| 2007
Solid Rock Farm's progress in 2007:
September 3, 2007
Harvest Time:
 The bounty is coming in. Our beans have already given us most of what they have. Tomatoes are starting to turn a frenzy of red, orange and yellos. Corn is almost ready as we peel back their hiding wrappers.
Distributing the food is our current opportunity/challenge. Thanks to Hungry Belly for their appreciation and support of local food.
Kelly's hardware received a beautiful box of purple eggplants, green peppers, yellow squash, red tomoatoes, and more, a small thank you for their support this spring, in helping us set up irrigation.
Another opportunity is figuring out how to receive the funding for next year. We need $600 to pay for water and another $600 to cover taxes. Beyond that we'll have seed and starts costs, tractor costs, etc.
Farm memberships: One avenue for covering our costs is offering $100 donation memberships for our next farm season. Each member will have the opportunity to participate in the growing of our own food, as well as harvesting and eating farm fresh food. All who have interest are welcome.
August 25, 2007
Lavender Moving Day:
 Including kids, 29 of us lent a hand in moving 170 lavender plants to Solid Rock Farm. What a crew, including four Japanese students. In the space of one hour, all the plants were out of the ground. Getting them back in took a few more hours. Next season we'll be swimming in Lavender.
Thanks to trucks from Jeff and a 24 foot trailer from John's farm.
July 31, 2007
First Harvest:
Tim Race from the Red Apple Market produce section visited Solid Rock farm last week. This week we’re delivering a box of hot peppers, a box of cool peppers, and 5 small boxes of mixed vegetables (squash, tomatoes, eggplant.) Tim will sell these mixed vegetables “by the box,” making it easy for the market to display our goods, despite our small quantities. Anne created a Lake Chelan Local sign to display at the market.
With hot days and good watering, the field is growing fast. We’ll be seeing lots more ripe vegetables in the coming weeks. Each day on the little half acre gives us more experience for choosing our long-term direction for Solid Rock Farm and Lake Chelan Local.
Lavender:
The gifts continue. If you’ve driven up Boyd Road, you’ve probably seen Kalissa’s lavender farm. That piece of land is selling this summer, and the 100+ lavender plants are coming to Solid Rock Farm. Thank you Kalissa!
We have a six week time frame to move the plants. Jeff and John want to wait as far into the summer as possible. The plants will have an easier time transplanting if we can avoid some of this heat. John will soon get irrigation up to a new area of the farm, and till the soil. We’ll mark spots for the lavender plants and then whoever can help dig holes is welcome to get in some shovel time. Next spring we’ll be decked in purple.
Farmer’s Market:
There’s still some lavender on the plants at Kalissa’s. The plants need trimming anyway, so a few of us will gather some boxes of lavender and bring them to the Farmer’s Market this Saturday. If you’re looking for a sweet smelling Friday evening, bring your shears to Kalissa’s lavender patch, anytime after 6:30 p.m. Head up Boyd Road and you’ll see the patch on your left side, right above the new Crystal View Estates land moving project.
We’re now two months into this project. Solid Rock Farm feels like its turning into a good friend.
July 18, 2007
Weeding and Meeting. While weeding rows of peppers, beans, basil, eggplant, corn, and more, we discussed:
- Whackin' Weeds on Weekends. However much fun it is to weed alone, its far more satisfying as a group. Saturday mornings from 8-11 a.m. Whoever can come and weed, come and join a group. (This weekend is the triathlon so many will be helping at the race. But...from now on look for company.)
- Harvesting. Peppers. Tomatoes. Eggplants. We're already seeing results. If you're out weeding, please take produce home for personal use. We'll also check with Red Apple Market for what kinds of quantities they need in order to sell our produce. We'll plan on harvesting on each Saturday after we're finished weeding.
- Watering Schedule. Marcy on Mondays, Anne and Lars on Thursdays, and Virginia to check on Saturdays. John is backup. (Turns out we've got great soil that holds the water well.)
- General Amazement: This stuff is really growing. And after our group weeding, the farm is looking great!.
- Future: Thanks to Rachel from Sunshine Farm for suggesting that we look into finding a farmer to help with the land. Thanks for suggestions to consider individual plots. Thanks for wishes to plant strawberries, herbs, garlic, etc next year. Let's keep rolling the good ideas around and meet soon again to make some plans.
July 12, 2007
100 degree temperatures are helping the plants grow quickly. 17 people helped with our initial planting of the first half-acre of crops. Planting took place on June 16. Folks are taking turns with watering and weeding. We added another 7 rows of corn on July 11.
Now we need a meeting to figure out harvesting.
NEXT WEDNESDAY:
Folks are wanting to meet at the farm, so that’s what we’ll do.
Meeting at 7 p.m. at the Farm
Come earlier or stay later and help with weeding and caring for the plants.
How to get there.
Drive out to the Chelan Airport and turn left on Apple Acres Road. Go almost exactly 2 miles on Apple Acres, you’ll see a black steel stallion statue on the right hand side. Turn right here and drive up the road, past the green house, to the farm.
June 9, 2007
Land is tilled.
Paul Palumbo and Jeff Berman watered the land last week. By Saturday morning it was ready for the rotovator. Thanks to Enberto, along with Joannie and John Brownfield, for tractor help. Thanks for donations of starter plants, irrigiation sprinklers and more.
It's late for starting a farm this summer, so we've decided to plant a half-acre of vegetables and leave the rest in cover crop for the summer.
We'll be watering this week and then planting this coming Saturday, June 16th, starting at 9 a.m. If you can help, you're welcome. The farm is located on Apple Acres Road, almost exactly 2 miles from the airport. You'll see a large sculpture of a black stallion when you arrive. Turn into this driveway and head up past the first house. We'll greet you there.
May 26, 2007:
Amazing news!
In the past 24 hours we went from people dreaming about someday adding another local farm to our community to being offered a ten year lease on six acres of great land on Howard Flats! Even more amazingly, it will cost us only the irrigation costs, $600.00 a year!
The soil looks great according to Bruce Spencer, who accompanied us to look at the land. The woman who owns the land really likes the idea of local food, locally grown and consumed and is very excited to have her land be productive.
So, I am hoping we can raise enough money to pay her the annual fee for this year, till the land, put a cover crop on most of it (to prepare it for next spring),plant some late crops on some for this year, and keep this amazing gift going!
I am thinking $1500-$2000.00 would be a great start. I also think we need some conversation about exactly what model we would like to see on this land in the long run.
In the meantime, you can support the initial effort by making out a check to Lake Chelan Local. You can send donations to me for now at PO Box 1058 in Chelan.
Also, if you have a hankerin' for working in the soil, please let us know!
We will need people to get their hands dirty over the next couple of weeks!
Thank you all for the great energy and enthusiasm for local living. This will be a great addition to the larger vision of a vital local economy in Chelan!
Peace,
Paul Palumbo
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