Instagram story viewer> @holocenefarmaz> Posts

Holocene Farm | Olericulture | Food that tells a Story

@holocenefarmaz

308

followers

424

following

Zone 8B
Contact: [email protected]
-Find our produce on Sundays at Rillito Park @heirloomfm
Partners with @southwindsfarmaz

POSTS STORIES REELS

It’s the thought of days like today that I hold on to during the struggles of summer farming. Cool, cloudy, rainy bliss. I’m happy and so is Dooove the farm kitty and so are all the crucifers I’ve been planting. Here’s some of the winter items SouthWinds farm will be bringing to market starting in 2 weeks:

Sweet potatoes
Butternut squash
Savoyed leaf spinach
Sprouting broccoli
Curly kale
Madaley kale
Lacinato kale
Hakurei turnips
Classic red radishes
Carrots
Pepper jelly

It’s also a great time of year to come and get in some volunteer hours/farm therapy and then go home with free produce as a thank-you💚 by @holocenefarmaz

Just like that, summer is turning into fall. While many small farms in the United States are preparing for the end of their season and a long break, we are preparing to pivot from our tough growing season into an easier one. Farming in Southern Arizona is such a blessing in the way that there’s year-round growing opportunities, which feels like evermore chances to try again. Summer of ‘26 has bestowed upon us many lessons, as every season does. We’ve had some amazing crop successes such as with our chiles and peppers, but also some failed cash crops. This was our first warm season following a winter where we didn’t get a single hard freeze. That’s in the entire history of SouthWinds Farm- 13 years. Many bug populations and pathogens which are normally partially controlled by freezes absolutely thrived this year. Our pest and disease pressure was unprecedented. Our cucumbers suffered from a fungal disease called anthracnose, which signaled to the aphids and then cucumber beetles to finish them off. Our tomatoes suffered from Russet Mites- a pest that nobody had even heard of until we positively identified it. Have y’all noticed how many grasshoppers are around right now? It’s madness. They’re eating everything. Yet, at the farmers market, when my customers ask how things are going, I always follow up my complaints with a smile and a comment about how this is all just a part of it. Part of this lifestyle is smiling through the challenges, obstacles, setbacks, and all the good and the bad because none of it is going to last. It will change with the seasons just like everything else. It’s poetry in motion, and farmers are the poets. Despite the madness, and no matter how many foxtails give us rashes and ruin our clothes, we still understand deeply the underlying beauty of this life. I’m so grateful for the lessons that the land graciously teaches me constantly. I’m so grateful to be intimately connected to the food I grow and eat, and then to get to extend it to my community. Food is art and food always tells a story.

Thank you for the photos @pedrographer
Thank you for the support @heirloomfm

RIP Casey Piscura 2/2/25
RIP Wendell Berry 8/31/26 by @holocenefarmaz

Aluminum Dynamics Benson project is DEAD! They will not be polluting our air, our soil or our water. It’s hard to wrap my head around. @healthoverwealthbenson THANK YOU for everything you have done to make this happen!

Here is a video that my friend Ashlyn of Health over Wealth kindly took of me last summer to try to raise awareness. I am grateful to have been a thread in the tapestry that is the story of how Benson was saved by kind and powerful people who lead with love. (The ones who moved the needle the most were women, btw) This situation has showed me that love prevails. The good guys do win. Happy endings happen. Community sovereignty is power. Maintaining a healthy planet for future generations ascends politics. No sum of money can win in a fight against the power of true love.

I am overwhelmed with emotion and inspiration. Thank you to everyone who signed the petition, shared my posts, bought a T-shirt, etc. Thank you @heirloomfm for including info in their newletter to raise awareness. Thank you @thelocalcoopaz for inviting me to sell my produce at one of your Benson mobile markets so I could talk to local people about the issue and hand out stickers. Thank you to my man and my mom and my best friends and my boss at SouthWinds for being such a solid support system when I got valley fever in the beginning of all this mess and felt like the world was ending.

I’m so grateful to be alive and to have gotten to feel all these feelings and gotten to have this experience. I am forevermore changed for the better. I am excited for Benson’s next chapter. by @holocenefarmaz

I blinked and now we are harvesting up to 100 pounds of Suyo Long cucumbers per day at SouthWinds Farm. I won’t have much to sell at the farmers market tomorrow, but I will have 80 pounds to sell of these sweet crunchy summer treats. We love this variety for many reasons but one of the biggest is because the skin is so thin you won’t even think about peeling it. The peel is a rich, low-calorie source of dietary fiber, bone-strengthening vitamin K, and antioxidants like beta-carotene, which collectively support digestion, promote collagen production, and protect against cellular damage. by @holocenefarmaz

The future of farming in America will be much more female. Support women in agriculture. by @holocenefarmaz

@healthoverwealthbenson by @holocenefarmaz

The tomatoes are all in at SouthWinds Farm! This will be the second crop ever grown in the newest hightunnel that was constructed last spring. Joe bought some extra steel to add additional reinforcement to the structure, and now this tunnel is anchored down REALLY well. This is going to benefit the farm for many years far into the future.

Photo 1- The finished and fully built out tunnel! Ready to plant. A sight to behold.
Photo 2- Freshly poured concrete, one of the last steps of applying the steel reinforcements. The cover crop here had been terminated with silage tarps but not worked in to the soil yet. Also, look at that moon!
Photos 3, 4, 5- Empty hightunnel, to T-posts in, to trellises built! Thank you for the amazing photos as always @josef33998 you are the best farmtographer!
Photo 6- Pulling the new cover tight
Photo 7- A beautiful Sonoran Gopher snake hanging out with us
Photo 8- Still trying to get the slack out of that cover! Again @josef33998 with the photography skills ✌️
Photo 9- Cover is secured and rolled up on the sides, and now time to apply shade cloth. This also got tightly secured.
Photo 10- Freshly planted tomatoes! This is going to be an incredible crop. I actually feel it in my bones. Along with the Veronas and Midnight Romas, SWF is also trying a new hybrid slicer this year that claims to remain productive in excessive high heat (we’ll see about that 😉)
Photo 11- A great horned owl feather that was found right beside the hightunnel the day we planted the tomatoes. They love to sit on top of the tunnel and watch for food. I love this very much.

Soon we will have these delicious fruits at the market. Now that we have this nice fancy new cover, we are planning to close it up in early fall to protect the tomatoes from the first handful of freezes and extend the harvesting season for a couple months.

Thanks for supporting us! We have been working so hard in our pursuit to bring high quality food to the table- literally and figuratively. by @holocenefarmaz

💚💕Nadi appreciation post!💕💚

Nadi has been working the markets with me for about the last 3 months while Briana has taken her maternity leave. Briana referred her for the job as they are long time best friends, and as soon as Nadi was hired she immediately became mine too! Seeing her big smile and amazing outfits every Sunday morning when she arrives to the market has been the best start to my days. She always uplifts me no matter how I am feeling. Nadi is wise, caring, thoughtful, intentional, and one of the most genuinely kind hearted people you will ever meet. I thought I just needed a new employee, but what I got was a sister. I am so grateful for her and Briana and our sisterhood! With that being said, this Sunday will be Nadi’s last market and Briana will be returning to the markets as a new mother. 💚 I don’t know what the future holds, but I hope Nadi will be returning to the markets again sometime in the future! If you see her this Sunday, remember to tell her how amazing she is. 🥰

@kundalini.in Te aprecio, mi hermosa amiga. 🌸❤️

1. What is your favorite winter season crop? My favorite winter veggie is the carrots. 🥕 They are so delicious and crunchy!
2. What is your favorite summer season crop? During the summer season, my all time favorite is the tomatoes!🍅
3. What is your favorite recipe you’ve made at home using our produce? The Verona tomatoes are amazing in a tomato soup recipe! 🤗
4. What is your favorite thing about the Rillito Farmers market? My favorite thing about the Farmers Market is that I get to connect with wonderful people, and that it inspires me to nourish my body, mind and soul in many positive ways! 🙏🏼
5. Who is your favorite vendor at the market besides us? Adventure Coffee Roasting! Love me a good coffee ☕️
6. Why is supporting sustainable agriculture important to you? The importance of supporting sustainable agriculture with its quality produce is very high, as I like to consume organic vegetables and fruits that keep me energized and healthy in all areas of life. 💪
7. If you could yourself be a vegetable, which one would you be? If I could be a vegetable, I would be a happy carrot! 🥕 Bright and colorful! by @holocenefarmaz

SouthWinds farm recently said goodbye to an amazing farm intern. One of the best things about this small scale farming lifestyle is getting to meet some of the best people ever as they pass through on their journey. Thanks for all the long days and camaraderie, Becca, you are such an inspiring and smart and hard working person and we already miss you so much!

It’s gotten to that time of year, it’s officially getting hot. Time to start watching for rattlesnakes again! On the days it’s not hot, it’s SUPER windy! The wind here kicks up a lot of dust. Nose and eye protection were the only thing keeping me sane for a couple days. One of these days is exhibited in my third post that shows a patch of invasive Johnson Grass that’s been invading our asparagus field for a few years now. While I was working to dig up the roots, I liked how the grass danced in the super intense wind. It took my mind a little bit off of how the wind was trying to blow off all the row covers in the entire farm which we spent all day periodically re-adjusting. Only 1 or 2 ripped all day. Trust me, that’s impressive. Now there’s been mostly 90 degree days this week inviting many of the cold loving cruciferous vegetables to bolt and grow flowers, making them inedible. Bye bye until next year, Purple Broccoli! We still have lots of heat tolerant beets, kales, carrots, herbs and much more that will continue to produce a while longer. By the time those go, we will be harvesting summer crops! On Friday I planted 700 cucumber seeds. The tomato and pepper seedlings are looking good and gaining strength after a cold beginning to their life that caused some spooky slow germination. Time to flip some beds, and before we know it we’ll be terminating the cover crop in the hightunnels and constructing tomato and cucumber trellises. The heat sucks in the summer, but it’s still my favorite growing season! I can’t help it! by @holocenefarmaz

Thank you @heirloomfm for using our SWF “Burgundy” purple sprouting broccoli for a delicious salad featured in “Taste of the Market”! This variety tastes amazing fresh. Stop by and grab some at the Rillito market on Sundays before it’s out of season! We are also opening our CSA sales starting today for the summer season that begins on July 14th. Thank you! by @holocenefarmaz

We will have this buttery without butter, super nutrient dense, tender and beautiful green heading broccoli and purple sprouting broccoli grown by Southwinds Farm at the markets for a little while! This is one crop that is absolutely incomparable to what you will find at the grocery store. I had a handful of people tell me at this last market that our broccoli was the best they’ve ever had. I live for comments like these! Also it’s not pictured but we have green sprouting broccoli and Spigariello Italian leaf broccoli as well. Don’t miss out! They will all be available at the Rillito Markets every Sunday until the hot weather causes them to bolt. Thank you to everyone who supports us and shares our vision. Healthy food=Healthy soil=Healthy humans! ♻️ Thanks also to my bestie and market helper Nadi @kundalini.in you are the best photographer! 💕💗🌸 by @holocenefarmaz

Using silage tarps and cover crops together at Southwinds Farm to fix nitrogen, sequester carbon, retain soil moisture and texture, increase microbiology, encourage worms to come to the surface to eat the organic matter, decrease soil degradation, regulate soil temperature, and control weeds. This was the first full experiment I did with it as I try to figure out how to make a crop plan that incorporates this cover cropping system. Not everything went perfectly, and it took 4 months to complete from the first clearing of the beds to the beds being ready to plant. We are seeing some improvements from it, including some reduced weed pressure. I’m excited to keep experimenting, observing, and improving. Your farms soil is only as good as you’re willing to put the work in to make it. Soil is the soul of the grower! by @holocenefarmaz