Moving on to Winter at the Farm

Here at the farm we're wrapping things up for the winter. The fields are cleared of drip tape and being tilled under and planted with cover crop, the chickens have been moved to their winter location, the hoop houses are planted full of delicious winter greens, and the root cellar is loaded with storage crops for winter and early spring sales. We have been thankful to make it through the season. It was a hard one, what with a hot, dry summer that caused many of our crops to produce poorly. As we look back on the busy months, we are grateful for all the folks who supported us and encouraged us along the way. We couldn't have done it without you! Now, just as the land around us is sighing as it takes to rest for the season, so do we let out a sigh of relief to be able to take some time for reflection and rest. Though work on the farm is never done, the tasks have diminished for the time being, leaving us with a chance to take a breath and prepare our bodies and minds for the spring.

Bringing in the kossack kohlrabi harvest.

Plowing up potatoes.

Potato harvesters!

Hoop house planted for the winter.

Fall Shares and Online Sales

FALL SHARES and ONLINE SALES for the end of the 2012 Season

I hope you have all enjoyed the spring and summer produce we have offered in 2012. It has been another season for Shannon and me to better understand the art and science of farming. So much to learn! That is one of the aspects we both love about it. We have had a bountiful harvest of storage crops (potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, winter squash, and pumpkins), and we are planting salad greens, lettuce heads, spinach, arugula, kale, chard, radishes, and turnips in the hoop houses for fresh produce this fall and winter.

We have decided to offer a 4 week FALL SHARE this November. We will have 15 shares available on a first come first serve basis. We will also be offering ONLINE SALES like we did last winter so Market Share members will have more opportunities to use the rest of your balances before the end of the year when they expire. We are also moving the pickups for the Fall Share and Online Sales to the farm on Musch Rd. I have included details about the Fall Shares and Online Sales below.

Here is how the FALL SHARE will be structured:

Cost: $100

Payment Deadline: $50 when you sign up, and the remaining $50 due by October 31^st.

Pick Up Dates: Wednesdays – November 7^th, 14^th, 21^st, 28^th

Time: 3:30 PM to 5:30 PM

Location: Stone Coop Farm – 9615 Musch Rd., Brighton, MI 48116

Number of Shares available: 15

What will be in the share? Here’s the items that may be provided each week. You will get 5 items, one from each category, and it will be at least $25 in value.

1. Root Crops – carrots, radishes, turnips, rutabaga, or beets

2. Potatoes or sweet potatoes

3. Pumpkin or Winter Squash

4. Leafy Greens – salad mix, spinach, kale, chard or lettuce head

5. Miscellaneous veggies – kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, onions, cabbage, celery or frozen tomatoes (from our wonderful abundance of tasty tomatoes this summer).

Here is how we will be offering the ONLINE SALES:
On Fridays we will send out an email listing the produce we have to offer and the price for each item. You will place your order via email by MONDAY at noon. Orders are filled by first come first served. We will harvest the produce and send you an email by the end of the day on Tuesday letting you know which items on your order we can provide and the total cost. You pick up your order on Wednesday at the farm on Musch Rd.

Location: Stone Coop Farm – 9615 Musch Rd., Brighton, MI 48116When: Wednesdays – November 7^th, 14^th, 21^st, 28^th

Pick Up Time: 3:30 PM to 5:30 PM

We may have some December online sales, but it will be weather dependent.

No need to sign up for the Online Sales, just let us know you want to be on our weekly email and you can pick and choose which weeks you want to purchase something.

If you are interested in purchasing a Fall Share, or are not yet on our email list and wish to be, please email me, joannee@stonecoopfarm.com, with your request. Thank you!

-Joannee

Autumn and Reflections

Autumn is here, and two days later we've had our first frost. We still have some sweet potatoes in the ground, so the next couple days we'll be digging them like crazy to get them all out and in crates to start the curing process in the hoop house. Leaves on trees around the farm are beginning to turn, and each morning we can see our breath on the air as the cold nips our noses. It is a beautiful season we are heading into, full of reflection on the busy summer months as we bring many things to a close on the farm. However, there are always new beginnings as we plant in the hoop houses for the winter—kale, chard, spinach, brassica salad mix, radishes, turnips, and lettuce. The fields are getting cleaned out, and following that we slowly move the chickens in their portable coop and fencing through the fields to clean up and add some natural fertilizer. Later this fall they'll start laying. The turn of seasons is what keeps us farmers sane, gives us a sense of rhythm in our lives, and brings us closer to the land which sustains us.

-Shannon

Digging sweet potatoes

Nikola Tesla (left) aka Tesla and Eleanor Roosevelt aka Rosie, our new farm cats and dutiful mousers.

Last succession of corn being harvested.

Pavilion for distribution and market going up near the front of the farm.

Now Selling at Howell Farmers Market

Come find us at Howell Farmers Market on Sundays, 9am to 2pm. The market is in downtown Howell, just off Grand River and Michigan Ave. It's a great market with plenty of local farmers and crafts. This was our first week attending, and we really enjoyed the atmosphere, as well as all the new folks we met. Next week (Sunday the 19th) is the last day Howell Melon Fest, a big event in downtown Howell from 9am to 5pm. We'll be there with plenty of our delicious and unique heirloom tomatoes!

Hot Summer Days

We've all heard enough about this heat, so I'll only say it once and then be done with it: Dang, it's hot out there!

With all of our plants and seeds in for the fall crops, we're into the thick of things with weeding and harvesting. We've just finished running all the drip irrigation for the corn (a job we did not expect to have to do, but lack of rainfall made it a necessity), and rescued one of our fields from weedy invaders. With a lot of extra hands on the farm due to numerous volunteers and some more hired help, we've been getting a lot done. Both Joannee and myself are so thankful for all the folks who have put their time and effort into the farm! There's nothing like farming as a community.

At the end of June, we attended Horse Progress Days in Clare, a day dedicated to the latest and greatest in traditional horse-powered farming methods and equipment. It was a great day, very informative and fun, with fantastic Amish food. As we hope to one day include horses on the farm, much of what we learned was very applicable to our future plans at Stone Coop. Here are a few pictures from the day:

-Shannon

First Week of Distribution

Whew, it's been a crazy month! We've been planting fiends and are nearly done with our spring planting, just in time to start with summer weeding. It's been a hot, dry spring, and we've been dealing with temperatures akin to those we'd find in July rather than May and June. Our summer crops, especially the tomatoes and peppers in the hoop houses, have been pleased with the hot weather and are growing quickly. Already many of our tomato plants have well developed green tomatoes on them. This week it's back to more planting and running drip irrigation on our thirsty crops. Let's be hoping for some rain!

It's also the first week of Summer Share distribution! Wednesday pick up is 4:00pm - 6:30pm at Hamburg Fitness Center, and Saturday pick up is 8:30am - 10:30am at Stone Coop. Check out our Contact page for maps of the different locations if you're not sure where to go for your pick up day.

As you may have seen, about a month ago the farm was featured in the Livingston Daily for our work with the Livingston County Hunger Council in establishing Project Farm. Check out the article here: Farming with a purpose.

Twitter Updates

On the left side of our webpage, just below the picture slideshow, is an area for our Twitter updates. We've just activated the farm phone so that we can tweet from the phone. That means that we'll be able to give more timely updates about what we're doing each day and where we'll be. This is of particular interest for our working and helping share members. Just check out the website before you head to the farm to see which location we're at, as we'll keep it updated with our daily activities.

First Market of the Season

Wow, what a fabulous day at Brighton Farmers Market! The highlight was meeting several new farmers in the area, such as Rebecca from Small Planet Farm. Had some great conversations, and it was wonderful to be able to share experiences and knowledge from our journey so far.

Last year we were only selling transplants at market, but this year we were one of the few vendors to be offering produce. From our hoop house we brought to market kale (three different kinds), kale rabe, chard, and lettuce salad mix. Outside, some of our herbs have been doing well, so we had a nice selection of thyme, oregano, mint, chives, and tarragon to offer. We were sold out of everything by the end of the day! It was so great to see many of our regulars, and meet plenty of new folks as well! What a great way to start out the season.

-Shannon

Come out and help on the hoop house this Saturday!

We are madly preparing for the hoop house build this Saturday.  We can use all hands for 30 minutes or all day, so if you have time and want to help, please come by our new location at 9615 Musch Rd. (behind Holy Spirit Catholic Church), which is off of Winans Lake Rd.  We will be working rain or shine.  If we don't finish both houses we will be working on them on Sunday, April 22 - start time – 8AM.

We will be providing snacks, lunch, and dinner so if you haven't responded yet and plan to be there at mealtimes, please let me know so we can have enough food.  Here's what you should plan to bring. 

Remember this is a jobsite so we want to keep everyone safe.

Hat

Raincoat

Gloves

Close-toed shoes or work boots – if rainy, rubber boots would be good

Water Bottle

Sunscreen

Safety Glasses (if you have some) – we will have a few pairs for those working with the power tools)

We also need you to bring any of the following tools you might have.  Please make sure you have your name clearly labeled on each item.

Cordless Impact Wrench (Preferred)

Cordless drill

Battery Charger

Shovel

Wheelbarrow

8’ or 10’ Step Ladder

Metal Garden rake

KIDS

We will not have childcare available, but if you have a child who will be a great helper and will stay with you at all times, they are welcome to help.  There will be lots of ladders, power tools, and large metal pieces being moved around, so we cannot have children running around the site.  We will also need help with the food set up, serving, and clean up so this may be the place for you and your child to help.

We are looking forward to a great day!  Hope to see some of you on Saturday.  Call Joannee with any questions 810-599-2616 or Shannon at 810-588-7137

-Joannee

Building our hoop house in 2011. 

Hope to see you all this Saturday!

Hoop House Build Reminder

A reminder to all: Our hoop house build is on Saturday, April 21st from 8AM to 5PM. If you'd like to help and haven't already emailed us, please let us know. We are doing a head count for lunch and dinner.We are also doing pre-assembly this Saturday and next Sat from 8AM-noon. The hoop houses are going up at 9615 Musch Rd, Brighton, MI 48116. Any questions, post here or send us an email!

Welcome to new farmers at Stone Coop Farm!

We are happy to report that we have two new employees at Stone Coop Farm this season! Here is a little more about them:

Troy DeBruhl

Where to begin?

Well, it all started back in 1993.

I was born in San Francisco, son to a married couple that had a passion for adventure, and what an adventure raising me would be. I guess from an early age my parents Joannée and Perry have instilled a very strong love of the outdoors, and through that I've always remembered eating organic food in our house. As I've gotten older and become more aware of the world around me it's apparent that things need to change. I think a great start to solving the problems this country faces is through local farming. Not only is the food better for you nutritionally, it also keeps the money in your local economy instead of it being shipped all over the country like normal produce. If we support our local businesses and farms, everyone in the area benefits.  So when I was given the chance to help be a part of that change and work on my Mom's local organic farm, I couldn't say no.  I'm an 18 year old kid who wants to make a difference in the world with my life, and the best place to start is on an organic farm.

Ryan Peterson

Growing up, sustainability has been something that was always on my mind. I saw the way that we treated the earth and its resources and I knew something was wrong. From using resources in a non sustainable way I knew that it would be only a matter of time until problems would occur. I began thinking about sustainability with renewable energy technologies. I was researching night and day everything about wind, solar, geothermal and so on. With this I subscribed to many different websites and one day I received an email about a sustainability project in Highland Park, Michigan. I didn’t know what to think of it but knew that I needed to get out there in the real world and use my knowledge instead of just researching all the time. The project talked about Permaculture, something that I knew nothing of at the time. I decided to take the plunge and see what would turn out from this. I learned that Permaculture is a sort of “permanent culture” that works with nature instead of against it. When we started using this concept in our project things started making sense very quickly. I learned that large majority of our natural resources are used in industrial agriculture business and by staying small scale and local you could cut away these inefficiencies. This took my attention to less of a renewable energy focus (although still a very important piece) to a more local food based focus.

With this a friend of mine that I met from the project in Highland Park started up a club at my school called the Washtenaw Community College Permaculture Club. In the club we talked about the problems that we have got ourselves into with modern agriculture and the steps that can be taken to make them better. We talked a bunch about what can be done to make the earth more sustainable and it made me ever more eager to get out in the field and get my hands dirty. This led me to the desire to working on a local farm to learn everything from the ground up. With problems I see opportunities, and I am excited to be working with the farmers at Stone Coop farms to make this planet a much healthier sustainable place. 

Hoop House Build: April 21st

We are having two hoop houses and our greenhouse delivered tomorrow, and we will start putting together sections of the hoop houses the first week in April.  The big build date is scheduled for April 21st. Us and a group of enthusiastic volunteers will be installing the hoops, securing all the purloins, baseboards, hip boards, etc. and pulling/securing the plastic that day. The houses are 30'x144', larger than the hoop house we built last year. We will need many, many volunteers, so please get this on your calendar now and let us know if you can help. You can come for an hour or all day, but the more the merrier! Please pass this on to any of your friends that may want to partake in this fun filled event. We will be proving snacks, drinks, lunch and dinner. 

If you don't want to build we also will need help with the food.  Please send Joannee an email if you are interested in helping with the the build and/or with food. 


-Joannee

House Design is underway!

Pardon me, I'm barging in on Shannon's space for just a few lines.

For those of you who may not have known, Stone Coop is building a residence on the new property.  In keeping with the farm's goal of minimizing their impact on the planet, they will be seeking LEED certification for the home.

And you may ask yourself, what is LEED?  And you may ask yourself, why would they do that?  The answers to these questions and many more can be found here: Stone Coop Farm and LEED.  I'll be talking about our progress, and setbacks as we move through the design and construction process.  We are also investigating the possibility of relocating a couple of old barns (I've looked at a couple of 1860's 70's barns, way cool), and constructing a straw building on the property as well.

I hope you will stop by and check it out.  I'm still figuring out this whole blogging thing, so the site is definitely a work in progress.  Sometimes I prefer my old clay tablet.  Anyway drop in and be sure to leave comments.

-Perry

Transplants Underway

Over the past several weeks we have been working on getting many of our transplants started. So far we have over 400 each of tomatoes and peppers and a whopping 34,000 onions! Because our greenhouse will not be going in on the new property until the end of next month, we've been getting creative about where to keep all of the flats of transplants that we've started. Joannee's basement has once again been converted into a plant paradise, as has my brother and sister-in-law's basement. We cleared out a spare bedroom in my house and set up some tables and donated grow lights, too. It's become the warmest room in the house! We'll be glad when the greenhouse is completed so that we can have our living spaces back, though it is not entirely unpleasant to share our homes with the smell of dirt and our happy, green friends.

-Shannon

In need of grow lights

UPDATE as of 2/23: We have fulfilled our grow light needs. Thanks to everyone who was willing to help us out! 


Have some old fluorescent light fixtures sitting around? We need them! Rather than buying new grow lights, we would like to try to reuse any lights folks may have that they are no longer using. The lights need to have at least two fixtures for bulbs and they need to be of the type that can be hung from hooks on the ceiling. We are willing to negotiate price, either in cash or produce, for the lights. Please respond via email: shannon@stonecoopfarm.com

Stone Coop Farm is hiring!

Stone Coop Farm is looking for an energetic and enthusiastic person for the 2012 season.  The job will be a full time position helping us with our 2 locations in Brighton, MI.  We will be growing 6 acres of vegetables this year for our 90 member CSA, Farmers Market, and wholesale accounts. It is our 2nd year and we are looking for someone who has some farming experience that wants to learn and share their knowledge with us.  We have one 30x96 hoop house now and will be adding a greenhouse in March and two 30x144 hoop houses in April. Besides daily field work, candidate would be expected to work Farmers Market every other Saturday, and CSA Distribution on Wednesday evenings.  We also have several volunteers, kids, and work share members, so candidate should be good at working and training other folks on how to effectively plant, weed, and harvest. The job will start sometime in April, depending on weather. For any questions about the position, call the farm phone: 810 588 7137 or email Joannee. Resumés may also be directed to Joannee's email.

2012 Summer Shares Available

Sales of shares for 2012 have started! 


We are excited to be tripling our growing space this year so that we can offer more shares of fresh, local, organic produce to the community. Check out the Farm Share Information page for more info about how our shares work. If you have any questions, please refer to the FAQ page, and if your question is not there, Contact Us. We will be happy to answer any inquiries you may have!

We at Stone Coop Farm are looking forward to a productive and exciting growing season, and hope that you will share in the bounty of the harvest with us!

Buy a share!

Summer Shares

In a few weeks we will be opening up our farm shares to purchase for new members not on the current waiting list*. We have had some folks ask us what is a typical weekly Summer Share. Below are three distributions from different times during the summer of 2011. You can also check out the Harvest Timeline for a general idea of when certain produce will be available.

Harvest Items for week of June 22nd (week 2)

Spinach

Broccoli

Radishes

Basil

Thyme

Turnips

Salad Mix

Beet Greens

Kale

Chard

Garlic Scapes

Harvest Items in the Summer Share for week of August 17th (week 10)
New Potatoes
Onions
Beets and Greens
Tomatoes
Summer Squash
Sweet Pepper
Chives

Parsley

Purslane

Cucumbers

Harvest Items in the Summer Share for week of October 12th (week 18)

Kale

Chard

Winter Squash - 2 of your choice

Tomatoes

Green Tomatoes

Beets with greens

Sweet Peppers

Hot Peppers

Kossack Kohlrabi (large storage kohlrabi - so crisp and sweet, almost like eating a crisp apple)

Onions

Herbs - your choice of 2

Eggplant

Popcorn

We do our distributions "buffet-style". Crates of the produce available for the share will be set up with labels indicating how much of each produce type to take, as you can see with the kale and chard above. We also often have recipes for the produce available at distribution and are always happy to talk about the best ways to prepare each type of veggie. During distribution is also a good time for members to go to the u-pick garden to harvest the vegetables there that are available to all members for free. We are always open to suggestions as to what our members would like to have available in the u-pick space.

*If you would like to get on the waiting list for a chance to reserve a share early, contact us before January 28th.

A New Year, A New Season

Things are looking good in the hoop house this winter. As I write this, the sun is shining and it's a balmy 65F inside the hoop house. Both Joannée and I took some time off around the holidays and did some traveling. Joannée was in Kentucky and North Carolina visiting friends and family. I was in Wyoming for Christmas and New Year's, skiing and spending time with family, then traveled to Utah, Oregon and Washington to visit friends. Needless to say, we both greatly appreciated the time away, but are glad to be back and working on plans for 2012 on the farm!

We've been plugging away on crop plans and our seed list, as well as figuring out where we'll be growing all of our transplants. Because we don't have a greenhouse yet, the logistics are going to be interesting to say the least. Yesterday we had a master plan meeting for the new property, laying out the locations of structures such as a farm stand pavilion, four hoop houses, a greenhouse and the farm house and barns. It's been very exciting to work through the process of developing a plan for our land and creating a place for the farm to grow and flourish in the years to come.

-Shannon