Love (and the Good Dog Farm Plant Sale!) is in the air

(Belated) Happy Valentine’s Day

We’ve of course had just about as much love as we can handle this Winter with baby Annie, and it’s also with much love that we’ve been preparing for Spring! Our first seedlings went into their trays this week, and as much as it pains us to think of leaving our cozy hibernation, we’re also getting very excited to get backed to growing delicious vegetables for all of you!

And once again, we’re not stopping there…

In addition to all the delicious vegetables you can get through our CSA, we’re also offering our high quality Certified Naturally Grown transplants for your garden at home.

Preordering is OPEN!

All our Spring and Summer veggies, lots of herbs, plus beautiful flowers! If you’ve already signed up for our new online store, then just go here and get started ordering. Select a plant sale date and time as your “Shopping For” location and you’re good to go! BE SURE TO INCLUDE THE PROMO CODE “BULKY” IN YOUR ORDER FOR 10% ORDERS OF 4 OR MORE PLANTS!

New customers (as of Winter 2022) should follow the instructions here to make an account and order.

And remember, now’s a great time to sign up for a CSA share because 2023 members receive an additional 10% off all plant sales. You’ll receive your code at sign up!

“Gearing up” for the new season!

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See you soon!

Winter on the farm

Hi everyone! We’ve been out of touch because we had a baby!

Annie arrived on the solstice, and she has been warmth and joy back into our world since. She got to spend her first Christmas with all four grandparents. I can’t believe she’s already been here for a whole month! She grows and changes every day which is a joy to witness. Right now she loves black and white pictures, ceiling fans and eating. We’ve both been spending most of our time taking care of her and getting to know her. We feel very lucky that she arrived during a quiet part of the year! Kaiti and Abram have been doing an awesome job running the Winter CSA and we’re so glad for it.

Bryan and the crew have also been chipping away at some winter projects like organizing the barn and working on our crop plan. It’s exciting thinking about how the farm will take shape in 2023 with another whole year on our new property here. The future is bright but assuredly changing and evolving, and we’re very thankful for the excellent crew we have to help us navigate each new adventure.

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Come See us at the Waverly Farmers Market

January 28, 7am-noon

We’ll be popping up at the Waverly Farmers Market on 32nd and Barclay on Saturday, January 28th!

It’s our favorite market around because we both lived a few blocks away for several years. We’ll be there selling greens, squash, and roots and many other things, but also to promote our CSA, with pickups all around the Waverly neighborhood. Come say hi!

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…and speaking of our CSA

2023 CSA Sign-ups are still available

We have a new ordering software and the same great produce and prices. Egg subscriptions available while supplies last! Check out our new storefront and sign up HERE! New pickup available in Towson/ Roland Park, with more to come!

Stay warm and hope to see you soon!

~ Bryan, Joanna, and Annie

Summer & Early Fall on the farm

Wow - it’s been a long time since my last update! So much has happened on the farm since then! Part of why I’ve been less online is that I’ve been busy growing a baby - I’m due mid December!

Belly circa late July

I’ve luckily had a straightforward and not too bad pregnancy so far, but I’ve definitely had to work less on the farm and more at my desk. We’re so lucky to had a team of awesome folks, most of whom have returned for multiple seasons, holding down the fort and taking on more responsibility.

First cukes of the year!

Big rainy kale day

Bandana day!

We had a powerful storm roll through in July that resulted in many downed trees and no power for five days. We were lucky to suffer minimal damage to our house, barn and crops, but being without power for that long was extremely stressful. It got us thinking about how to plan for loss of power in the future, especially for critical infrastructure like our greenhouse and well pump.

Sweet potatoes just getting going in July

The storm was followed by some extremely hot weather which the tomatoes did not love. Tomato season was a bit shorter than usual this year, but we so enjoyed it while we could!

Week 11 CSA shares

The crew has been bulk harvesting potatoes all summer and just finished last week. We’re also almost done bringing in our amazing crop of winter squash! Next up is sweet potatoes, which are also shaping up to be bountiful this year.

Kabocha and acorn squash

Delicata!

Speaking of squash, what inspired me to write today is that sign ups for our December and Winter Shares are now open! We’ve switched to a new CSA platform that we’re really excited about, and we are opening up more spaces for our Winter Share than ever before. We especially love feeding folks in the winter - our first CSA ever was a winter CSA in 2016! We love the food itself - spicy greens, juicy turnips, buttery potatoes. And we love being part of the year-round local food system! The December share is 3 weeks and the Winter Share is the first 12 weeks of 2023 - you can learn more and sign up here! Please let me know if you have any questions - we’d love to feed you this winter!

I’ll try to send an update in the next few weeks - fall on the farm is beautiful and delicious, and I’m excited to share it with you!

April/May on the farm

The greenhouse has already been filled and emptied a few times this spring!

I can't believe that CSA boxes are right around the corner - first deliveries are next week!! So much has transformed on the farm since my last newsletter, and we're so excited for the bountiful season to begin! Read on for lots of farm updates.

Our crew has been back to working full time and we've been getting so much done - we're so lucky to have folks returning for their second or third seasons. We've been planting up a storm to get lots of delicious food ready for you! We have radishes, turnips, spinach, fennel, lettuce, radicchio, scallions, bok choi, kale, collards, celery, sugar snap peas and potatoes in the ground! Our winter crops are out of the tunnels and replaced with green beans and tomatoes! Coming up next is our first round of summer squash, zucchini and cherry tomatoes.

We have a new toy on the farm! It's called a water wheel transplanter. One person drives the tractor while two people sit on the implement and put plants into the ground. The yellow wheels have dull spikes on them that punch a hole in the ground and fill it with water so that the plant has a nice place to grow in the ground. It makes transplanting much quicker and much more comfortable on our bodies - we've coveted this implement for many years and are so happy to have it on the farm now!

We've had great fun at our plant sales this season - thanks to everyone who ordered plants! You can still order plants for pick up at the farm on Saturdays for the next few weeks - check out our Plant Sales page for the link to the plant store and ordering directions.

Another exciting development on the farm is that we are in the process of becoming Certified Naturally Grown. This is a peer-to-peer certification that's very similar to organic certification but with a few key differences. It requires farmers to us only OMRI approved herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers, just like the National Organic Program. We're still using the exact same growing practices that we did while were certified organic (2018 - 2021) with one key difference.

We decided to pursue this certification instead of becoming certified organic again largely because it allows us to continue using biodegradable plastic mulch instead of the non-biodegradable stuff that fills up trash bag after trash bag. We love using less plastic and spending less energy on clean up! We also resonate with the peer-to-peer certification model - another farmer will complete our certification instead of a third party auditor. We value the transparency of the certification process and that it helps us to demonstrate our commitment to sustainability to our customers. Please let us know if you have any questions about CNG - we're excited to talk about it!

If you’re thinking about signing up for a CSA share this season, make sure to join before this Friday 5/20 so that you don’t miss any boxes! We’d so love to feed you this year!

March on the farm

Spring is springing and I wanted to share some pictures of things waking up around the farm, plus some exciting announcements.

It really feels like spring here on the farm, though we have some chilly nights coming up this week that will provide a reality check! Our greenhouse is full of tiny plants, and the tractor is back in the field. In the next few weeks we're be in serious planting mode!

We also reached the final week of our winter CSA - it was such a joy feeding folks even in the coldest temperatures! We hope to expand our winter membership in 2023.

Plant babies who have already “graduated” to living outdoors!

We’re starting the first seeds of 2022 this week in advance of our spring plant sales! F or the first time in 2022, we’re making our organically grown vegetable and herb plants available to everyone! You can preorder your plants for pick up at the following events:

• Saturday April 9th, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm: Spring Plant Pick Up at Good Dog Farm (PRE-ORDER ONLY)

• Saturday April 23rd, 11:00 am - 4:00 pm: Pop up plant sale at B Willow

• Saturday April 30th, 10:00 am - 2:00 pm: Plant Sale at Good Dog Farm

• Sunday May 1st, 10:00 am - 2:00 pm: Pop Up Plant Sale at Farm to Face Cafe

• Saturday May 7th, 11:00 am - 4:00 pm: Pop up plant sale at B Willow

Except for April 9th, you can buy plants on site as well, but pre-ordering is the best way to make sure we’ll have the exact varieties that you’d like. Click here for ordering directions and link to the plant store.

If you spend more than $20 you’ll get a 10% discount (enter code BULK at check out), and CSA members get an additional 10% off (check your email for a special code once you join)!

Kaiti using the spader to prep ground for our spring veggies.

From left to right - old brussel sprout plants, lush rye cover crop, and oak trees covered in red buds.

The bees are more active now, coming and going from the hives.

Abram is laying out more irrigation header line so that we can get water to our plants when they need it.

The magnolia tree in front of our house is close to blooming!

Our CSA is starting to fill up, so make sure to sign up soon if you want to eat super well this year!

February on the farm

It’s been chilly and windy around the farm lately, but we’re dreaming and scheming with faith in warmer weather. Usually we get what Bryan calls a “February fake out” where it seems like the worst of the cold is over. Then we get hit with cold and wind in March, essentially Mother Nature saying “psychhhhh.” I’m not sure we’ll even get a fake out this year, but we were lucky enough to escape down to Florida for a while to spend time with friends and family.

A cool bird in Florida!

While there are fewer fun farm photos to share, I’ve been reflecting on our roots as farmers and the history of our business over on our Instagram. Follow along at the link below!

We’re starting the first seeds of 2022 this week in advance of our spring plant sales! F or the first time in 2022, we’re making our organically grown vegetable and herb plants available to everyone! You can preorder your plants for pick up at the following events:

• Saturday April 9th, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm: Spring Plant Pick Up at Good Dog Farm (PRE-ORDER ONLY)

• Saturday April 23rd, 11:00 am - 4:00 pm: Pop up plant sale at B Willow

• Saturday April 30th, 10:00 am - 2:00 pm: Plant Sale at Good Dog Farm

• Sunday May 1st, 10:00 am - 2:00 pm: Pop Up Plant Sale at Farm to Face Cafe

• Saturday May 7th, 11:00 am - 4:00 pm: Pop up plant sale at B Willow

Except for April 9th, you can buy plants on site as well, but pre-ordering is the best way to make sure we’ll have the exact varieties that you’d like. Click here for ordering directions and link to the plant store.

If you spend more than $20 you’ll get a 10% discount (enter code BULK at check out), and CSA members get an additional 10% off (check your email for a special code once you join)!

National CSA Week 2022

Did you know that it’s National CSA Week? Joining a CSA means being a part of something - a farm, a community of eaters, a local food movement. Why not take it to the next level and be part of a national wave of CSA sign ups this week?

We have some new pick up locations this year!

- Federal Hill ACE Hardware in Fed Hill
- Mera Kitchen Collective in Mt. Vernon
- Mount Rainier front porch pick up - right outside of DC!

You can learn more about our CSA on our website and you can sign up here. There’s also a special way to sign up this week that comes with a delicious benefit…

Well Crafted Kitchen is bringing back their CSA Fair at Union Collective (1700 W. 41st St) this Sunday 2/27, 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm. If you come sign up for a CSA share you'll get a 50% discount on a pizza! We hope we'll see you there!

January on the farm

Happy new year to you! I hope you were able to ring in the new year in a festive and healthy way. We were able to see family for the holidays which felt unnerving but wonderful during this crazy COVID spike.

View from a winter hike at Prettyboy Reservoir

We're back at the farm now trying to get back into the swing of things. Our crew is back part time which helps us get everything done for our CSA each week. In fact, they're the main ones harvesting, washing and packing while Bryan and I are preparing for the 2022 season and working on our old farmhouse. The snow last Monday missed us which felt like a huge rip off to me as a New Englander! I adore the snow, but of course do not love the often accompanying wind, slush and ice. But we woke up to a blanket of snow last Friday and we got another light blanket this past weekend. Zaydee goes crazy in the snow - zooming in circles and biting fluffy snow piles! I hope you’re staying cozy and safe during all of this winter weather.

Post-zooming Zaydee

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We’re still harvesting and packing out lots of delicious food! We have our weekly winter CSA shares along with bi-weekly orders for restaurants and home delivery customers through Chesapeake Farm to Table.

Here’s an example of a winter CSA share

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We also love to try new recipes while we have more down time during the winter. Bryan gave me Joshua McFadden’s new book Grains for Every Season for Christmas and it has been revolutionizing our kitchen! Every recipe we’ve tried so far has been delicious, from Farro con Pollo to the Chicken Soup with Brown Rice, Radishes and Lots of Lemon. Although I would advise against attempting to sprout grain if your kitchen is at all drafty…things got a little funky!

Photo from The First Mess

ROASTED CABBAGE WITH GINGER LIME ROOT SLAW & CASHEWS from The First Mess

I saw this recipe from The First Mess that I can’t wait to try - her vegan recipes are always delicious and beautiful!

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The main theme of January is planning for the season to come. Bryan is an absolute spreadsheet maestro, linking our crop plan, budget and crop rotation all together. I’m working on finding new CSA members and planning events like plant sales and farm tours. I’m very excited to announce that in 2022 we’ll have our first CSA pick up in the Metro DC area! It’s especially meaningful to us to make this leap because the site will be hosted by our former business partner. He’s the best! To learn more about our CSA and sign up for a pick up in Mt. Rainier, check out our website. Please note that Mt. Rainier shares cost slightly more, reflected in the delivery fee, to cover our costs travelling down to DC.

Thanks for following along on our farming journey!

November & December on the farm

Hi everyone! Wow, things have really changed around here since I last wrote to you. The pace is way different - things are way slower around here these days. The big deadline is always the first hard frost and it came a little late this year at the end of October. Here’s a little update on how we wrapped up the fall and started the winter, plus info on our 2022 CSA and how to buy Good Dog Farm merch!

Fall brought more rain and the return of greens! We also got started on harvesting sweet potatoes and it was a pretty good crop. It was our last big crop to harvest for 2021, and along with that means that some of our crew wound down near the end of October.

December light is magical!

We got our first crop of 2022 in the ground - onions! We'll have plenty of bunching onions to share next spring and summer. We planted garlic in the same field a couple of weeks later - we just wanted to wait until it gets a little cooler so that it doesn't grow too much before it gets cold.

An awesome sunset over our neighbor’s farm

We had our second annual end of season pumpkin carving around Halloween. It's a very wholesome activity and we also drink and eat good food (and candy.) It's so nice to sit around a fire and enjoy each others' jokes and company before some folks wrap up their seasons and others' hours reduce. We feel so lucky to have had such an awesome team: Casey, Lindsay, Christa, Abram and Kaiti make so much of the CSA happen each week! We feel extra grateful that most of them will be returning again next year.

Remaining outdoor greens all tucked in under row cover

Before Thanksgiving we had our first bulk harvest of beets! Field clean up also got underway. And our high tunnels are got very full of tasty greens for the winter months!

Lush tunnel greens

And then the frost finally came! After a boat load of rain we got our first frost, with another each night that week. So far everything that we were hoping would survive has survived, though we didn't get absolutely everything harvested that we were hoping for. We plugged away at bulk harvesting before the predicted low 20s temperatures around 11/18. We had a bit of a slow down in pace for a minute there but now we had once last push to get everything inside into coolers!

Testing out the weight of a Napa cabbage

Planting more indoor lettuce on the last day of the main season

Then it was the last week of our regular season CSA! It felt like it was just spring with transplants and sweet peas on our minds, and yet here with are with possible snow flurries slated for this week. This has been a huge year of growth for us, and you stuck with us the whole time! We can't wait until next year when we have our systems refined and we can grow even more produce! In the mean time we'll be growing vegetables for our December and Winter share members, catching up on projects around the farm, continuing to work on our old farmhouse, visiting with friends and family and watching TV!!

Face sized cabbage

We have merch for sale for the first time in quite a while! Everything is printed to order and shipped to you. This system is super helpful to us as a small farm biz! Shirts tend to run small, fyi! Check out what we've got - click the shirt picture below.

Click the shirt to go to our merch store!

CSA hare sign ups are also open for 2022! You can read all about how our shares work at our website and you can sign up here.

Here’s how yummy a CSA share looks!

Thanks for following along! Wishing you a warm and cozy holiday season and a happy new year.

August & September on the farm

Hi everyone!

So much has happened on the farm over the last couple of months! July and August are definitely the hardest months to be vegetable farmers, and the first half of September is a close second. I’m writing from the other side now, but here’s a quick recap of the madness!

The north face of the barn

It was tough waiting for our barn to get finished. The Earthbound folks brought in a crew of Amish builders to speedily put up our barn's siding and roof while they chipped away at the interior siding. It was insanely hot the last week of August but...we got to use our barn for the first time!! It was so nice and a bit hard to believe it was real! Bryan reconstructed our walk in cooler which is so much bigger than I remember. Now we just have to figure out where to put everything...I'm sure it will be a work in progress.

Packing CSA shares in the barn!

The peak summer meant many exhausting weeks on our hot, dry farm . Bryan and Abram, our irrigation maestros, worked tirelessly to get water to all of our plants. We had to wait to plant lots of fall crops because it was just too hot. We also had to wait to harvest potatoes. There's really not much low-key work for folks to do in the extreme heat at that time of year, so we just have to respect the heat and wait for it to cool down. While it did cool down, we still didn’t get much in the way of rain. It was so frustrating seeing the storms move around us on the radar!

A storm going around us yet again!

It finally rained in late August, which is great for some crops but less great for others. It marked the beginning of the end of tomato season along with the return of fall crops like kale, collards, and lots of lettuce. Our friends west and north of us experience some serious flooding which is scary and devastating. It's hard to feel relieved that this storm didn't hit us when another catastrophic weather event always seems to be around the corner. But we were fine, and everything green was growing quickly with all of the rain.

Late summer is when we do lots of bulk harvesting - bringing in all of a crop at once so we can store it for winter. We got the first of our small winter squash out like delicata and honeynut. We also continued bringing in our ample potato crop. Now that the vast majority of planting is done, it's all about chipping away at big projects on the farm like bulk harvesting and cleaning up.

We did more washing and packing in our barn during September which was very cool! It was nice to be inside for the rainiest day of the week, and we dressed up for our made up holiday of Second Halloween! We got some amazing financial help through a crowdfunded Kiva loan which allowed us to finish the barn despite increases in materials costs.

The south side of the barn (still waiting on our garage doors!)

We planted our first tunnel with baby greens for the winter which I'm very excited about. Our first round of broccoli seems to have gotten sick during the hot and wet weather earlier this month, so we're not sure what kind of yields we'll end up with, but the second round and all of the cauliflower still look awesome.

I wanted to let you know that we have space available in our 3-week December share! You'll get a bounty of all of our tasty winter salad greens and bunched greens like kale, plus sweet potatoes, winter squash, potatoes and turnips. We have 25 spaces available and you can sign up for this share on our website: https://www.harvie.farm/farm/good-dog-farm/signup.

Hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about the ups and downs of this summer! We’ll have more to report soon.

July on the farm

Since I last wrote, it really turned into summer! Much of the month was excruciatingly hot and humid. We harvested early in the mornings to beat the heat and then worked on more low key projects like seeding for fall once it got crazy hot out. While it's a bit mentally hard not to work on things like weeding projects that feel pressing, it's not worth it to push our bodies to their limits when we still have so much of the season to go. In fact it's always worth it to us to put our health or the health of our team ahead of our to-do lists. We planted our last succession of squash, cucumbers and melons planted which marked the last planting of summer.

Adorable cucumbers!

Our summer crops have really hit their stride this month which we're so excited about! All of the flavors of summer are here to stay for a while as we say goodbye to the leave greens for a bit. Bryan mowed down the last of our spring crops (and weeds) yesterday mid-month to spread cover crop seeds. We did some crop rescue missions too, getting our path weeds under control by mowing and weed whacking so that we can get to the plants in the field! We are absolutely swimming in tomatoes at this moment in the year! More on that later…

Post weed whacking rescue mission of eggplant and okra

We also harvested our garlic and onions. They're hanging up to dry, or as we farmers say, cure, for the next few weeks, and then they'll start showing up in your boxes. We had planned to hang them up under the eaves of our new barn, but alas our barn has neither eaves nor a roof yet. It's frustrating, but we're adapting. After a number of years piecing it all together at our old farm with impermanent infrastructure, we're used to it. We also harvested the first chunk of our potatoes - our favorite!

The second half of July also involves planting up a storm: broccoli, cauliflower, scallions, raddichio, brussel sprouts, kale and collards. We seeded carrots (twice) and beets, we got some RAIN finally. It’s really challenging to put these tiny plants in the ground during the high summer heat. It’s even more difficult when it’s been really dry - these plants need lots of water in this sensitive moment of transition. But so far everything looks great thanks to our tireless irrigation efforts.

We were lucky enough to go on vacation to my family reunion on the north shore of Massachusetts. We brought less produce with us than usual since we flew, but we were still able to feed our food to our family. It’s really one of the best parts of being a farmer!

We also came back to our barn looking very much like a barn. The project has taken way longer than expected and has cost much more than we budgeted for, which has been a stressful combination. But the wiring is almost complete and the insulation team is coming next Friday, so we're very close to being able to use the barn even in its rough form.

Our barn is now insulated on the first floor (that's all we're doing for now)! The Earthbound crew is bringing in some extra help for the roof and siding next week while they work on the two porches that will be overhanging the building. We're really getting very close to moving in, which is so exciting! It's not ideal timing since it's August and we have a bunch of other things to do, but it's exciting none the less!

Now back to the topic of tomatoes…do you need more of them in your life? We’re offering bulk flats of heirloom tomatoes this week - 20 lbs for $50. You can pick up at any of our CSA drop off locations this week - here’s the list: https://www.gooddogfarmmd.com/our-csa. To order one (or more), Venmo @gooddogfarm and in the comment, include your last name and your pick up location.

Tomatoes for sale!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this glimpse of the farm and that you’re having a lovely summer. Stay tuned for lots more next month!