Dear Farm Community,
Busy busy busy here at the farm ~ next year doesn’t happen by itself! We’ve been working our way down the farm to-do lists, and so much of this work is essential in the transition from the wonderful 2026 growing season we had, to a fruitful (& veggie-ful & flower-ful) 2027 soon to come. We’ve got a blitz of little farm updates this week :-) Come along for the ride and see what we’ve been up to - and where all that work is headed!
Our first round of ranunculus are sprouted and out of the cooler, and continuing their journey now in our seed house! It’s amazing to see how much some of them have grown already. Check out where we’re at with our upcoming spring blooms:
come spring…….
We’re getting ready to plant out snapdragons! One of the few plants we don’t start from seed, we recently got in thousands and thousands of little teeny weeny baby snapdragon seedlings that are keeping the ranunculus company in the seed house. Soon they’ll be transplanted into high tunnels, one of the more tedious transplanting tasks on the farm (they are planted ~1,200 plants to a bed, and all of our transplanting is done by hand!) For now they’re acclimating to their new home in the seed house, and we’re envisioning the thousands of blooms to come!
come spring……..
In veggie land, the wave of transitional fieldwork is well underway. After weeks of waiting for soil conditions to be perfect, working the soil, shaping beds, and laying down plastic mulch, our 2027 strawberry field is finally ready for planting! We’ll likely be getting our strawberry plants in this week, and soon after that we’ll plant them out so they can start their own long journey to spring sweetness. Many months of tending to them ahead of us, and after that many months of picking them!
come spring……
We’ve also been weeding up a storm! Our overwinter carrot fields are getting VIP weed treatment. I think we did the math and theres something like 70,000+ little baby carrots out there in the fields right now. WOWZA! At this baby stage, with only little sprouts showing, the weeds are equally teeny. This is a great opportunity to knock back a huge amount of weeds before they even really start! With so many beds it was still a labor of love, but we’re feeling great about how these beds are lookin!
We were awfully proud of the farmer-brain engineering we did to speed up this delicate weeding process, affixing detail-work hand weeders to our scuffle-hoes with hair ties and rubber bands. Problem-solving on the farm really does keep things interesting if you let it
As you can see from the big image of those stunning technicolor carrots at the start of this email, we’re happily starting to harvest from an earlier planting! Large share CSA members will see these in their CSA shares this week, and all members will soon see them regularly as that early planting sizes up over the rest of this year’s CSA season.
All members this week will be receiving a heaping portion of greens! Collards, lettuce, kale, and bok choy galore! After such a long farm update we’ll keep it quick in the recipe zone, leaning heavy into some delicious NYT recipes (BTW, our links will give you access even if you don’t have a subscription!)
☞ Collards? Something meaty & delicious (half the recipe or use both collards and kale for the full recipe), or maybe just something super simple and veg.
☞ Kale? A cozy turkey soup is calling for you. I can hear it. Vegetarians head here for a meat free version!
☞ Bok Choy? Soup again. Or fire up the oven and get the house cozy and warm with a vegetarian sheet pan dinner ;-)
And don’t forget, you can always find a little inspiration on our recipe page!
So Grateful,
Diamond Hill Farmers
love your food, feed your love <3
standard share: sweet potatoes, lettuce mix, broccoli or bok choy, kale, collards, scallions
large share: sweet potatoes, lettuce mix, broccoli or bok choy, kale, collards, scallions, carrots, cherry tomatoes