News

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We are glad to have made it through the cooler temperatures without a hard frost or freeze event. Last week we had frost on the ground but nothing noticeable on the crops. The farm continues to improve in diversity and production. We have added collard greens and mustard greens to…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We continue to see better production in a variety of crops like carrots, broccolini, green onions, kale, strawberries, and cherry tomatoes. We are hoping that we will avoid frost this coming week as cold weather comes our way. Being so far inland and at such low elevation, the cold air…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We continue to see improvements in production with more tomatoes, strawberries, broccolini, and new types of lettuce coming available. We are grateful for the meaningful rainfall this past weekend. We see the forecast now for cool weather coming within the next 2 weeks. We hope it is not of the…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We finally have a good supply of heirloom type tomatoes, carrots, and kale! The weather has been favorable for good crop growth these past few weeks. The majority of the vegetable crops we grow do best in mildly warm daytime temps (mid 70s to low 80s during the day) and…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, Each week the farm is moving closer to its productive potential and the setbacks from the storm are becoming less obvious. For this we are thankful. We are adding carrots to the regular lineup of available produce now and each week you should see more produce available. This Tuesday we…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, The 12 Seasons Team continues to expand in numbers. I think this is one of the largest teams we have ever had. Perhaps after Hurricane Ian the team was larger with so many helping but this is really close to being the biggest. We are very grateful to have such…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with around 40 people gathered together for a day of celebrating and offering thanks to God our Father for His great mercy and provision this year and the beginning of a new farming season and for a wonderful team! We hope you had a…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We had another great market day on Saturday at the Bonita Farmer’s Market. Thank you to all those who came out! We are planning to have farm pick-up all day on Wednesday this week due to the Thanksgiving Day on Thursday. Use the old farm entrance, 14840 Old Olga. Rd.…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We had a great opening day last Saturday at the Bonita Farmer’s Market. Thank you to those who came out and supported us with your kind words and affirming business. It really was a lot of fun to see so many of you again! We are resuming the Thursday farm…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We hope this newsletter finds you well. We are glad to finally have opening day for the farm this coming Saturday. We intended to start in mid-October but we lost much of our crops to flooding and wind damage during both Helene and Milton. We have replanted multiple times and…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We hope this newsletter finds you well. We have returned from a cross-country journey. We had a marvelous vacation. We reconnected with friends and family, experienced amazing hospitality, and saw extraordinary parts of this country’s vast landscape. There are some photos below highlighting the trip. The vegetable season is mostly…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, The season is practically over. We are now focusing our efforts on preparing for next season. There are a few options available, mainly lots of mango and bananas available for pick-up on Saturday. There will be no deliveries, only farm pick-up. Thank you for an amazing season. We so appreciate…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We are planning to stay open an additional week because several inquired about how to get produce still longer. The farmers markets are finished and the diversity is limited, but we will have farm pickup and home delivery on Friday, July 5. Our team will work a half day on…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, The season is definitely winding down with fewer options. The heat takes its toll on the crops and the time is soon to plant cover crops and put the fields to rest. We practice a no-till system over most of the farm. We will try to disturb the vegetable beds…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We are grateful for the recent rain that helped recharge the soil moisture back to optimal levels. We got around 9 1/2 inches over 3 days last week. While it would have been ideal to have that spread over a longer time, the trees on the farm are doing much…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We are starting to harvest mangos! The season is beginning a little later as we had a poor fruit set on the early variety, ‘Glenn.’ The ‘Pickering’ is now just beginning which is mostly a midseason mango, but we are catching the early fruits off those trees. We don’t have…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, Saturday we began our first market at the farm this season. The diversity and volume of production are coming down, but it is impressive to see what we still have this late in the season. Most farming operations are finished in south Florida so local produce is hard to come…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We had our final Bonita Springs farmer market of this season. Now we will open the market at our farm for Saturdays in June. You are welcome and encouraged to preorder for the Saturday market since production becomes more limited as we enter the final month of our selling season.…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We are in the final 6 weeks of vegetable season here. The heat has been unrelenting. Thankfully, we know at some point it is going to be like this and so have already adjusted our planting calendar to include mostly heat tolerant cultivars for this final phase of growing. Even…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, The heat and humidity are really intense here and certain crops like cabbage, celery, and zucchini are nearly done or finished. The crop diversity declines when we get intense and prolonged heat/humidity spells like this in the spring. The tomatoes are still doing exceptionally well as we are still harvesting…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We have entered the final couple months of this season. This week we scale back to just one market per week in Bonita at the Promenade Shops. As I have mentioned in previous seasons, the south Florida farm season is book-ended by incredible heat and humidity– the opposite of northern…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, This Tuesday, April 30, will be our final Captiva market of this season. Thank you to all of you who have attended that market and supported 12 Seasons Farm. We do plan to start delivering to Sanibel and Captiva on Tuesday, May 7. We will evaluate to see if there…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, This Tuesday, April 30, will be our final Captiva market of this season. Thank you to all of you who have attended that market and supported 12 Seasons Farm. We do plan to start delivering to Sanibel and Captiva on Tuesday, May 7. We will evaluate to see if there is enough…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, The farm continues to be productive even in this intense heat. It is cutting short certain crops like Baby Butterhead lettuce (forcing us to harvest at a much younger stage), celery, and strawberries, but most crops are doing fine. Our current plan is to do the Captiva market through the…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, The tomato quality is superb right now! The added heat and length of day creates a sweeter and deeper flavor profile on the tomatoes. Strawberry season is winding down, but we have really good papaya if you are looking for some delicious sweet fruit. The Tuesday Naples market has officially ended. Thank you to…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, The tomato quality is superb right now! The added heat and length of day creates a sweeter and deeper flavor profile on the tomatoes. Strawberry season is winding down, but we have really good papaya if you are looking for some delicious sweet fruit. The Tuesday Naples market has officially…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, We still have high diversity as we are actively harvesting most of the crops we have grown this season except cauliflower, green beans, and avocado which have all but ended. Citrus too is mostly winding down except for some grapefruit and late season oranges like ‘Valencia’ and ‘OLL-8.’ The past…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, Production and diversity continue strong on the farm. The warm season crops are prospering in this weather with lots of solid tomato, cuc, zuc, pepper and eggplant production. Baby butterheads and romaine will start to slow down in this heat though the forecast ahead looks good with mild temperatures except…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, Thank you to all who came last week to the markets in Bonita, Captiva and Naples. All markets were busy though Saturday was less so due perhaps to people’s concern over inclement weather. We are encouraged to see the Captiva market strong again. We are grateful for a very devoted…

Greetings from 12 Seasons Farm, Overall the farm is producing very well. The more extreme heat this past week through today– with very warm days and nights– made it more challenging to manage the crops. Harvests need to be very timely. The lettuce is quicker to bolt, the broccolini needs to be harvested very young…