2025-06-23 newsletter

Tuesday Sanibel drop site; Thursday Farm Pick-Up & Home Deliveries; Saturday Mkt. at 12 Seasons

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm,

We have one more final market this Saturday at 12 Seasons. Our farming season
is definitely winding down with less and less available each week due to the
intense heat and humidity.

This will also be our final delivery to the Sanibel drop site on Tuesday. Thank
you to Melissa Lehman and her family for hosting the pick up location for
Sanibel and Captiva residents. Your flexibility made the process go very
smoothly.

Thank you to all our Sanibel and Captiva customers. It has been a great season
in spite of a tough start for so many of us with the flooding we incurred from
Hurricanes Helene and Milton. We hope you all continue to recover and become
more resilient. We are working hard to make our farm better prepared against
future flooding.

We will continue with Thursday farm pick up, Thursday home deliveries and
Saturday market pick up at 12 Season Farm. Please place your order by 8 pm
Tuesday for Thursday options; and for Saturday farm pick up, place orders by
Thursday, 8 pm.

Keep in mind that the driveway/farm address for Saturday market and pick-up is
the west entrance at 14820 (listed below in blue bolded text). It is a
different driveway and address for the Thursday farm pick-up which is at 14840,
the east driveway.

Here is our schedule for this week:

FINAL TUESDAY SANIBEL DROP
SITE: A free drop site in Sanibel each Tuesday from 9 am to 3 pm. This
site is hosted by Melissa Lehman. Her address and phone # should be on your
order confirmation email. This will be a self-serve option. Pick up at their
home in their screened foyer which is easily accessible from their driveway.
Produce will be on shelves. There should be 1 spot open in their driveway for a
quick pick up. Order online and please pay by credit card (no cash or checks
please). If you see Melissa, please thank her
for providing this option. Order by 8 pm Sunday for this option.

THURSDAY FARM
PICK-UP & HOME DELIVERY: Place an order online before 8 pm Tuesday
for Thursday all day pick-up at the farm or to receive a home delivery. For
farm pick-up, use original farm entrance, 14840 Old Olga Rd.
Order is usually split between cold produce in walk-in cooler and the air
conditioned structure just left of walk-in cooler.

FINAL SATURDAY MARKET AT 12
SEASONS FARM: Our own market runs from 8am-noon. Use the 14820
Old Olga Rd., Ft. Myers, FL 33905 driveway/address. For those interested in preordering for
this market, please do so before 8 pm on Thursday for pick-up Saturday at the
farm.

If
you have questions about the farm or your orders please feel free to text or
call Danny at 239-229-3579.

Place orders at
12seasonsfarm.com

This is what we are harvesting:

Curly Kale
Flat Kale
Mixed Kale (a mix of multiple kale varieties)
Arugula (limited)
Heirloom and specialty tomatoes
Red Slicing tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes
Beets (limited)
Daikon radish (limited)
Florida Sweet onions
Leeks
Broccolini
Eggplant
Flat Parsley
Curled Parsley
Mint
Chocolate Mint (very limited)
Rosemary
Italian Basil
Papaya
Bananas (limited)
Lychee
Mango
Sunflowers
Saw palmetto honey
Wildflower honey
Farm fresh eggs (pastured, organically raised)
Sea of Cortez salt
Monkey and Strawberry Butter

This week we are on a return trip from visiting Vicki’s family in Oklahoma. We
stopped in on Saturday to to see dear friends and former 12 Seasons Farm
workers Luke and Marcie Dallmann. They both have worked at our farm before they
were married and then after they married. A funny story now going back to when
they were single is that I hired them both to help plant the lychee orchard 10
years ago and Luke got severely dehyrdrated that day while planting. Marcie
attended to him and helped him recover that day and we watched them start to
spend more and more time together. They eventually started dating and got
married in Oct 2016 and then came back to work for us in 2018. They are now
fruit tree specialists for Clemson University’s Musser Fruit Research Station.
Marcie is responsible for fruit tree propagation (grafting and budding) and
Luke assists in the overall management of Musser Farms, one of the largest
peach research stations in the United States. It was a joy to see them and
their expanding family with their 2 daughters Galilee and Elykia! Life begins
in the garden!

The kids enjoyed swimming in the Lake Hartwell near Clemson University.

Yesterday and today we visited Paul Brown’s family in Yadkinville, NC. Paul
worked for us this season and our kids enjoyed him a lot. His family are
organic fruit, grain, vegetable, and livestock farmers.

Simeon with Paul and his dad coming back from the upper field early this
morning where they were using Paul’s 1950s David Bradley 2-wheeled tractor to
till in between their corn.

Eric Brown, daughter, Nora, and Melissa Brown with Vicki in their pepper and
tomato field. It was good sharing farming notes together.

We had an enjoyable afternoon tour of their farm. They use a lot of bamboo on
their farm as well. Paul has 5 sisters.

We ate lots of homegrown boiled peanuts and Nora, Paul’s older sister, brought
out some of her fine hard cheeses she is experimenting on from goat and cow’s
milk. We were also treated with ice cream from cream skimmed off of their cows
topped with fresh blueberries, plums, and mulberries.

This was followed with a feast of some venison that Paul had hunted and corn on
the cob, beans, potato salad, and sweet potato all from the farm. It was a
feast. The kids slept in tents and the 2 families had a great time together.
The kids slept outside in tents and had a blast!