Planning Your Annual Cut Flower Garden

February 11, 2015 hilary dahl

Getting excited about growing a colorful cutting garden is pretty easy this time of year. Seed catalogues spark our imaginations with romantic descriptions and colorful images of summer. Growing a cutting garden can be easy, is bound to be beautiful and can provide a very important resource for your vegetable garden. Flowers attract pollinating and other beneficial insects to the garden, so by planting an array of flowers in the yard you are contributing to the biological diversity of your neighborhood.

Favorite Tomato Varieties of 2014

February 10, 2015 hilary dahl

Clockwise from top: Green Zebra, Sungold, Stupice, Black Cherry, and Prudens Purple (center) All photos by: Hilary Dahl — Clockwise from top: Green Zebra, Sungold, Stupice, Black Cherry, and Prudens Purple (center)
All photos by: Hilary Dahl

In some climates, tomatoes are endlessly bountiful. Here in the Pacific Northwest, where even in mid-summer temperatures remain moderate, tomatoes can be the most unpredictable and uncertain of crops. Professional growers in our area nearly always grow tomatoes under cover (meaning in a greenhouse or field tunnel), but this isn’t always a feasible option for the small-scale grower or home gardener. Regardless of your tomato management techniques, if you want a prolific and tasty harvest, it helps to start with the right varieties.

New Propagation Station

February 6, 2015 hilary dahl

Propagation of spring transplants starts early in the year. As our garden maintenance program continues to grow, so does the volume of transplants we need to produce. We propagate 95% of our annual crop transplants each year, totaling well over 100,000 plants each year!

A Sneak Peak Into the Mind of A SUFCo Farmer

December 16, 2014 hilary dahl

Barnraiser wanted to know more a little more about us so they caught up with a few of our famers and asked them the following questions! You'll laugh, you'll cry or at least you'll see that farming is never far from our minds!

Starting Onions + Leeks from Seed

December 11, 2014 hilary dahl

Onions and leeks are always the first transplants we seed each year at Seattle Urban Farm Co. (SUFCo). Bulbing onions and leeks have a long growing season, so getting them started early allows for them to grow to maturity in the optimal growing conditions of summer. They also cure better and store longer when harvested during dry weather conditions. Many people devote a large part of their gardens to alliums because they so store well and are very easy to use, so another advantage to a summer harvest is that it can also create room for fall crops!

The Importance Of Appropriate Wash and Pack Infrastructure

December 8, 2014 hilary dahl

Small-scale organic produce farmers carry a lot of responsibility on their shoulders. We spend most of our time and energy just growing the food- analyzing the soil and amending it with minerals and organic compost, planting seeds, tending the greenhouse, setting out transplants, irrigating, weeding, scouting for pests...the tasks sometimes seem endless. But the job doesn’t end with harvesting- we need to make sure that the produce is washed and packed appropriately to ensure the highest food safety standards at met for the consumer.

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