New Year Hopes
We are hopeful 2024 will be another big year of growth for our farm - particularly at the root.
We want to create more permanent infrastructure around the farm that allows visitors to feel welcome and inspired - from things as simple as fencing, to things as monumental as a building (fingers crossed). We want Daily Farm to feel more polished, more functional, and more beautiful than last year.
We are now into 2024 and we’ve hit the ground running with our compost and mulch already delivered and being spread. Our beds look really good, though we are fighting the early spring weed seeds. Our soil structure is looking healthy with now 2 years of broadforking and topping with compost. We’re hopeful this years crops will be even healthier than the year before. Additionally, our shrubs, peonies, and roses will now be in their second or third growing season - which hopefully will equate to more flowers.
Over the winter we tried a burlap sack collar around the base of our most tender roses with burlap sacks donated by some local coffee companies here in Louisville - which was so generous! These burlap sacks wrapped at the base helped insulate them from harsh winter winds and cold. It seems they’re making it through this way with minimal, if any, issue. I’m hopeful spring will show a more successful overwintering than last year leaving all the roses uncovered / unprotected. I’m determined this year to be good at growing roses from cuttings so that if there is loss we don’t have to make such large investments of replacing plants. Another way we could become a more sustainable farm!
Last year we had successful events hosted here at the farm. Guests seemed to really enjoy the uniqueness of the experience it gives them, which is ultimately what we want. Another one of our hopes for this year is to have more folks out to the farm to purchase and pick up their goods and enjoy our farm - as well as have experiences like u-picks, dinners, and other joyous occasions here.
In line with that, we hope to build the farm up this year so the experience of visiting us is a pleasant and enjoyable experience.
I’m still so impressed by all the ways our farm has managed to grow despite it being a team of 2 to make it happen. Michael and I still are the only hands working the fields, and we are not full-time at the farm - though we ultimately wish we could. We give our best attempts to divvy our spare time and attention to all the things required to make this dream happen. Lastly, we hope this year we can grow our farm deeper into where we’ve planted ourselves so that we can begin to see a way to make this our full-time living.
Some other small, but impactful ways we hope to grow our farm this year:
1) Beehives and trying again at bees!
2) Bird boxes and habitats around the farm
3) Propagation and seeding tunnel setup
4) Climbing flowering plants for vertical interest
5) More long-lived and ornamental trees
6) Roadside flower and produce stand for passersby
7) Replacing the road facing wood post cable fencing with gates, and espalier apple trees
We know we are in line with our goals when local businesses reach out to collaborate, customers take the time to tell us how much they love our farm, and any sale of anything we do, make, or grow. It’s all celebrated. It’s all life-giving.
