Farm Fails to Farm Successes

​At Greenleaf we are driven not only by our successes, but how we can learn and become better through our failures. Each place has it's own unique growing climate, from the soil, to the elevation, pests, and diseases. Coming from Florida, my growing season was from November to May, the soil is sand, there was intense pest and disease pressure, and the weather is well....HOT. Where here it is February-December typically, the soil is clay, the weather (usually) is pretty predictable, and the pest pressure is not as intense due to this area getting a freeze. 

I came in to the growing season a little late here and one big fail (not on purpose) was having to source seedlings late in the game and from a box store that doesn't have the knowledge about raising healthy seedlings. I am really not used to this "don't plant squash after this date" time thing AT ALL. The weather has also been very unpredictable and the mixture of unhealthy starts and weird weather is breeding ground for terrible disease! Take these sad, sad peppers...I have just ripped them up and given up on them this season. 

The moral of this farm fail is....always...I mean ALWAYS source your starts from a reliable grower. That is where Aluma Farm comes in to save the day for our fall starts. We will be working with them to grow all of our little healthy babies for all of our farms. We don't have the infrastructure or time to do so and it is putting money in the pockets of LOCAL FARMERS. From failure comes growth...trial and error people! Learning and growing everyday! 

Yours locally,
Christa