Carrot Toppings

This morning was heating up quick! I believe the temperature was going to reach almost 100 degrees today. We were delighted to see many volunteers from the Sandy Utah Hillcrest and Sandy Utah Mount Jordan Stakes. Our first priority is always the harvest, so we set out a group to pick the broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, lettuce, beets, and carrots. Overall, we harvested a total of 119 pounds of produce today and got much accomplished.

Here we are putting our wonderful new benches to use with the carrot topping task. These were made as a Eagle Scout project and were just delivered to the farm on Thursday. We love them!  



Since we had such a great turn out of volunteers today, we were able to focus quite a bit on weeding. Our walkways, grow boxes, and field are starting to look overgrown with weeds. We appreciated all of the volunteers to help to tidy up a small section today. We will continue to tackle those weeds all throughout the rest of the season to keep them in control. 



Carrot pickers. 



Weeding in the field.



And more weeding in the grow boxes.



Elder Morgan vacuuming off the squash bugs.



More squash bug removal tactics being executed.



Elder Couron fixing one of our new tables.



And here's a wave from Gary! He served at the farm last year and did a wonderful job. He started back with us this year, but then received a big calling in his ward and wasn't able to do both. His Stake was assigned to serve today at the farm so we took the opportunity to volunteer. We loved seeing him.

Hiding from the Birds

It was discovered that birds were having a good time eating our new carrot seedlings that were starting to sprout. We decided that we had better get some cloth covers over the carrot beds, and also on top of the new lettuce plantings. 

A group worked on the lettuce beds to get the misters connected for the irrigation.

Here's one of the volunteers helping to connect the mister to the water pipe. He had to make a sharp 90 degree turn and use the rebar pole to fasten the hose around it for support.

Here is the canopy cover going up over the carrot beds.

Tiny Carrot Seeds

Three of our volunteers were tasked with carrot planting tonight. After hundreds of carrot holes were made in the soil, these volunteers went around filling each hole with a tiny carrot seed and then covered it with dirt. 

Here are some of the carrot seeds they planted.

Elder White had fun making the carrot holes. 

Lettuce and Trellises

Dedicated and hard working volunteers from the Sandy East Stake  and Sandy Crescent Stake planted carrot seeds and lettuce plants. They set up the trellises for the pole squash and tomatoes.

A team worked together to assemble the misters for the beds.

Mutual Group from Butler West Stake 20th Ward

A wonderful mutual group from the Butler West Stake 20th Ward learned how to plant carrots tonight. Elder Osborne taught the group how to use the dibble (carrot) board to make holes in the soil. The youth had fun jumping on the dibble board to create the holes. We made lots of progress with the carrots tonight thanks to their help.

Here's a picture of the carrot board with all the many wood pieces used to make holes in the soil.

Elder Osborne providing instruction on how to plant the carrot seeds.

Happy St. Patty's Day from the Farm!

On this fine St. Patrick's Day our service missionaries were out tilling the soil. We're lucky to have such good help on the farm this year!

Sister Leitner watering the carrots.

First carrots sprouting

The first crop of carrots are getting their first true leafs.  We have them covered with frost blankets.  Not for frost but to keep out the birds