Hey there, friends, we’re running a little tardy on putting together our annual panoramdemonium, but here we are! A panoramic year in review, our 2016 Panoramdemonium, assembled whilst sipping on the luke-warm dregs of winter. If you are interested in seeing the farm as it’s developed over these past few years, check out our previous panoramic plays: our first year, 2012, 2013, 2014, and the year without June, 2015.
A view of the orchard and hop yard from the beehives over the course of the year. Photos are taken on the solstice and equinox days.
And a view of our main vegetable beds from the north gate.
Of note: Our 5×6″ 16′ untreated hop trellis/deer fencing posts are in terminal decline, they are rotting away at the base and we’re running out of t-posts to help steady them. The forceful winds of late seem to only be expediting their downfall. Literally. Foremost on our spring to-do list is replace the trellising and fence posts with new posts from locally invasive cedar trees, which should last us a bit longer. Also, related, you’ll notice we had no climbing hops this year. Our poor hops fell prey to the lack of time last spring; with our spring frenzy of vegetable work, getting the hops trellised just didn’t happen. We need to establish a help for hops program (ie Are you a Spearfish-area home brewer who is willing to work in exchange for hops? please contact us. ehem… Marcus?).
We had two big construction projects last year: building a vegetable wash/pack shed and a greenhouse expansion. The wash/pack shed was built as an extension off of an existing outbuilding. Now we have a 16′ x 25′ covered, clean work area for washing and packaging produce with storage loft space above. This spring we will hook up sinks, build spray and sorting tables, and hang roll-up sides to keep the space pleasant even if the weather isn’t. 
The greenhouse addition was driven by a decision to change the layout of our greenhouse beds from long rows to keyhole style beds. This almost doubled our growing area, but as a consequence, we lost all of the isle space where we would lay out seed trays in the spring. A couple years ago, we replaced the roof glazing with larger glazing panels and solar panels. We used this old glazing to bump out the front end of our existing space, rather than build a separate space for our starts. We still have a fair amount of work to do to make this space fully functional.
In the greenhouse – last year we had a great spring harvest of radishes, lettuce, and other greens. These were followed by cucumbers, basil and an impenetrable wall of tomatoes. Although we started out pruning them well, it just took one missed week during peak growth and we ended up having to belly crawl between the rows for those Black Cherries and Lemon Drops. We’ll do a better job this year. We have to.
After five years we are feeling more and more at home here, we are learning the rhythms of the land and the valley, the soil and ecology. It has been fun to look at these photos over the years and see, broadly, some of these rhythms we get to participate with.
Seasons greetings, t and j
Cycle Farm 