keep checking in to see! Also, there is a extra big surprise I have for you that will be posted on the blog soon, again having to do with the media I've collected this year. I will have it up by Christmas for a little end of the season gift for everyone. Interns, those of you whom I don't have email addresses for, can you please send them to me at granere@gmail.com or message me on facebook.

Finally, what's next for Val, you must be asking yourself! I bet the answer won't shock you... I am starting an organic farm! A small farm to start, to be sure, but within a few years I hope to be up on forty acres in Steamboat with ten acres in veggie production per year. Throw in a few alpacas and there's the goal. To start though, I'll be cultivating a little under an acre on the front range near Golden and plan to focus on a small farm membership with perks and farm dinners, and farmer's markets of course- a few if we have the produce! So as the winter wraps up and spring and things get cracking again, check in to see some new pics as I give my farm dream a shot. I am pretty sure it's gonna be interesting, if not pretty entertaining! And who knows, but I have a feeling a few of us will be working together again soon!

Thanks for following me this season, and please continue to do so. I've loved doing the blog and will keep it up. I've almost reached 10,000 hits, a number that's unreal to me! Maybe I'll get it by the new year... 

I hate to wrap this post up! So hard!!! Thanks. And see you next week.

XOXOXOXO,

Val

The Short Post...

This week will mark the shortest post ever! I worked a mere two days this week due to the long Thanksgiving holiday and a run of four birthdays in succession in my family, starting with Garett's on the 21st. We spent our days tearing up the black plastic we laid down in the spring to warm our nightshade vegetables and cantaloupes. We worked in Fischer and removed five acres of plastic bedding in two days, heaping it into large lumps for pick up and disposal. It was great to come full circle and tear out at the end of the season what we put in at the start! We also said goodbye to Rachel on Tuesday, boo! Good luck Rachel, we're gonna miss you next week! Please enjoy the abbreviated pics of the week below:

Nov 19

One of the large lumps of plastic we pulled up and rolled up by hand in Fischer on Monday. Isaac on the tractor, Rachel and Joshua on the ground.

Nov 20

It was so ridiculously beautiful on Tuesday, Rachel and I stripped down to our leggings in the field. Here we are in our yoga pants! Sweet.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope your Thanksgiving was filled with blessings, and your bounty was great. I'm thankful this year for the health of my amazing family and my wonderful friends, and that I have found a true passion in organic vegetables and farming. It's been a great year, I have a great life. Wishing the same to all of you this holiday season and in 2013... Right around the corner! Until next week.

XO,

Val

Winding up.

We finished planting twenty-six acres of garlic on Friday. Through the bitter cold, uncomfortable implement, frozen fingers and probably about a million sunflower seeds between the seven or eight of us, we persevered!! We also moved a bunch of row cover, and by a bunch, I mean a ton... from one of the silos to a trailer for the winter on Monday. We finished the Brussels sprouts field on Tuesday. Did we do much else besides that this week? Nope! Season's winding up! Corn, carrots, parsnips and rutabagas all harvested and cleaned from the fields. Winter is eminent! Here are the pics of the week:

Nov 12

The last seven standing... or riding, that is. The shadows of our last seven interns in between moving row cover on a flat bed pulled by the tractor.

Nov 13

Small "field trip" into the dried commodity corn at Black One during lunch Tuesday. We were in adjacent Black Two harvesting Brussels sprouts.

Nov 14

Our crew leaving what feels like an endless field of garlic in Pie One on Wednesday. From Left, Chris, Mitty, Joshua, Isaac, Katie and Rachel.

Nov 15

Another day's wrap up after some cold garlic planting. Katie, Chris and Rachel, walking to the truck past one of the farm's natural springs.

Nov 16

Austin, Nate, and Mitty, throwing cloves in celebration of completing 26 acres of two varieties of garlic over two different fields on Friday.

Nov 17

So, this Saturday marked a pretty special day... Garett's and my first day working on what will next year be the site of our market garden, the first step toward our own farm! We are cultivating about half an acre in Golden with the aim of doing farmer's markets and having a small garden membership. We planted two varieties of garlic Saturday, courtesy of Grant Farms!

Garett (my husband!), planting soft neck garlic. Roger (my dad!) with a hoe on the left.

Keeping pests out of the field! Me with Teddy and some hard neck garlic (my fav!) with my dad hard at work in the background! 

Bonus Foto(s):

Rachel, making it rain with our commodity feed corn from the top of the grain silo on Monday!

This field be planted, yo! Garlic in your face next spring in Pie One!!

A blustery, cold, garlicky week! We nevertheless had a great time though, as always. I think this week's pics definitely speak for themselves. Gearing up for a short but sweet week next week, and getting ready to enjoy the bounty of our season's harvest for Thanksgiving!! 

XO,

Val

Mid November Blues

Here we are at the almost end of the season, and I can't help but feel a lot nostalgic for the heavy harvest time of September and the hot days of July. It's wintery and windy now, and the light seems colder, even when the sun is shining. We are planting garlic for next year to overwinter, and harvesting brussels spouts, turnips and cabbage. Stephanie came back to the farm to visit this week, and brought her mom along to help us seed garlic on Thursday morning. Check out their pic in the bonus section this week. Also, we said goodbye to Sarah, bringing our crew down to a mere seven people. Some of us will try to stay throughout the winter season, based on the workload available, and the rest of us, myself included, will be wrapping up at the end of November. The season has seemed both long and gone in a flash, and I feel ready for the break of the winter season, but also anxious, not knowing how I can bear to be out of the dirt and away from the fun of vegetable production for three whole months! Here are the pics of the week:

Nov 5

Katie, harvesting turnips Monday in Fischer Field.

Nov 6

Nate, in the back of the box truck after we broke our backs palleting
110 RPC's of heavy turnips for CSA shares on Tuesday.

Nov 7

Sarah and Katie lounging momentarily on the garlic seeder on Wednesday, Sarah's last day.
They're both sporting a Sarah favorite- sparkly stickers, on their cheeks, courtesy of Isaac.

Nov 8

Rachel, harvesting Napa cabbage at sunset on Thursday.
It looks like she has a tiny Austin on her back!

Bonus Foto(s):

I missed Friday this week, but have some great shots from earlier days. We finished seeding the garlic field on Thursday, worked in the dark on Wednesday, and generally looked pretty photogenic the rest of the time. Enjoy:

Monday's sunset over Owl Canyon, viewed from Grant's plum orchard.

Wednesday afternoon in the garlic field at Matsuta 8.

Working to plant garlic by the light of the tractor Wednesday night.

Steph and her mom helping us out Thursday morning.

Me with a million carrots Tuesday afternoon.

Finishing the garlic field on Thursday! Joshua, Rachel. Me, and Austin.

Isaac and Ike, harvesting Napa cabbage at sunset.

Thanks for reading! Until next week...

XO,

Val