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!

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

We have our hoop house!

What a great turn out on Saturday! With volunteers from Selma, UUAA and many individuals from the community, we were able to complete the hoop house in a day. A fun time was had by all, and I think we all learned quite a bit along the way. A great many thanks to everyone who came for the build! We couldn't have done it without you!

 Here we are completing the frame of the hoop.

 The plastic has been pulled and now we're wiring it to the frame.

 Rolling up the sides to set the automatic roll-up.

After a long day of hard work, the hoop is done!

To see more pictures from the build day, check out our Picasa photo album.

In other news, May is here, and that means this is the first week for the farmers market! We're very excited for our first markets this week. The first is on Wednesday afternoon at the farm, 4:30-6:30. Later in the week on Saturday we will be at Brighton's Farmers Market, which runs from 8:00am-1:00pm. Make sure to be checking the Farmers Market Info page during the week to see what we'll have available at market.

Hope to see you there!

-Shannon

April showers...

Another week begins...with more rain! We keep on telling ourselves that the rain is a good thing, as it gives us at least an extra hour in the day when we don't need to be watering plants. It does, however, make working outside rather chilly and damp. The couple days of sun we've had in the past week have been a welcome relief, that's for certain. We've been busy planting at the farm, rain or shine. More onions are in, as are parsley, chives, strawberries and horseradish.

From left to right: chives, curly parsley, flat leaf parsley, and two rows of strawberries under mini hoops

We've also been taking advantage of the rainy days and working inside, seeding tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and kohlrabi. Some of the tomatoes we seeded a month ago are thinking it's June and time to go in the ground! Once the hoop house is up this coming weekend we can give them their wish. They'll be happy to be out of their pots. Speaking of the hoop house, it was delivered today! We spent the morning moving all the parts to the back of the property where we'll be building. It was an exhausting morning, and we were very thankful for the tractor!

Using the tractor to carry the bows back to where the hoop house will be built. It was a tight squeeze down the two-track!

-Shannon

Hoop House Build

We're scheduled to build our hoop house on April 30th. With the help of Selma, we will be building all day at the farm and will hopefully have the hoop finished by the end of the work day. Anyone is welcome to come and help out for all or part of the day. Meals will be provided. For more information, check the link to the build on our events calendar on the right side of the page. If you have any questions about the event, email Joannee or leave a comment to this post. Go here to sign up for the build.