“The World is Changed by Your Example, Not by Your Opinion”
The Winter Solstice is coming up in just a couple of weeks, and the shorter days have made our outdoor projects challenging. So we’re now transitioning into “planning mode” which entails: making fires, drinking coffee, sitting with our laptops in the living room crop planning and ordering seeds while getting excited about our first trays of crops we will nurse in our indoor grow room. It’s also giving us some time to do some marketing while granting us the head space we’ve needed to self-reflect. So after a long break from our newsletter, we wanted to make sure that before the year ended we had a chance to tell you about how our 2024 Season went, which was nothing short of a roller coaster ride.
As we have mentioned to you before, the season started off with a long and very demanding Winter, and a Spring that never came. The many obstacles we faced came in waves – we lost and had to replace our Propagation House because it collapsed in a snow storm, we had extensive pest damage which set us back on our early Spring crops. There were relentless frosts which led to frost damage and over-watering which was the cause of the slow and sometimes painful to watch progress of growth. With each passing frost, our intention for an early start definitely faded. For the entire year of 2024, we only had 30 days without frost! There were so many crops that were late and we needed to reseed and transplant again, causing disruptions into our tightly scheduled crop plan. By the time Spring arrived it was already summer, going straight into scorching temps. After years of experiencing Central Oregon’s unpredictable climate, we realized that the weather can not only promote crop loss, but it is stealing our TIME and preventing us from getting everything (anything) done.
With each project we set ourselves up with this year also came the financial responsibility along with it. Our farm was in a state where there was still infrastructure and supplies needed to prevent crop failure and increase production. We applied for grants to help ease the financial burden of; the irrigation needed to expand cultivation into the front field giving us five additional plots, for a new propagation house, for two more caterpillar tunnels, and even a small engine tractor to increase our efficiency and give us back the time that weather has stolen from us. But as the months passed, we faced rejection after rejection. All of our projects, our labor and all of our expenses were being paid out of pocket, including one caterpillar tunnel which we couldn’t wait on funding for.
Ultimately by June, we weren’t able to afford labor at all and it was just the two of us for the remainder of the season. We were lucky to have some volunteers that would come to work for the harvest in trade for produce. But the amount of work needed to accomplish farming 1.65 acres on our own honestly made us feel like we were being pushed to the brink. We never had time off and couldn’t leave the farm. We questioned ourselves a lot; whether or not we wanted to continue farming here in the High Desert of Central Oregon. Could our bodies physically take it in 5 to 10 years? What are we investing in if we are not THRIVING and we are only suffering?
And if that wasn't enough, there were international wars and the stresses of a tense election season weighed heavily on us, pushing us into emotional turmoil. It was as if the world around us was spiraling, all of us were spiraling and we all struggled to hold onto hope. We even deleted all of our news apps from our phones because it was getting so grim. Posting and writing blogs seemed pointless as so many more “important” things were happening in the world around us. We were expiring, quickly.
It's easy to get lost in the negativity, especially when the values of this country feel more distant and less aligned with our own and when everything seems like it’s stacked against us. But in the midst of the chaos, we found solace in something that remained constant: the ability to focus on what we can control. The power of community is something we are learning to appreciate more than ever. With so much of the larger world seeming out of our hands, we’ve decided to double down on what we can control – our local relationships and investments. Our local community voted in favor of values that mirrored our own. We were reminded that, despite everything else, we had power within our local community, and we could still make a difference.
By nurturing connections with our neighbors and fellow farmers, we’ve seen firsthand how much stronger we are together. Our farm’s future is intrinsically linked to the health of our community, and we are committed to building that foundation of support by reading local news, purchasing goods and services from businesses here in Bend and showing our gratitude for this amazing community.
After all of these struggles, we started to see glimmers of hope! After two and a half years since we first submitted our application, we finally received the NRCS grant. With this funding, we are now moving forward with a number of exciting projects that will make a real difference in our operations; we’ve installed low tunnels which are small greenhouse structures that protect individual garden beds from frost and pests like birds, deer and insects, a 14ft x 100ft gothic greenhouse just erected this week with plans for a second one to be completed in the Spring. The entire project all together will effectively double our protected growing space, helping to extend our growing season and protect our crops from unpredictable weather like we experienced this year. Better late than never. :)
Looking ahead, we’re feeling pretty confident that the investments we’re making now will set us up for success in 2025 and in the coming years. We’ve recently purchased our second greenhouse heater, which will be installed in the second high tunnel. With this addition, we’ll have two heated greenhouses next year, which is a game-changer for our growing capacity and specifically our quantity of TOMATOES we will have.
And to save the best for last, one of the most exciting developments on the horizon is our CSA partnership with Boundless Farmstead, a neighboring 20-acre organic, vegetable farm. By combining our resources, we’ll be able to strengthen our CSA program by providing crops from each farm and having each other to fall back on in times of crop failure. We are learning that collaboration, more than competition, is the key to success in this farming community. Together, we plan to double the number of available shares from this year making it one of the largest CSA Programs in Bend. We are also in the works to offer a Winter CSA Share program to ensure our community can have access to fresh, organic produce throughout the colder months so stay tuned for more information on that.
While this season has been filled with setbacks and challenges, it has also been a time of growth, learning, and resilience. After this season of defeat, we feel like we graduated with a Master’s Degree in High Desert Farming. How could we even farm anywhere else, when we have all the lessons learned from 2024 to put to use! We are cruising into 2025 with 7 total greenhouses, 6000 square feet of low tunnels and this amazing partnership with an incredibly strong farm. We do this with a renewed sense of purpose that’s deeply rooted in the values of community. We are excited again for the opportunities that lie ahead. This journey is far from easy, but with the support of our community and our friendships, we are ready to face whatever comes next. No matter what comes our way.
