Red Fern Farm

10/05/2026

Turmeric is a long season crop. We start it in late February, plant it out in May and finally start harvest in late September. It's a slow grower and removes a bed from rotation for the whole season but it works well in our system where (just like our ginger) it produces a good amount of product on a small 1/2 bed that really isn't used for much else.

Turmeric is a low maintenance crop once planted. We treat it much like our ginger where we will and fertilze once a month.

Turmeric, unlike ginger, is self sustaining for us. We are able to regrow next season's crop from our saved mother rizomes (most of the time our seed ginger pieces rot away or are absorbed by our growing ginger plants).

09/15/2026

I hate zinnia, or at least I used to... and that's because the majority of zinnia were bright bold colors that did not go with the palate that we use for our floral designs. But I decided to give them another try with these muted tones that more align with our design preferences and I've go to say, maybe I do like zinnia after all.

Conventional flower farmer wisdom says that you should use bright flashy colors at farmers markets and save the subdued muted tones for arranging and design work. We don't abide by those principles and our market bouquets live in that same muted blush tones found in the wedding and floral designs Vanessa creates. That's why I hated (notice the past tense) zinnia. But I guess we can add small batches to our summer fields again now that I've reconciled with these beauties.

07/23/2026

This is how we harvest and store our slicing tomatoes for market.

A lot of people think waiting for a tomato to fully fully ripen on the vine is how it has to be harvested. However, as a small- scale commercial producer, that is not realistic. If we waited for vine ripened tomatoes to be picked, we would loose half our crop to rot before we could get them to market. Our tomatoes are picked every other day, at color crack or blushing stage, during the week leading up to market day, kept in our tomato cooler at 63°F allowing them to slowly ripen to perfection for market.

Tomatoes are a huge investment on our farm. The money that goes into seed (root stock and heirloom seed), potting mix (for the initial seeding and then potting them on), heat and light to get them going early in the season, the biweekly soil amendments, trellising and pruning and harvesting time... yes tomatoes cost a ton to produce at scale. Because of this harvesting correctly for maximum yield and sales is critical to our farms financial success with them.

07/23/2026

We don't grow tons of tomatoes, but we grow them at "scale" for a market farm our size. This week we've picked over 100 tomatoes and more will be coming in soon. This is how we harvest, and store them for market.

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07/10/2026

Summer is here and the eggplant is pumping.

This is a slender Asian type eggplant. They are longer amd more thin than their Italian cousins. They have a finer taste and fewer seeds in the centers. We harvest when they are about 8-10" long.

We started the seeds for these on February 5th babied them and potted them up in the nursery for several weeks planting them into our tunnels on April 27th. They've been trellised 3 times and side dressed with a fertilizer blend twice so far this season.

They still have a couple months to go before we have to remove them for winter crops and during that time they will continue to pump out these delicious fruits.