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.

Tomatoes are in!

It must be summer... we got all of our tomatoes (over 700 plants) planted Monday and today we nearly hit 90 degrees.

After the big storms last Friday we had our first volunteer day for '08 on Saturday. We got a lot of lettuce planted and fixed our row cover all of which pulled up in the storms.

It was a great day, thanks everyone for all your help. Once again Owen stole the show in the pictures.

Sorry Jon I had to put this one in... it just looks like you're having so much fun with that hoop!