The first lovely tender greens are harvested and in the frig.  Lettuce Mix, Spinach and Arugula are available for $4.00/bag.  The girls are continuing to lay plenty of eggs.
CSA shares are also available.  Let us know if you would like to pay by credit card here at the farm.  There’s a $5 service charge and we just have to know when you’re coming so we can have the appropriate electronic devises charged up in advance.
The C.O.C.C. Culinary class on sustainable agriculture was just here and we want to say a big THANK YOU for planting potatoes and spreading mulch.  Some hard work happened here today!

Spring is here and that means lots of activity on the farm.  Our first tunnel full of greens will be ready for harvest within two weeks!  Planting and field preparation are in full swing.   Our chickens are still laying buckets full of eggs and love the green shoots coming up.  Eggs are for sale everyday at the farmstand.  CSA shares, both Large($630.00) and Small($320.00) are for sale.  Call, email or come by, we make purchasing a share easy.
Jim always does some public speaking in the spring.  He will be talking at the Urban Agriculture Conference at C.O.C.C. tomorrow sponsored by the Central Oregon Food Policy Council.  Farm Kids field trips sponsored by Central Oregon Locavor are planned for May.   C.O.C.C. culinary students are coming in April to get a taste of growing the good food they are learning to prepare.  It all keeps us busy and enriches our lives.

This is a response Jim gave to a question regarding GMO foods or other products in our compost.  It maybe more information than you want :)GMO.  Genetically Modified Orgnaisms.  Yes our world is awash in them.  No my compost is not.  First it is good to know what has GMO content.  You can assume all corn Organic or not is contaminated to some degree with GMO genes.  It may not be as I have been saving an Open Pollinated corn here on the farm for 12 years or so and we shouldn’t have any GMO corn in our neighborhood.  Soybeans are mostly GMO.  The food waste we use is from an Organic soybean user so some of the waste will have tamari or tofu but it is organically sourced.  Horses don’t eat corn.  Horses eat hay.  The horse manure we receive is from a couple that have horses not children.  They are treated homeopathically for disease when it occurs.  They use natural wormers not Ivomectrin or the like.  Sugar beets are now all GMO, but I don’t see any sugar in the food waste.  Canola is almost all GMO and it is only used for oil and we sure don’t put oil into the compost pile.  The kale, caulifower, potatoes, rice, beans, peppers,lettuce, spinach and all the other human food waste that comes from the waste stream we feed the compost pile is NOT GMO.  By content the food waste makes up less than 10% of the pile.  The compost pile is a biological fire.  The micro-organisms are in a feeding frenzy cutting up,eating, digesting, and dying there way through the proteins, and carbohydrates that is the food we put out there for them to eat. In this process high temperatures are generated.  We try to keep the pile from going thermo-nuclear by adding water (we live in a desert so water is the limiting factor for our piles)  and turning the pile based on temperature and other characteristics.  We have been doing all of this for over 30 years and yes the world is changing around us with more corporate influence and the products they promote including those with GMO’s.  My family eats what I grow and i have fed thousands of people in Central Oregon for over 23 years.  They tell me I have the best Arugula they have ever tasted and the sweetest carrots best garlic and so on. Healthy soil is created by nature or can be helped by man with the inclusion of compost into the soil.  I like compost.  I have my hands in it all the time.

Farmer JimHead weeder

Central Oregon Sand.   What we have for topsoil here is officially called Deschutes Sandy Loam.  It is about 70% sand by the best soil test done on the farm.  To grow much I have always made compost and added as much as I could to the soil in the spring or fall as time allowed.  Over time this has increased our soil organic matter to around 5%. More than doubling the original number.  All the while tilling and growing for hundreds of people.  For compost ingredients we started with Horse manure.  Most easily found at riding stables where they look the other way while you hand fork it into what ever you brought to pickup with.  I have used mostly a pickup when I was hauling horse manure to the farm but I’ve seen mercedes wagons with carefully laid plastic sheets loading up all that they could hold (not much).  We found that by adding some hop waste from the local brewery the horse manure would start to compost faster.  And we like the smell of the hops and the guys making the beer were a good bunch too.  From my research it seemed that coffee grounds would be a good addition to the pile so we gathered them from a number of coffee roaster/shops.  They worked really well too.  A few years ago we had the oppportunity to compost food waste from a number of restaurants.  The food waste works well too but isn’t as pleasant as Beer or hops and coffee grounds.   I say all this in explanation for what do I do in the winter time when I can’t farm.  Well I am farming for the future by doing all this composting throught the year.  Hope your enjoying your winter too.Jim

Nothing like a few warm days and we think wahoo, time to farm.  So before we get busy we want to share some of the plans for the 2013 season.  For the past several years we have had the privilege to participate in the Northern Organic Vegetable Improvement Collabrative.  It is a collabaration between university rsearchers, seed producers and vegetable farmers to pick and grow varieties of vegetable with the most desirable characteristics for our growing conditions.  We recently attended the yearly review of last season’s vegetable trials and do we have new varieties to try.  We’ll be growing a new kale that everyone agreed had the best flavor, two corn varieties that have better cold tolerance and we will be growing several varieties of spinach looking for the best flavor, cold and heat tolerance.
Julie, who helped us out last year has a project growing sweet potatoes in barrels.  No guarentee of the results but it’s what keeps farming fun and interesting for a lifetime.  My special project is to continue to select a short season dry bean.
CSA shares are now on sale.   The price of a full share will remain the same as last year at $630.  This is a large grocery bag of produce available weekly from the 2nd or 3rd week in May(weather dependant) through the last week in October and a final bag of storage vegetables the week before Thanksgiving.  By peak season a full share will have 12 to 15 items per bag.  The pick up day at the farm will be Tuesday.
We will also offer a small share this year.  The cost will be $320 for a the midsized grocery bag from mid May to the end of October with the November storage bag.  A small share will have 5 to 7 items and the pick up day will be Thursday. 
To purchase a share we need your name, address,  phone number and email along with a check.  We do accept half payment to secure your share with the second payment due by June 1st.  As soon as I receive your check I will email confirmation of your share.

As many of you know we have had 2 goats, my sweet old ladies, as I call them.   They were our kids last 4-H goats and were 15 and 16 years old(absolutely ancient for a goat).  A couple weeks ago Oreo, the black and white goat died peacefully in her sleep after strolling around the farm the day before.  This has left Chocolate, the brown and white goat on her own.  Goats are herd animals.  Last weekend we finished some  work outside and headed into the house through the sunspace, first Jim, then me, our kitty Skagit came rushing in followed closely by Bear our dog and of course, Chocolate.  I had to close the door on her because even I can’t have a goat in the house.  It was just so sad. So we have become Chocolate’s herd.  Most days we leave her pen open and she spends the day in the yard, following Jim around or trying to be Bear’s new best friend.  So when you come for your eggs or onions don’t be alarmed if a rather large goat greets you in the parking area.  She’s quite harmless and loves a bit of scatch between her horns.

Eggs and Taters…sounds like a good breakfast!  After the big freeze around the holidays we have sorted our remaining potatoes and onions.  Bags of both are available in the sales shed, along with a good supply of eggs, wild rice and walnuts.  The wild rice is in a plastic box on the table as the mice get hungry in the winter and were getting into the bags.  Clean up,  repairing equipment, pruning and composting are our main activities on the farm right now.  Enjoy your winter.

Usually we only post info about our farm but, well, it’s my sister!  she is selling the household items from her condo.  After it’s empty a nice passive solar 2 bedroom condo will be for rent.
Clean Out the Condo SALE!!!  Saturday and Sunday, January 5 & 6

Among the items for sale:
Almost new two queen sized mattresses with box springs (nice mattress pad included) $100 each
Two queen size bed frames…one with a simple wooden headboard $10 No headboard, $20 with
Two gold tone and black, sturdy table lamps 28″ high $20/each
Bed linens–queen size bed-in-a-bag with comforter, sheets, pillow shams, bed skirt…bright multi colored with a blue/green base color $35
Three pillows $5 each
Bed spread-ivory colored heavy woven cotton, queen size  $20
Hand painted on a black background Duvet cover and two pillow shams–queen size–like new, very unique $50
Down comforter, queen size with sage green cover $20
Burgundy colored swivel rocker-good condition $30
Lazy Boy recliner–medium blue, slight wear on back corners, fabric good condition $40
Two lawn chairs $5 each
Goose neck floor lamp 48″ high $10
Floor lamp with two bulb, one shines up and one is on the pole  $25
Three small book shelves– one natural wood, one metal, one white Formica type $15 each
Kitchen items- Bunn coffee maker, Bunn coffee grinder, set of silverware, toaster, pots and pans, Set of Corelle dishes square black and white and a few other items–various prices
Small plastic garbage cans $2
Pictures, prints $5 to 50

If you are interested in any of these items please call Penny at 208.244.2164.
I am Debbie Fields sister. CASH sales please.

Penny Pinson

Hi folks,
After a very pleasant holiday break we have eggs again.  A few sunny days and the girls have started popping out eggs.   If you would like onions or potatoes come ask at the house.  With our chilly temperatures they were freezing on the table.  We want to wish you all a very happy new year.  Seed catalogs are arriving which always wets our appetites for another season!

Hey we’ve got something new in the sales shed.  A couple years ago in the never ending search to find what will actually grow in Central Oregon I began putting in various berries and small fruits .  Now we have the first product of those experiments.  We call them Fields Farm Old Fashioned Jellies made from black currants, red currents and quince.  If you want to try them out or need a small gift, they are available for $3.50 a jar.We also have about 12 dozen eggs right now and the rest of the sales shed is well packed with potatoes, onions, carrots, beets, walnuts and wild rice .  If you would like garlic or garlic powders contact us directly and we’ll see what we can do .