Farmer’s Daughter Organics Reports on Next Step Grant Project
The grower hopes to expand wintertime vegetable production using two high tunnels.
Brittany and Jason Chester, owners of Farmer’s Daughter Organics, give an update on how they’re using the $5,000 Next Step grant they received from Bread Riot in May 2022. Next Step grants are designated to help Rowan County farmers expand their operations in a meaningful way.
Good evening!
Things have been buzzing around the farm preparing for fall gardens, getting garden plots solarized, planting fall vegetables, and thankfully dodging rain showers. After a very tough summer, I feel like we are back on track with our mission and finally seeing some potential for solid production into the fall and through the winter. We had 11 weeks from the end of May to the end of July with only two tenths of an inch of rain on our farm, but since it started raining, we have been very blessed and are thankful for the opportunity to keep moving forward.
The two high tunnels have been delivered and are awaiting construction. We have been solarizing (black silage tarp) the plot areas that we are going to use for construction to reduce the impact of weeds and foreign grasses inside of the tunnels. We typically leave these tarps on our plots through the summer months to basically burn all weed material to the ground so that when we build our beds on top of the surface it will be virtually free of weeds because we do not intend to till or disturb the soil, only adding new theoretically weed-free compost as we build our beds. We plan to start construction by the end of September with the erection completed by the middle of October.
(Photos of delivered tunnels, solarizing plot, and a plot of fall veggies that will be at the market soon!)
We have purchased all of our seeds for the late fall/winter gardens, so once the tunnels are complete and beds constructed inside, we will be ready to grow. These tunnels should have the ability to withstand moderate freezing, wind and rain, allowing us to produce through the winter, barring any extended days below about 20 degrees.
Thank you so much for this grant. In addition, we would like to extend our most sincere appreciation for allowing us to participate in your weekly pickups this summer and the Saturday markets for as long as we were able to participate. The Bread Riot organization and the people we have met have been a blessing to our family.
Sincerely,
Jason and Brittany Chester
Nice work, Farmer’s Daughter Organics! We look forward to more updates on this exciting project.
