Blog Archives

Farmers Market Week Two

2/23/2015

Yesterday was our 2nd week selling Microgreens at the Ojai Farmers Market. We were delighted to exceed our sales from last week, in spite of the day being very grey, with intermittent rain. Rain and gloomy weather usually means lower sales for an outdoor market. This time, we remembered to snap a couple photos to post here.

It might look like these two are loafing on the job, but our cooler doesn't seal all the way, so they are actually helping keep the microgreens nice and cold by holding the lid down. Babies are a great sales-booster at market stands, but for their wages, they demand somewhat constant entertainment. Occasionally they want to sample all your products on display, but we got Siobhan to settle for a bottle of milk, a pet stuffed pig, and a good book instead.

Also over the weekend, we completed assembly of a 10x17 tent which will provide some much needed dry storage space on the farm. We got it from Harbor Freight Tools for only $200, and it seems to be pretty well made. It will also serve as our packing zone for filling orders on Monday and Wednesday for Ojai Farmstand. We finished it just in time for rain yesterday and today. If it works well, we will buy a 2nd one, and place the two door-to-door with a canopy between them, to make a 35+ foot long packing/storage zone.

Finally, below are a few updated photos of the veggie beds, including a thick 6-row stand of salad mix. Most of our beds use drip irrigation, but we installed micro sprinklers (visible from the bottom photo) for the salad mix, since it is impractical to run 6 rows of drip tape in one bed.

0 Comments

New (Old) Tractor and Farmers Market

2/16/2015

0 Comments

This was a big weekend for First Steps Farm. Saturday, we got a tractor -- a 1964 Ford 4000 Industrial. Pictured below. I actually bought the tractor back in July, but that was before we had leased the farm, and we thought that our neighbors wouldn't appreciate us parking it on the street in front of our house while we looked for land. So, the fellow I bought it from agreed to hang on to it until I got the farm. 6 months later, I finally got around to calling him to haul it down from his place in Upper Ojai. It's arrived just in time to borrow my neighbor's disc harrow to turn under the weeds in the half of the field we haven't planted yet. The combination of January rain and February heat has made the weeds go wild, and I don't want them going to seed.

So, in a sense this tractor started the farm. I have a bit of an impulsive streak, and when I saw the tractor for sale, with a working bucket in front, I had to make a quick decision. It was a bit crazy to buy it before we even had land, but I knew it would not be hard to find. And I knew that if I bought it, that I would be forced to find land quickly. It worked!

The tractor is a beauty, and has a working front loader, PTO, 3-point hitch, and 55 horse power. The hydraulics are super-strong. We're planning on using it for some large scale composting, and weed abatement. We can also use it to move horse manure from elsewhere on our landlord's property over to our acre. Down the road, we can use it for planting and harvesting larger quantities of certain crops (potatoes for example) that would be impractical with the BCS tractor.

Then, on Sunday, we started our first week ever of selling at Farmers Markets. We set up a stand at the Ojai Certified Farmers Market, selling our micro greens. Both Deirdre and I were so caught up in making sure everything was OK at the stand, that we forgot to take a photo for the blog. So, photos will have to wait for next week.

We had a great experience selling our own product at the Market. For the last year and a half, I worked at the same Ojai market for B.D. Dautch, who supplies some of the produce sold through Ojai Farmstand. We were very familiar with the market setting, and knew the market manager, but it was a totally different experience selling our own product. We sold everything we brought, except 3 packs of greens, so now we know what to plant more of for future markets.

If you are ever passing through Ojai on Sundays between 9:00 and 1:00, stop by and say hi! We'll give you samples of all the micros.

0 Comments

Matching Helpers

2/1/2015

0 Comments

Matching farm helpers.

0 Comments

Farmers Market Week Two

New (Old) Tractor and Farmers Market

Matching Helpers

Author

Archives

Categories