The new puppy, Everest, has settled into farm life. He’s spending his days tumbling around with the kids and the rest of the farm dog crew—Chloe, Azula, Murphy, Ranger, and Latte—learning the rhythm play, and his place in the hierarchy. The weeds have grown so tall, he’s often too small to see his way through the growth, but this leads to very fun video-perfect puppy tumbles and games of hide-and-seek.
Spring is beginning to display itself across the farm. The apple tree is already fully dressed out in green, while the stone fruit trees we pruned back earlier are now pushing soft white and pink blossoms. Pruning the trees felt severe for some of our team that hadn’t worked with stone fruit trees over winter, but Jeremy coached them on how necessary it was, and the trees responded with new life, reinforcing why it matters.
One of our quiet seasonal markers arrived right on schedule: the willow tree we planted in 2009 in remembrance of Jeremy’s grandma, Betty, burst into green leaves just after Grandpa Raff’s birthday on February 20th, as it seems to do every year. The wisteria vine isn’t far behind, and we’re now feeling anchored in the new season of spring.
The kids spent some time this week making pinecone bird feeders from Your Wild Books—coating pinecones foraged from the creek and the top of the hill with peanut butter and rolling them in birdseed before hanging them in the trees. It’s a simple project, but it’s been fun watching the birds discover them.
In the dungeon, where we begin new starts, the 2026 starts are looking strong—most are already three to four inches tall. We finally decided to roll the dice last week and planted yellow crookneck squash, yellow zucchini, and green zucchini in the ground. We’re hoping we’ve seen the last frost, but farming carries a lot of calculated risk.
Not everything this week was picture-perfect. The heavy rains brought a bout of allium rust into the garlic beds. We treated it with an organic copper-based biocide to help keep it under control and will keep watching it closely.
And if you’ve been anywhere near the garden lately, you may have noticed another funny development: the smell. We’ve been using fish fertilizer to replenish nutrients the soil needs alongside growing fava beans for restoring nitrogen to the soil in heavily depleted beds. It’s quite effective—but not subtle.
Between blossoming trees, growing starts, and a few lingering challenges, the farm is clearly shifting seasons already; and boy are we happy for the change in weather and the longer days. Spring is waking up.
2026-03-05 CSA Newsletter by d2dfarm