fig almond cake with honey glaze

It’s been a big week on the farm… on Tuesday we officially wrapped our Summer CSA and DAMN it feels good.

For the past 10 weeks, my team and I harvested, washed, prepped, and packed up all of our freshest, ripest produce for our wonderful CSA members. (And let’s not forget the months of seeding, transplanting, weeding, watering, pruning, and trellising that started way back in February). Looking back on the summer season so far, I can honestly say it’s been our most successful and abundant yet. Which is pretty amazing, considering that my time in the dirt has been limited, as I’ve been mostly focused on spending time with our young kiddos this season.

So how can our little farm churn out so many beautiful vegetables with minimal attention? First things first – I have the best team (looking at you Hannah and Ginger!) who have picked up all my slack and kept this small but mighty farm running. Truly, none of this would be possible without these two hardworking, kind, and wildly talented humans. But their time is limited too, and I only have their help for a total of about 12 hours each week (which isn’t much, considering how much food we are growing). So how can we produce all these vegetables with such limited labor? Honestly, the secret is the soil.

For the past 5 seasons, we’ve poured so much intention (and high quality compost) into building truly healthy, resilient, biologically active soil, and it shows. Through heat waves and record breaking rain events, our soil has stayed intact and nourished our crops all season long. And this year we’ve dealt with the least pest pressure ever – which I directly attribute to the health of our soil, which in turn produces strong plants that are more resistant to pests. But this work of soil-building is never complete, and every year we keep working to enrich the soil so that it can enrich us.

By the way, if you want a more in-depth look at *exactly* how we built our farm and our permanent raised beds, check out this post. And here is a full guide all about cultivating healthy soil.

Even though summer is certainly not over, we intentionally end our summer CSA in early August so we can rest, recover, and prep