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LOCALLY GROWN, ORGANIC PRODUCE DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR.

PHOTOS OF THE FARM: FEBRUARY 2021 AND POST-STORM SURVEY

02/26/21 — Ada Broussard

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 19th

Friday the 19th was the first day that we had (some) staff at our farm in over a week. The farm fields were still completely navigable, but we had a skeleton crew come to our Hergotz Packing shed and prepare for a weekend of farmers' markets. At this point, we had plenty of harvest that we had picked pre-storm, and there were a lot of perishable crops that needed to be sold!

 

Shoveling snow to load market vans. This was a first for our Friday crew! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Brenton and Tracy's Friday... and weekend... and following Monday... was mostly troubleshooting repairs of our Hergotz well. Ultimately, this entire infrastructure and pump was replaced. The most difficult facet of this project was sourcing the parts. Water at Hergotz is supremely important to wash the veggies! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Beautiful greens harvested pre-storm, ready to go to markets. This will be the last of the romaine, collards, kale and cauliflower for quite a while. If you were lucky enough to get some of these items, we hope you're cherishing these veggies! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

A snow-covered bumper. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

 

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 20th

On the Friday following the storm, our shoveled snow and prepared for the farmers' market. After so many grocery store shelves were barren of produce, we assumed markets would be busy, perhaps comparable to the businesses we experienced last March when Austin first issued a stay at home order due to Covid-19. We were surprised to see even longer lines than we could have imagined. A big thank you to: our staff for showing up, shoveling, and getting food out to the community after what was a personally challenging week for everyone. Thank you to all of the farmers market organizers who have continually provided the infrastructure to safely distribute veggies straight to the community, while understanding the needs of their vendors and doing things like waiving vendor fees and fundraising for recovery efforts. And last, thank you to YOU! The shoppers and CSA Members who visit us at market every weekend. You make it all worth it! So many of you were particularly excited to get veggies this weekend.

Lines for produce at SFC's Downtown Market. The thaw was in full-swing at this point, and ski clothes were replaced with lighter jackets. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Things were selling... quickly. Again, thank you to our rockstar staff who rose to the challenge. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Our market stalls are still operating under our altered COVID setups. Instead of perusing the bins of produce yourself, you place an order with one of our staff who then compiles your goods. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Our photographer Scott was market-hopping on this particular Saturday and headed to the Barton Creek market as well. Lines were even longer. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

CSA Members picking up pre-paid, and pre-packed boxes of veggies. Joining our CSA is a wonderful way to support our farm right now. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Long, long lines of patient, lovely patrons. Thank you! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

  TUESDAY FEBRUARY 23rd

We'll start with some of the pretty things. We are SO grateful that our transplants all survived. Thank you to Adam, Giana, and Ki who busted it in the day before the storm to move thousands of transplants into our office and warehouse. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Transplants that remained in our 1 heated greenhouses were also triple covered with frost cloth. They are shining like nothing even happened. These plants are for our transplant sale happening that is beginning THIS WEEKEND! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

These flats of plants have been rotated, moved, covered, and uncovered so many times over the past two weeks. Kudos to our amazing greenhouse crew who kept all of these plants alive and healthy. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Luckily, we were a bit "behind" with some of our lettuce plantings. These transplants were supposed to have been planted before the storm. Had they been in the ground, the would have most certainly died. But because we were behind schedule, they stayed safe, tucked away in our greenhouse. Sometimes things just work out like that, no? Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Transplants for our fields. Moved outside, to again harden off, and get ready for planting. Again, we're SO GRATEFUL that these survived. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Baby bok choy, ready to take root and start again. High five to our planting crew who have been working double-time this week. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Red and green leaf lettuce. These transplants are a few weeks old, getting us an important jump start on replenishing our fields. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Okay, now for the ugly. If you didn't read our blog post, here's the gist: We lost the vast majority of the crops in our field, like this dino kale. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

These pictures are sad, but we feel compelled to share them for posterity and transparency. Goodbye kale, catcha next time. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Angel wasted no time mowing over the dead plants to prep beds for re-planting. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

This dead culy kale looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, no? Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Dead and gone. On a farm our size, using row cover in the fields is not feasible. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Once, was collards. One silver lining about the frost is that hopefully, the extreme cold killed off some pests that usually pester spring crops. Many bugs can survive these temps, but we're hoping the freezes will diminish the populations some. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Cauliflower blobs. When brassicas like cauliflower begin to rot in the fields, they can become pretty stinky. We'll remove, and compost, this dead plant matter as quickly as possible. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Once-were-cabbages. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Time to start anew! Photo by Scott David Gordon.

We're unable to work in the fields when they are wet, and after all the snow and ice it has taken a long time for our fields to sufficiently dry out. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

We hope you like carrots! Our carrot crop, which was tucked under the insulative soil, survived the freezes and so you can expect lots and lots of carrots in the coming weeks. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Thank you Austin, and all of our other CSA Members, who sent us kind words of encouragement and super cool cards. This one is hanging in the office for all to see!
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