Clandestine Agrarian

Shares are filling up!

2010-02-26T12:42:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Melissa, Ben and Aimee for being the first three shareholders for 2010!
Ben and Aimee actually bought shares for their Mothers as the coolest and most thoughtful birthday presents EVER.
What a wonderful gift.

We still have spots remaining and are gearing up for the farmers market season as well. You can find us at the Saturday market at the Grainery District beginning April 3rd. Come check out all of the groovy vendors that schlep their wares every week, rain or shine. I wish that I could be there every Saturday, all year long as well. Maybe next year.

Dickey Farms West 2010 CSA

2010-02-08T23:04:00.000-08:00

We are back at it and accepting new shareholders for the 2010 CSA season!

Shares are available as
* Full season full share - $400, 20-26 weeks
* Full season half share - $250, 20-26 weeks
* Spring season full share - $225, 10 weeks (May through early July)
* Summer season full share - $225, 10 weeks (July through early Sept.)

Check us out at http://dickeyfarmswest.com/ or see our listing at localharvest.org.

We are excited to provide some goodies for our friends at Thistle, located in downtown McMinnville and are looking into offering produce at The Market-Saturdays in the Grainery District.

Back to the blog

2009-08-11T10:01:00.000-07:00

From the looks of this page, I have either given up on the dream or have dropped out of society. Neither is quite true.

I have certainly neglected to keep on top of the content here but will try to catch up with five months of news and thoughts yet unwritten.

The DFW (Dickey Farms West) shares filled much quicker than expected and all is well with the 2009 season for the farm. We took on five customers to start this enterprise and I think that was a good number to get our feet wet and see if we could make it work. The cloud of fear grows darker every Tuesday and Wednesday as doubts begin to creep in. Will we have a harvest worthy of our shareholders expectations this week? Have I made good choices in regards to what to plant, when to plant, how to grow, where to grow. I'm certainly happy to report that although there have been some leaner weeks, everything has just worked out fine.

We've learned a lot about the basics of growing food and have made some mistakes for sure. I quickly realized that we don't have enough ground to see through the vision for DFW. This is especially true when trying to put in Fall/Winter crop while summer crops are in full force. I do feel good about the practices we use but have a long way to go until I trust the timing.

It didn't take long to blow through most of the money paid for shares. With seed, compost, fencing, fuel, tools, irrigation set-up, more seed, more compost and more fuel taking the lions share. Some of these infrastructure costs are good for many years. With good seed banking practices and good soil management we should get a lot of miles out of dollars spent in the first few years. Fencing is a long lasting, durable good. Right now, the job of the farm is to pay for itself but let's be honest, this is a full-time job and I still need to work at my full-time job to make a go of it.

We picked up one more half share late in the season because I did have some "extra" food that seemed like it should be going to another shareholder. Having started with no capitol, just little bits out of the household budget and the infusion of cash paid by shareholders, we have done pretty well. No money to show but a great first half of the season and high hopes for next year.

We welcomed our third child to the tribe in July and saw no real impact to the farm schedule during those first few weeks. Irrigation was a little inconsistent and some crops were a little delayed in being pulled but nothing major. At least not as I can tell, these little variations are a long time in manifesting.

My focus as of right now is to better grow food using a four-seasons approach. I'll include more on that in the future.

2009 CSA subscriptions available for Yamhill County

2009-03-23T19:52:00.000-07:00

Dickey Farms West has a handful of CSA spots open for the 2009 season. $350 for full share, $200 for half share. Aprox. $20 worth of local, sustainably grown, seasonal produce delivered to your door weekly. A few surprises in store throughout the season for full share subscribers! I'd love to be your farmer. Email dickeyfarmswest@gmail.com for more details.

2009-03-17T21:44:00.000-07:00

As promised, photos of the new patch out of town. Enjoy.

Ready and waiting

2009-03-12T21:02:00.000-07:00

All of my current growing space is now ready to go. Every practical space at the house and the new large patch at Dickey Farms West aka The Gahr Reserve (Photos to follow). First of all, many thanks to the Gahr family for the use of their land. In total I'm currently working a little over 4,200 square feet of soil. Sound like a lot? It's not. There are 43,560 sq.ft. in an acre. I'm in charge of less than 10% of what could even be considered a small farm. Perfect. A great start for sure.

I hauled in a unit (7.5 cubic yards) of compost over the past few days. Five yards out to the "farm" and two and a half here at home. Nothing else to do this week out in the gardens but wait for temps to rise and days to lengthen. Time to focus on the greenhouse and the growing chicks. I have converted the old chicken tractor into transitional housing for the little girls. A bit of the great outdoors for them to get used to before they meet the big birds. Also building a screening table for cleaning and sorting leafy greens later. I saw this used on another blog dedicated to small farming where they do a lot of sales at farmers markets. I got really inspired from this simple, effective tool and immediately decided to build one.

Still lots of work to do before planting but amazingly still energized and eager. Next project seems minor but is actually very vital. What to grow and where to plant it. Don't get me wrong, it's not like this is an afterthought. It really just affords me the time to be thoughtful and patient in this part of my planning.

Looking for land

2009-03-09T11:51:00.000-07:00

Even as plants fail, seeds go to waste and spring drags its feet- I am looking to do more. I have secured the use of a large garden patch out of town in exchange for veggies. Pretty good deal if I can get anything to grow!! But I really need your help.
I'm looking for 1-5 acres to rent or lease so I can grow seasonal rowcrops and get some real farming experience. I'd like to talk to folks who are receptive to this idea. Anyone doing farmers markets, CSA's and the like...please contact me. Right now I think that it's all about scale. I want to increase what I'm already doing. There is a lot of passion and energy inside of me. What I'm short on is experience.

Winter Ends...

2009-02-27T10:03:00.000-08:00

So much done in the past few weeks. Many, many seeds in pots in the greenhouse. Tobacco, four varieties of tomaotes, lettuces, broccoli, beets, marigolds and peppers mostly. Greenhouse is working out well but am concerned with the need to have a small heater going most of the time. Not a safety issue, just the $ to run it. At least I'm not running any lights. Planted spinach, swiss chard and beets for greens in the old bed earlier in February but am unsure if they have been frosted. Also put beet seed in 2 planters last week, a nice little afternoon project for Evy and me. Peas in yesterday along the East fence where the pumpkins always go. If timed right, I can plant the goldenrod gourds there after harvesting the peas.

Chicken coop v2.0 is up and is awesome! A million thanks to Josh Vaage of Moonbat/Yakmoose for his help there. Three chicks to be added to the flock tonight and introduced when big enough.
The Westside garden gets carrots and potatoes this weekend as well as looking at transplanting some lettuce over there. Not sure when they will be big enough but am willing to try. I'm not going to get so crazy about mapping out the Westside plot this year. I am however going to try and do better about keeping something growing throught the length of the three seasons. The ground there is very nice, easily worked and quite fertile. That's my reward for work performed in years past. Reminding myself that patience pays off.

Getting Better

2009-02-06T13:49:00.000-08:00

I have been keeping a personal journal alongside this blog. The journal is more for record keeping with times dates and formulas jotted down. This is noteworthy because I am an otherwise unorganized person who is usually doomed to repeat mistakes and has trouble following instructions.

This is really good for me, a little bit of daylight shed on the usual processes that I go through. I obviously recognize the need to keep clean, detailed books and actually enjoy making these notes and look forward to using them to either cite as reason for any success or tweak my "recipe" next time to shoot for better results.

Super geeky fun.

I am just so excited. The greenhouse is almost done. All framed except for the door which I'll pick up from Habitat ReStore this afternoon, the roof goes up this evening, then the skin goes on. This project has been really fun, too. I am a HORRIBLE builder as anyone who witnessed chickencoop v1.0 will attest. I redeemed myself somewhat with the little chicken tractor embellished with cedar shake and the little rain gutter but as a rule, don't stand under any lumber that I've hung. The greenhouse on the other hand is a different story. It looks and behaves like a structure built by an experienced individual...because is WAS. I gained a wealth of experience by failing to use any planning or patience with my former building projects. I'm getting better and that is fine with me.

Evidence!!

2009-02-02T17:49:00.000-08:00

I, as many of you do, labor under the illusion that blogging will be easy, fun and exciting. This is evidenced by the second post of my first day.

No, I just got to these pictures.

Who grows corn indoors.....in January? I do apparently. I was trying to see what I could force in my garage in the middle of winter. The corn is an obvious success although I will have to sacrifice them lest they die in the ground in March. The beets were the first to pop up and because they are a variety used only for their tops, I believe I can move them when it warms up. The tomatoes are only for starts to be used by others. These are my primary motivation for the greenhouse. To be able to produce starts to sell to folks who want a bit of a jump start. I seem to think that doing this is a good start to the buisness side of our endeavor. We'll see.