2022-12-05 newsletter

Greetings from the farm,

We had a great Saturday seeing so many of you. It was fun to
reconnect and be back at market!

Our December schedule should be fairly similar to last week with home
deliveries on Thursday and market on Saturday. The farm overall is doing
well. While the production remains quite a bit lower compared to
previous years at this time, we are steadily increasing. We saw the
first ripe cherry tomatoes which is encouraging. Hopefully in the next
1-2 weeks we will have them available for sale. We went all summer
without buying tomatoes and miss them terribly!

We are still looking for a Tuesday market option of some kind as the
Captiva market is closed for season. If you have a market idea for
Tuesday (or Wednesday could work too), we would welcome that.

We would also like to find a way to serve the folks still out on the
islands but not sure of the logistics. We welcome ideas on that as
well.

Here is a summary of our schedule:

THURSDAY DELIVERIES & FARM PICK-UP: Please place
an order online before Tuesday, 8 pm, if you want home delivery or farm
pick-up for Thursday.

SATURDAY FARMERS’ MARKET AND PREORDER PICK-UP :
Market runs 8 am to noon. Please place an order by Thursday, 8 pm to
pick up your preorder at the Bonita market. If preordering, please pick
up preorders after 10 am.

If coming on Thursday to the farm, the address for picking up orders
is the old farm entrance at 14840 Old Olga Rd. Farm pick up can be from
9 am to 5 pm. Contact Danny at 239-229-3579 for any questions.

Orders can be placed online at www.12seasonsfarm.com

This is what we are harvesting:

• Summercrisp Lettuce

• Baby Butterhead Lettuce

• Arugula

• Cabbage (new!)

• Curly kale

• Flat kale

• Broccoli

• Green beans (limited)

• Cucumbers

• Zucchini

• Eggplant

• Round radish

• Daikon radish

• Dill

• Cilantro

• Saw Palmetto Honey

• Sunflowers

Myrah, Annika, and Carrie back at market on Saturday. Thank you to
all who came out. Great to see you all!

We have a nice selection this season of daikon radish, traditional
round radish, and watermelon radish. Cabbage is now being harvested.

Meet 12 Seasons’ Farm Manager Zach Denzel. Zach was with us last
season. This season he transitioned to the farm manager position,
formerly Cate Kandle’s role. We are grateful for Zach and he has done a
great job stepping into this new role. I met Zach when he was at the
HEART Institute. He was a student in the ag. class I instruct. I was
impressed how he managed his garden plot and with his character. He has
been a wonderful addition to the team here and is doing a great job.

For those that knew Cate, she is now back in Orlando. She is working
toward her dream of managing her own farm some day. She graciously came
down to help us with hurricane recovery. She is family to us!

T.J. and Shelby Davis are new workers this season for us. Here they
are dibbling holes for planting lettuce. They also were students at the
HEART Institute. They wanted to gain more ag experience and joined the
team in September. They have been super helpful and we are grateful they
have made 12 Seasons their home.

Myrah is in her 5th season. We are proud of her. She will celebrate
her 16th birthday this week. Myrah works in the mornings and does school
work in the afternoons. She is planting beets with a homemade dibbler by
Ek that spaces the beet seed at 3” apart. Myrah does a lot of our
seeding having worked closely with Cate and Emma over the years. It is
fun to see someone so young develop such a great skill set in farming.
Happy birthday Myrah!!

We harvested the first tomatoes of the season a few days ago. It was
such a relief to harvest these little gems. This season is so different
from others in the challenges we have faced. Each year we work hard to
get tomatoes produced early and we were on schedule to have the earliest
fruit ever, but Ian of course changed a lot of things. Life is so much
more than the food we eat, but these first fruits are super special as
they are a sweet and delicious result of such hard efforts by so many
hands. As for the painting on the right, this was given to me years ago
from a German family that stayed a winter and worked with us. They
bought it at a local store and gifted it to me. It has become one of my
favorites.

Break day last Wednesday. We get together each Wednesday for a
potluck lunch.

Sunset at 12 Seasons Farm.

The kids had a dance performance last Friday evening at Barbara B.
Mann theater in Ft. Myers. The Gulf Coast Symphony along with the Fort
Myers Symphonic Mastersingers did a production called, Deck the Halls.
During the event, the kids (and Vicki too) did various Irish step dances
with Kellyn Celtic Arts Dance Academy. It was so much fun to watch the
dancing and listen to amazing music. Sometime you should ask them to
dance an Irish jig for you at the market!

It was a pleasure to see so many of you Saturday. Thank you for such
a great turn out at the market. We look forward to providing high
quality and delicious food this season for you.

With appreciation for you all,

Danny, Vicki, the kids, and the 12 Seasons Team