Tag: local farm
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Spring 2025 Recap: Market Season, Round 2
Market season is upon us, and we’re reflecting on our second spring in production as a farm! Learning From Last Year This spring, we made a lot of progress in managing aspects of the farm that ranged from so-so to outright terrible last year. First and foremost, we have a much better understanding of our…
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How We Set Up Our High Tunnel For Summer
We currently have two small, unheated high tunnels (aka greenhouses) on our farm. They are far and away our most important pieces of infrastructure for making our produce available nearly year-round. They help extend our growing season of tender crops in the spring and fall and enable the cold-hardy crops to survive our cold winters.…
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What Is No-Till Farming?
If you’ve spent a few minutes on our website, you may have seen the phrase “no-till” sprinkled throughout our sales pitch. We genuinely believe that being no-till gives our farm a distinct advantage, but we also know that the phrase is probably unfamiliar to most. And it’s certainly not the norm for agriculture in general.…
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5 Vegetables That I Can’t Help But Love To Grow
As I soak in the warm spring sun and enjoy the ever-longer days this time of year, I’m constantly excited about what’s to come. In just a couple of months, my farm will be bursting with life, color, and most importantly, food. This week, I’m taking some time to reflect on the vegetables that are…
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The Wind, A Farmer’s Archnemesis
As we really begin to warm up into spring on the farm, I have a better phrase I use to describe this time of year: wind season. Like myself, many farmers find something as simple as wind to be the most frustrating and stressful aspect of Farming. In terms of weather, I’d prefer hail, sleet,…
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What’s New for the 2025 CSA?
Our CSA is back in 2025 and better than ever! After doing some crop planning, analyzing our 2024 feedback, and exploring other successful CSA models, we decided that kicking up our CSA a notch would be a priority this year. We’ve changed a lot to make it even better for you! Here’s an overview of…
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Here Comes The Sun: How Sunlight Affects Farmers
Ah, late February. Punxsutawney Phil (only a 45-minute drive away from the farm) predicted six more weeks of winter, and it sure seems like he was right. This month saw a brief respite from the deep freeze of January, but we’re right back in the middle of another very cold stretch, with lows in the…
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What I Learned At My First Farm Conference
An overview of the 2025 PASA sustainable agriculture conference.
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A Ten Year Plan for the Farm
With brutally cold temperatures this week, there’s not too much going on at the farm, which gives us time to reflect on long term goals. What might things look like 10 years from now, and what are we doing right now to work towards that goal? I should emphasize up front that the title of…
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How We Make Compost (And How You Can Too)
People often ask us “what makes the dirt so good?”, and while the answer is admittedly complex, one of the first things we always say is “well, we use a lot of compost, for one”. Its true, compost is a foundational aspect of our soil management strategy. Before planting almost anything in our garden, we…
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Winter Projects for a Small Farm
At many small farms, winter usually means much less growth to manage, and therefore less work to do. For many farmers, this is a welcome change from the business of the main growing season, and there are few who don’t embrace the peace, rest, and recuperation of the winter months. Even so, you’ll be hard-pressed…
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An Ode To Garlic
In the bitter cold of February, it is the lone brave soul daring to pop out of the ground through the snow and ice. It powers through the spring, always the biggest and greenest member of the garden through May, usually at least a foot higher than all other growth. Then, the relentless heat of…
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Farmer’s Market Week 1 Recap
This past Saturday morning, we got up a bit earlier than usual, loaded up our van with 2 tables, 8 rustic wooden crates, 15 bins full of produce, and one tent canopy. Then, we drove to our first Farmer’s Market. The Ligonier Country Market was familiar to us – we went a few times last…
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2024 Farm Updates: Final Thoughts on Spring Planting
It’s been a while since our last blog post. Chalk it up to a very busy push to get lots and lots of plants in the ground ahead of the start of market season! Our first CSA shares go out next Friday, and our first Farmers Market (the Ligonier Country Market) opens the day after…
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Wheel of the Year: Beltane
Welcome back to the Wheel of the Year series, this time taking a look at the upcoming holiday of Beltane! A fun fact about the Good Dirt Farm fam – Andy and I were married on the eve of Beltane! We picked the date mostly by accident, but I like to think instinct led us…
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A Solar Eclipse Adventure with Good Dirt Farm
It’s probably not surprising to know that two folks who live on a farm have an interest in what’s happening with the natural world. You’ll often find us remarking on a particularly great night for stargazing (Andy) or tracking the phases of the moon (Amanda). Naturally, that led to a desire to travel for the…
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How to Direct Seed Vegetables Like a Pro
If you’ve been following us here at Good Dirt Farm, you probably know that we start the majority of our crops indoors using soil blocks. While that is accurate, some crops aren’t suited to soil blocks for one reason or another. Certain crops need to be sewn very thickly, while others are large-seeded. And then…
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My Best Friend the Stirrup Hoe
A heavy rain fell all day yesterday, and this morning the garden beds are speckled with bright green weeds vying for life in my good dirt. A dismaying sight for me, but in situations like this, there’s always someone who has my back. He (yes, he) is always ready for battle, he never takes a…
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Here’s What It’s Like to Build Your Own Greenhouse
Our experience building our first greenhouse step by step, and some early observations of how well it works.