It is hard for us to believe that we are already mid-July! It has been a very busy start to the summer, filled with all the highs and lows that come with farming and baking!
We were so excited to debut our bread at the farmer’s markets this year. We were working on many of these recipes throughout the year and continue to refine and test out new recipes since the response has been very positive! So far we have debuted our Challah Rolls, Sourdough Bread (made from our own sorghum-based starter), Mighty Meal-et (millet based bread), and our BuckSorg (buckwheat based bread). All of these breads are made with our own proprietary flour blends and are our own original recipes! We’ve also been working on bagels, cinnamon rolls, crescent rolls, and a sandwich bread, but have not yet been able to bring them to market.
Which brings us to another lesson we’re constantly working on: prioritization and time management. There is always more to do than we have time for, including countless ideas for our bakery and our farm, but we also need time to sleep…. and we are both still working full-time off-farm jobs. Each day after our day jobs we have our long list of to-dos, and we work hard to stay in the moment and focus on the most important tasks that must get done, and realize the others may just not get done, or may take longer to complete.
One HUGE task we’re almost done with is the construction of our 96′ x 36′ high tunnel, thanks to the help of many amazing volunteers- friends, family, members of the community, and neighbors! Read our previous blog post to learn how we moved all of the pieces, by hand, a 1/4 of a mile to the build site over the winter!!
The construction starting this May was not without challenges, including a strong storm tearing the first layer of plastic. Fortunately, with Farmer Marcellin Singo’s ingenuity and patience (and the help of many volunteers), we were able to fix it up, and are getting near completion! This task has taken much longer than expected, but we are so excited about the additional produce we will soon be able to bring to our community. We live in an area where there is a lot of food insecurity, and having the high tunnel not only enables us to extend our growing season, but it also enables us to greatly increase our production to share for those without much access to fresh produce.
Much like the strong storm that damaged the plastic, the weather has been really unpredictable. Strong winds, heavy rain (1.5″ over two days this week!), and high heat has meant a challenging start to the season. Some things have been thriving, while others (like our kale) struggled this year. We continue to learn and adjust as the season continues, and do our best to work with the weather that comes our way.
We were also honored to be featured in the July edition of The Woman Today Magazine! We continue to be grateful to our community for their ongoing support. We enjoyed sharing more about our farm and you can read more about us on pages 32 to 34.
We hope you will come visit us at the Barker’s Island Farmers Market on Saturdays from 8:45 am to 12 pm, or the Lincoln Park Farmers Market on Thursdays from 3 to 6 pm. We so enjoy visiting and connecting with you!
