2023-10-23 newsletter

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm,

We hope this message finds you well. The farm is just beginning to
produce. We don’t have a lot of diversity but we do have enough to make
available for a farm pick up this Thursday.

Our first market begins Nov. 4 in Bonita and we will begin home
deliveries Nov. 9.

We did have our website rebuilt over the past few weeks. Because
someone hacked into our system last season, we started over. It should
appear similar and we are still fine-tuning it, but it is new with a lot
more security features.

If you would like to place an order for this Thursday for
farm pick up, please do so before 8 pm TUESDAY at
www.12seasonsfarm.com.

Here is our schedule this week

THURSDAY FARM PICK-UP ONLY : Please place an order
online before Tuesday, 8 pm, if you want farm pick-up for Thursday.
14840 Old Olga Rd., Ft. Myers, FL 33905

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

This is what we are harvesting:

• Summercrisp Lettuce
• Arugula
• Zucchini
• Cucumbers
• Eggplant
• Round radish
• Daikon radish
• Dill
• Papaya
• Starfruit
• Banana
• Saw Palmetto Honey

We are glad to be back in touch after a good summer! The summer has
been full of work and some fun family visits and activities. Here we
planted a banyan tree on the farm this summer for a fun shade tree in
the parking area– a gift from our dear friends, the Watkins Family.

We have had a much smaller crew here than in previous summers but the
kids have been helping out as seen here applying mulch to the
papayas.

It is a pleasure to finally see ripe papayas again. We did not have
last season due to the storm– so nearly 2 years since having them.

This season we attempted a system of no-till on the vegetable beds. I
have long wanted to not use the disc harrow since it breaks apart the
soil in an attempt to kill the summer weeds. This season we used some
weed suppression fabric that smothered the weeds and preserved the
previous season beds. So far we are very pleased.

Here are more beds that we just had to repress the bed to build up
the edges. We use a bed press implement behind the tractor. This new
method definitely saved time and kept the integrity of the previous
season’s beds, preserving both the good amendments we applied and the
developing soil structure.

Ekachai can be seen in this photo. He and his family have generously
come back several times to help out this summer for which we have been
grateful.

We put up 2 more greenhouses. We had a day where many friends came
out to put the arches and purlins up. Many hands make light work!

The first of the tomatoes were planted in mid-August. Above is Sammi,
TJ, and Anthony who returned to join us for this season. He was with us
2 seasons ago.

We don’t expect to have tomatoes for another few weeks. The photo
above is Simeon with his sister demonstrating how to prune and wrap the
tomato vines to a student who was visiting the farm last week.

But we do have cucumbers!

We are also getting generous harvests of eggplant.

We are getting some beautiful starfruit right now.

It hasn’t all been work– we had several wonderful breaks. We visited
my parents in California in early September.

We enjoyed a short camping trip to Oscar Scherer State Park

Vicki’s brother and family came in early Oct. from Oklahoma and the
cousins had a blast.

The team here at 12 Seasons Farm looks forward to another season of
bringing you fresh and high quality fruits and vegetables. We are
grateful for all the ways you have supported us over the many years.

We look forward to reconnecting with you face-to-face! All the
best!

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