Farm Camp

So Reuben and I are trying our hand at farming. Even though I quit my job almost a month ago, I am still working ten hour days. However, this time I am loving it. I get tired and want to see my kids, I go inside the house and see my kids. Or sometimes, they come out and ride on the tractor with me. It is awesome! I come in at night dead tired, but I love this kind of work. Now we just have to figure out how make money at it. Here is the general plan: we farm the area in the Bogle compound immediately behind my folks house and on the opposite side of the barn. We start a farmer's market across the street from Snedigar on Saturday mornings, and grill corn and sell watermelon every night during baseball season. We will also try to get in with some of the independent restaurants in the area and grow produce for them. Reuben and I will do most of the work, along with other family members, but we are open to service projects from scouts and singles wards. Sounds awesome, right? Now here are some of the problems that we face to make it all happen. We do not own the land that we want to farm. The family does, but we do not. So far, no one has said anything, but I figure once we start plowing the other fields, they will start asking questions. Anyway, we need to acquire a portion of the land to make sure the family doesn't sell it to anyone else. The land costs way more than is really reasonable to farm, so if anyone wants to buy land and let me farm it, you got my number... The other thing is housing. That a different story altogether. I'll save that one. Anyway, right now we are picking peas and carrots (even some purple ones), broccoli, cauliflower, 2 different kinds of lettuce, radishes and more swiss chard than we know what to do with. If you have any recipes that use chard, send them my way. Reuben and I just planted our summer crop with basil, a couple of different dry beans, 3 kinds of tomatoes, 4 kinds of cucumbers, 3 kinds of watermelon, bell peppers, and 3 kinds of corn (2 ornamentals and one sweet corn). Also, our artichoke plants are looking pretty healthy and our purple cabbage is starting to head. We have plans to plant several varieties of pumpkin on the south end and having a U-pick pumpkin patch since that side is easily accessible from the park. We will plant those in early june to have some ripe by mid-october. We will have a couple regular orange varieties and a white one with 3 or 4 heirloom varieties of various colors. Right now, we really need to sit down and actually put a business plan together. We will have to schedule plantings and harvestings around markets and then take special orders and plan the layout of crops... at that point it gets to be a lot of the actual work and less of the play-in-the-dirt fun, but that is how you make the money. If anyone has anything special they would like us to grow, we'd be more than happy to do it. Just give me at least 4 - 5 months notice. This ain't fast food. Reuben and I seem to work well together, and even though neither one of us really knows exactly what we are doing, we sure get a lot of it done. We took an old trailer and got it fixed so we can use it. Reuben put up a gate to keep dogs and playful children out. Our current project involves a stainless steel sink and counter top that we put wheels on to make it portable. That way we can move it around and clean the produce right at the point of picking. We will just hook it up to a hose and have a drain hose that runs the water right back into the garden. That way none is wasted. We have several more projects in mind that will turn the garden into a more permanent farm, including a greenhouse and workshop, but they are all on hold until we figure out if we can buy the land or not. We have seen some pretty awesome land deals up by Snowflake that make a lot more sense to farm, but one of the reasons we want to do this is to preserve the history of the area where we grew up and to remind people who it was they made it possible for them to live in Arizona. No one here knows anything about the history of this area, because they are all from somewhere else. I remember as a young kid riding my bike through the Basha's complex to Dad's office to play games on his computer. He had this sign hanging on the wall that said "Don't knock farmers with your mouth full." I never understood it, thinking it meant to knock, like on a door. Anyway, now I understand. I guess this farming project is also a way for me to spit in the eye of all these jerks out here who think the old Goodyear water tower is just an eyesore. If you're not grateful for the farmers and ranchers who made this place what it is, at least recognize their contribution and respect the fact they they did something you were unable or unwilling to do. Okay, so all you english teachers out there, get off my back. I'm to tired to hit "Enter - Tab" to start a new paragraph. So, we are trying to find a name for our farm. My original idea was to do Bogle Family Farms or Bogle Bros. Farms, and try to ride a little bit of the Bogle Farms coattails, but I'm not sure Reuben is to keen on that idea. He suggested a name that his mom always wanted to use: Belly Acres. Funny, but not the best for a produce farm. Reuben then suggested Fleur de Lis Farms, but there is already a Fleur de Lis Farms in Gilbert. So, right now we are nameless and open to suggestions. In the meantime, I just call it farm camp, since it is kind of like summer camp for retarded 20-somethings who think they are farmers. Pictures coming soon, or just check the team Craghead blog.