I just got the following email and had to share:

Congratulations! Your farm is now featured on the Certified Naturally Grown home page.  Check it out here: www.naturallygrown.org

Don’t be modest – tell your friends and customers!  Certified Naturally Grown farms and apiaries are committed to the highest ideals of sustainable agriculture. Congratulations on becoming one of our poster farmers!

Thanks for all you do to help build a sustainable food system in your community.

The CNG Team

For those of you who are not familiar with Certified Naturally Grown (CNG), it is an alternative eco-labeling program that is built on the USDA Organic methods but structured in such a way as to be feasible to smaller, diverse growers.  The standards we adhere to are no less strict, and as a matter of fact, by the very structure of CNG, more open, accessible and transparent to our customers.  For more information about the CNG’s history, click here.  Our farm’s CNG page can be found by clicking this link.

Man I can’t get warm!  It is so cold and wet here and all of the immediate tasks that I need to get done are outside.  It has poured with few breaks, has been in the 30s in the past 24 hours, and a few minutes ago, proceeded to hail and knock blossoms off of the fruit trees that are in bloom.

Almost May and we are getting temps into the 30s and hail.

But all this is nothing compared to the horrific and devastating outbreak of tornadoes that are hammering the Southeastern United States.  My thoughts and prayers are with you all.

After working in the office in this morning, I resumed my work in the potting shed.  I am now about two-thirds of the way done and will finish up with the tomatoes tomorrow.  Not the best looking plants to say the least.  I am tardy in getting the seedlings potted up and the cold weather is not helping any.  I also sure wish that I had gotten that big new greenhouse built in time for this season.  My poor little greenhouse is already packed.  I am going to have to clean out the potting shed and utilize that (less than optimum) space as well.  I just hope that things dry out and we can get plants in the ground early this season.

That is about it from the farm today.

We are in a bit of a mid-week lull as far as orders go.  Most orders we are receiving are now getting processed and mailed out within one to two business days.

As a reminder to folks, if you have questions relating to the status of an order, please be sure to let me know your order number and also the shipping zip code.  It will allow me to get you an answer that much quicker.  And please remember that it is just me (Mike) that does the company communications and although service is a primary component of our mission, right now it is spring and I am also the head (read only) farmer here.

Regarding farm news . . . the weather is back into a cold, wet pattern.  I was out potting up tomato seedlings in my potting shed yesterday and it was raining so hard, it sounded like the roof was going to cave in.  It is that corrugated fiberglass material (that lets light in) and it sounded like a freight train.  This amount of rain make the planting areas inaccessible but there are certainly other tasks that can be done.  Like potting up tomato seedlings . . . which is where I am now headed and where I will be spending my afternoon.

Happy Gardening!

We had a pretty nice week of weather, right up until Sunday morning.  Now it feels like late winter again.

I did keep pretty much outside all last week taking advantage of the dry weather.  I completed a first pass at tilling in leaf mulch and cover cropping as well as broke about a half an acre of new ground that has been planted as a hay field since 1961.   Now if it dries out again and I can till it in preparation of planting, all will be well.

The tree planting project also has taken a lot of my time.  The bulk of the work was done by the planting crew.  However, there is an air gap between the hole side and the root ball that needed to be filled and the best way was to manually wash soil into the space while soaking the roots.  Very time consuming, muddy, wet and man I can tell you that the needles on these Austrian Pines do live up to that name – they are sharp!  Also, because it will be some time before the tree roots begin to grow out into the surrounding area and anchor the trees, the wind is tossing them about.  I have started the process of staking and guying them but have a long way to go.   I finished up what I could yesterday afternoon as the weather was changing.

This morning, all signs of sunny weather are hidden behind clouds.  It is just about 2:00 p.m. and the high so far has been 50F.  With the dampness and wind, it feels even colder.  So I am going to skip straightening up trees and opt to work on potting up tomatoes.

I did work several hours in the office this morning trying to catch up on correspondence and order related issues.  I do address emergency-type issues daily, but out of necessity, it can take a bit of time for me to answer questions or address comments.  Thank you for your patience with me.