End of 2013 Season
Happy New Year!
We want to express our warmest wishes to you all for a happy and healthy new year. Hopefully you had an enjoyable holiday season. We have used the last month to repair equipment, rest and plan for an exciting year ahead.
First we want to express our sincerest thanks to you for your support of our community farm. Because of our collective efforts we accomplished much this year and continued important work to provide for the food and health of our community while also safeguarding the health of the land and wildlife. Your participation in this project sets you apart; you are the few who actively made a choice to improve life for yourselves, others and your community and environment.
There are many rewards in this project, most notably the fresh chemical-free, GMO-free food we enjoy each week. But our farm produces so much more. It is a place of education and hope. We are a teaching farm, sharing our skills and values with the many volunteers who come to toil with us. We are a local grass roots engine of economic rebirth, we are inventors and innovators developing machines and systems that help sustainable agriculture survive and prosper in the years ahead.
Please have a look at our farm community’s scrapbook of sorts – pictures, captions and explanations of our just completed season. Enjoy!
It all starts with a dream. We have many choices in this life, we have chosen to work together to create a local ecologically based farm for our community. Hard work and vision are the necessary ingredients needed to start the journey and community support sustains it. Together we make a farm spring forth from the land. The season begins with indoor grown starts. Our short main growing season means we use season- extending techniques to help give us fresh food for as long as possible during the year.
After weeks of seeding, plants started indoors are transferred to the greenhouse to grow some during the chilly, rainy spring.
While they grow, we make use of every dry day in spring to get our farm ready to receive our plants and seed. Some crops like tomatoes and peppers are grown in the field from transplants starts, other like radishes, spinach and beans, are seeded directly into the field.
We use an expensive, state of the art bio- film for mulch on some crops; this film is entirely plant based and biodegradable. It is approved for use in ecological, chemical-free production. Our mulch films conserve precious water, block weeds and greatly reduce the cost of hand weeding, allowing us to offer our produce at affordable prices.
Mid-spring is a time to get the first transplants in the ground. We use clever, low-tech labor saving machines, like the water-wheel transplanter pictured here. With this machine we can plant thousands of plants per hour in an efficient, comfortable and enjoyable manner.
A good day’s work transplanting early crops. Now we let the sun and rain do their part in this early time of the year.
The crops really grow fast as the days lengthen and are warmed by the sun in late spring.
Time for the first picking! It is a day of cheerful work, a celebration after months of hard work.
Early lettuces and radishes; succulent, beautiful and DELICIOUS!
Potatoes; planting, growing and harvest. In French they are called, “pomme d’ terre” – apples of the earth.
Salad crops growing on in late summer.
The height of harvest in fall brings a sweet reward for all the hard work.
Market days are when we get to bring the goodness of what we do to our members and the community. Sustainable living is what we are creating together, each supporting the other. Our work together shows we can live sustainably on this land.
The farm we have all created is more than just about reducing food miles and a lower carbon footprint.
It is even more than fresh, nutrition rich food, grown without poisons. We have become a source of education and social connections.
Each year our farm hosts many volunteers and students who come to learn and experience modern ecological farming methods and concepts. Farm life allows for an opportunity for exchange and connection with each other and with the earth. Many who come say that they feel renewed and reinvigorated, after their stay with us. So we have come to realize that in more ways than one the farm can produce two crops, both that aid in healing and health, one is produced when it is eaten, the other by the very process of growing it!
Your participation made a difference and we are grateful that you chose to be a member with us last season. It has been our pleasure getting to know you during the past year. Having familiar faces to greet each week de-industrializes what we do as we know we are growing, grinding, sprouting and cooking for our own community, the people who have chosen to support the work we do.
We hope you have enjoyed the foods we have grown and made for you this past year. We are at that time, mid-winter when the seed catalogs are pouring in and we make plans for the upcoming growing season. Even in January we will start the seeds for the 2014 season. We invite you to renew your membership with us for the upcoming season and to do so as early as possible. Early subscribers get a significant discount and renewing members get a 5% discount added onto that. Spring funds give the farm community the resources we need to grow the food our members and customers eat. Financial resources at this time of year allow us to repair equipment, buy seed and make the necessary improvements that make our community farm possible. We have a number of new crops we anticipate bringing on and we plan to continue to add to our offerings of value added products, made by us from organic and ecologically grown materials, healthy and delicious. We endeavor to offer the widest choice in a CSA experience in our region. The website will be updated soon to include a current registration form and early bird discount rates. Please visit it to renew your membership soon. Visit us at http://www.geecreekfarm.com
Together we can make a difference in the world. Thanks again for your assistance and support!
In Peace,
Lyle and the crew at Gee Creek Farm Community
P.S. Thanks to the many of you who have already signed up for our community coop program! Please look for an announcement about the start of this program in the very near future. Thanks once again for your kind attention, and much appreciated support!
Gee Creek Farm 
Beautiful and inspiring – and I know delicious; this is how food should taste. I thought I was nutrition-conscious, but I have learned some important things chatting at the booth. LN
Long time supporter, and thought I’d drop a comment.
Your organization’s wordpress site is very sleek – hope you don’t mind me asking what theme you’re using?
(and don’t mind if I steal it? :P)
I just launched my small businesses site –also built in wordpress
like yours– but the theme slows (!) the site down quite
a bit.
In case you have a minute, you can find it
by searching for “royal cbd” on Google (would appreciate any feedback) – it’s still in the works.
Keep up the good work– and hope you all take care
of yourself during the coronavirus scare!
~Justin