Farming on Film

Last week, we and our mentors, Sandhill Organics, were featured in a great blog called People and the Land. The blog written by two photographers who are on a 10-week journey throughout the Midwest and East Coast with the goal of capturing images of rural communities and forest practitioners. The photographs really capture the beautiful environment that we and our hard working fellow farmers work in each day, as well as the fruits (or vegetables in our case) of their labor.

Did somebody say GARLIC?

We got great feedback about our garlic last year and decided to plant a lot more for this year. We just finished our garlic harvest digging over 2300 heads of garlic! Everyone is a little sore but it feels good to see all that delicious garlic. We won't sell all of our garlic once it is done curing (drying) we will sort it and save the best heads for planting in the fall. Through this process we gradually select the best garlic that is better suited to our soils and climate.

Nice article about CSAs in the USA

This is a nice article that explains what a CSA is and does a farm and its customers. We'd echo the sentiments of one of the farmer's quoted in the article: “There’s always pressure on. This is a complicated business, growing so many crops." We grow over 120 varieties with a limited crew, but we're dedicated to the idea that producing for our CSA is important for us, our customers, our environment and our sustainability as a business.

State of the field

These a couple pictures of what is happening in our field...

Tomatoes are growing and continually need to be trellised.

Summer squash and is starting to come in.

Broccoli is starting to be harvested.

Good Bye Water Buffalo!

We finally have water in our field! While that may look like a bunch of steel it is the end of an era at Dea Dia. We no longer need to schlep 600 gallons of water in a big tank behind my truck half a mile to water our crops.

Today our tomatoes got a nice long drink and both the plants and I am much happier because of it!

Last week, there was a great article in the New York Times about three products we're offering this season: green garlic, scapes and heads of garlic. It's amazing how the different forms of garlic produce slightly different flavors, all seasonal and delicious. It's worthwhile to have smelly hands throughout the summer for these treats!

Rain Can't Stop Us

It's been a soggy early summer in Grayslake (and throughout the Midwest) and we've gotten a lot of questions about how we're doing with the rain. We appreciate everyone's thoughts and concerns, and in short: we've been very lucky. Although some of our crops look droopy because of rain and there is standing water in some of the fields, we were able to harvest lettuce, spinach, radishes, kales, collards, arugula and green garlic this week.

In the beginning of our season, it so important (emotionally) to have a good harvest and a full table at our market. We know there are plenty of farmers out there who are worse off than we are, so we are very thankful for what we've been able to harvest so far. We'll keep you posted on how things go throughout the next few weeks.