In just one week the amount of rain on the farm this rainy season increased by over 50 percent.

The rain gauge on the farm is not the most accurate but it showed that the farm received 4.75 inches of rain Saturday night and Sunday morning.

Last Wednesday evening we got two inches of rain and another quarter inch on Friday afternoon while we were harvesting for the farmers market.

That brings the total rainfall up to 17 inches after being at 10 inches a week ago. Much less than what we got last year but we are right around the yearly average which is great.

Even with all the rain there are only a few spots on the farm where there was still standing water Monday morning. That is a good sign about the health of soil with how the water infiltrates into the soil much better than many conventional fields that have large sections flooded and taking much longer for the water to infiltrate.

Just after we sent the newsletter last week it was announced publicly that we are part of the Kitchen Table Advisors 2024 business advising cohort of farmers. KTA is a non-profit that works with farmers and ranchers in northern and central California to build economic viability of small farms and help them be sustainable.

It is a three-year commitment to work together on the business side of the farming helping us build the farm sustainably in all aspects. Getting the perspective of someone who isn’t in the business daily is very helpful and they are looking at everything with a slightly different lens than we are.

They have different advisors in each area and lucky for us we already knew the advisor for this area, Carine, who has a farm with her husband and they were mentored by our dad.

With the experts and network of people in aspects of the farming business side they have that would take us a long time to build up it allows us to be ready to take advantage of the opportunities that arise.

While there were a few showers during the sunny day Monday we were in the greenhouse doing another big round of seeding. We seeded broccoli, peppers and basil along with a few other crops.

The greenhouse is filling up pretty quickly and some of the first plants will be going into the ground when we are able to get into the field after it dries out from these rains.