  It Takes a Village! Some great and exciting things are happening on the farm! The new roof to one of our greenhouses is up, which is no small feat in Nebraska wind. Our entire crew assisted in getting a 42’x100′ piece of weaved plastic secured and of course, Nebraska weather always likes to make things a little more challenging. In addition to the greenhouse, new construction on a tractor/equipment barn is under way! This will allow us to have more covered space for vehicles, and even plants ready to be transplanted to be stored safely when bad weather arises. This will also us to make future improvements on the packing and washing area of the farm! Ryan is very excited about the new construction. On The Farm We have been seeding fall crops in our climate-controlled greenhouse this week. We will plant these in a few weeks for harvest in October. Weed control becomes very important in the dog days of summer – it’s like a lot of other things in life, if you keep up with it, it’s pretty manageable, but if you get behind- woah nelly, it can get a little crazy. Luckily the crew has done a great job with weeds this year and they will be enjoying a fair amount of hoeing in the coming weeks! Tomatoes and raspberries are coming along, and we have a few but not quite enough yet to put into everybody’s CSA.  Don’t be afraid of turnips! I want to encourage you all to try them, even if you have bad memories of them from your childhood. Ryan has the best turnips! They are creamy and sweet. In our house, we eat them raw – we don’t peel them, but some people prefer to peel them. They are also delicious in stir fry, roasted and on salads. |
Farm Update 6/21/2022
 On the Farm- Some Bad News & Some Good News Unfortunately, we at Pekarek’s have some bad news; strawberry season is officially over. We know that strawberries are something that a lot of you look forward to as do we. The crop this year, however, just did not want to produce. After flowering, which was a sea of white, the strawberry plants just went kaput. We were hoping for a few thousand quarts this year and we were lucky to get over 150 quarts. While that may be some bad news, we also have good news! The rest of the farm is chugging right along, our sweet corn is tasseling (which means corn is coming!) and our friends Juan, Eduardo and Julio are up from Mexico, and we are so excited to have them! Raspberry season is just getting started and is a generally longer season! We are now seeing both shelling and snap peas come in, with green beans not far behind. We also have started the broccoli harvest for the year. – we do several plantings of this, so we’ll have broccoli for most of the time between now and October. Week 5: Vegetable Subscription Broccoli Radish Popcorn Kohlrabi Cucumber  Other crops are coming along nicely – potatoes are looking good. I’m hoping we get the first ones of the year dug around mid-July. Little baby cantaloupe and watermelon are appearing on their vines. These are some of Ryan’s favorite crops. The sweet potatoes we transplanted a few weeks ago look nice and should be on track for an early fall harvest. Add Produce to Your Weekly Subscription   Rain versus Irrigation On Thursday last week, we got a little over 2.5 inches of rain at the farm, in about 10 hours). To say it was a little muddy is an understatement. Still, things needed to be harvested and we got it done. This heat has been really nice in drying things out quickly. If we do not have rain here soon whilst temperatures stay high, we will have to get into irrigating our crops. While it’s a little nice to not have mud everywhere, irrigation is hard on the crew. Everything on the farm is drip irrigated, meaning we have black, blue, and red hoses going everywhere around the farm. We have irrigation running to all of our many crops and they get hours and hours of irrigation. It’s an efficient system for the plants and promotes less disease, but it also means we have alarms set for all times of the day to go move irrigation water from one crop to the other!  Online Ordering – Additions to your Weekly Subscription If you would like to add produce to your weekly vegetable subscription tomorrow, you can go online to pekareksproduce.com/shop and place your order by 10am tomorrow. We will add it to your regular bag for tomorrow. Have Questions? We can’t wait to see you! If you have questions, please text or call Katie at (402) 560-3110 or Ryan at (402) 641-3305 or Michael McCray at (303) 912- 0095 Your Farmers, Ryan, Katie, Jacob, Margret, Michael, Lukas, Grace, and Crew Forward to a Friend |
Winter farm life!
| What does farm life look like during the winter? While we don’t spend much time working in the fields outside, we sure know how to keep busy! Throughout the winter, we pack and deliver orders of produce that we have stored up from the fall, as well as a few things that we are able to grow in the greenhouses. Squash, carrots, potatoes, and cabbage are classics that we like to grow lots of in the fall to be able to store and sell throughout the winter! Our greenhouses stay warm enough for us to grow crops like kale, spinach, and radishes over the winter (but they still need to be tucked in at night with our row covers). |
| Watermelon Radishes with a wide variety of color! |
| Since we don’t do much work in the field over the winter, our equipment gets some well-earned pampering! From cleaning and oil changes, to visits to the mechanic, this is the perfect time to make sure the machinery is running smoothly for when we need it in the spring and summer.However, even now, in the cold of winter, we’re looking forward to the coming growing season. Be sure to look out for information about the upcoming signup for our CSA subscription program, as well as more farm news! |
| Left: Peaches (our dog) loves to do chores with us. Middle: Franklin working on the generator – a much needed tool in the winter. Right: A single leaf of lettuce. Lettuce and spinach do wonderfully in the high tunnels during winter, as long as the temperature outside is around 30. |
Upcoming Events
| Weekly Vegetable Subscription sign up: Keep an eye out for the sign up for our Weekly Vegetable Subscription program (CSA). The sign ups will begin in a few weeks, with the program beginning in May. We are also looking for new sites for CSA drop off, if you’re interested in being a CSA site host check out the Info Packet and registration process at OUR WEBSITE. We’d love to hear from you! Spring Plant Sale: Come get your garden goodies at Pekarek’s Produce. Select from a wide variety of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, cabbage, kohlrabi, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, rosemary, dill, cilantro, catnip, oregano, parsley, sage, mint, chives, basil, lavender and more!May 2, 1 – 6pm May 3, 10 – 2 pm May 9, 1 – 6pm May 10, 10 – 2pm |
May Newsletter
11 Days Left – Sign Up for the Weekly Vegetable Subscription Soon!
| I am thrilled to say that the 2024 Pekarek’s Produce Weekly Vegetable Subscription starts in just a week and a half! Be sure to sign up by May 21st to get your first dose of fresh veggies. We’ve got four pick up site locations and we’ve got lots of goodies growing. |
How to Sign Up: Weekly Vegetable Subscription
| Pekarek’s Produce Weekly Vegetable Subscription involves you pre-paying for a SHARE of produce. We will pack the share in the morning and then each Wednesday, May 22 through September 18, you will pick up your vegetables at your selected location. We throw in a few extra dollars worth of extra produce over the regular retail price, so you get a fantastic value on great quality. Will this be enough? This SHARE has been the most popular size of weekly vegetable subscription for several years. For most households, it works well for 2 – 3 people. However, if you are big fruit and veggies eaters, we recommend getting two SHARES. Or, you can order extra veggies each week online – Each Tuesday, you will get an email telling you what is in the week’s vegetable bag and then you have until Wednesday morning to go online and order anything else you might like! Cost of 18 Week Membership $270 What is in the Vegetable Subscription each week? We are off to a great weather start in 2024 and expect that we will have more 30 different vegetables in the Pekarek’s Produce Vegetable Subscription. This includes tomatoes, watermelon, broccoli, butternut squash, cabbage, cantaloupe, carrots, cauliflower, peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, red & golden beets, green beans, green onions, jalapeños, kohlrabi, onions, potatoes, radishes, salad mix, snow & sugar snap peas, spaghetti squash, spinach, sweet corn, sweet potatoes, cherry & roma tomatoes, turnips, cantaloupe, yellow squash, and zucchini! Below are some examples of what one full share may contain. Contents of the boxes will vary week to week. Be sure to check out the pictures below! Pick Up Locations We have four sites this year: Capital City Fitness in Lincoln (70th and A), The Hub in Lincoln (21st and Antelope), Beauty View Farms at Wahoo (highway 92), Merle’s Garden Center in Seward, and the Farm (highway 15 between Seward and David City). Full details about this year‘s weekly vegetable subscription are on the pekareksproduce.com website. |
Turning Vegetables into….Pork!
 Well, the piggies that we were supposed to get were delayed and then delayed again, and again, and again – and then cancelled. So on to plan B. It turns out that we are so thankful this happened! Let me tell you why…The slogan for pork when I was growing up was “Pork! The other white meat.” But that is really not what we are going for here and it doesn’t make for the best flavor. So when our first set of pigs for this year fell through, we finally found a breeder that will work to get us the breeds we want so that the meat has marbling, tenderness, and flavor. Consider reserving yours by putting $50 down on a half or $100 on a whole. |
Upcoming Events
| Spring Farm Store: Each Friday, from 2-5pm, the farm store is open and staffed. You can stop by and pick up veggies on the spot, or order online at pekareksproduce.com.Spring Plant Sale: The official plant sale is over, but there are more opportunities for you to get plants. We’d love to see you at the farm store, or go get your veggies from the Dwight Auxiliary Legion today (at the Dwight Legion) and support their fundraiser! Summer Farm Tour: More information to come. |
March Newsletter 2024
Pop Up Market this Wednesday!
Pop Up Market this Wednesday, March 6!
| There are two pop up markets left in 2024 before we start regular store hours. Come join us this week on the farm at 2447 O Road (12 miles north of Seward or 12 miles south of David City on Highway 15). Wednesday, March 6, from 2-5pm. Wednesday, April 3, from 2-5pm. Store hours begin mid-April or May. |
Caning Raspberries and Tilling High Tunnels
| Well I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure all the plants in Nebraska are confused by the recent swings in temperatures. In our more youthful days, Ryan and I would have been planting the high tunnels in February…. but then the 10 degree F temperatures from this week would have killed anything we had growing, even in a high tunnel. So this February, instead of planting during these few warmer days, we spent time prepping for the true spring. Spring is the time of year when we get excited for things to grow and also a little bit like the calm before the storm. We have time to act on our winter plans and prepare for the marathon that is to come. We’ve been caning (cutting out dead branches) in the raspberries, building hay racks, and tilling greenhouses. |
Pekarek’s Produce
Weekly Vegetable Subscription
We are also gearing up for the Weekly Vegetable Subscription. We are working with our site hosts from last year to get everything scheduled and set up.
We would like to add one or two more pick up sites this year. If you really enjoy your community, and like the local foods, consider signing up to be a Volunteer Site Host. A host can be residential, commercial, community or other site. Learn more here. OR, if you have an idea for a new site host and pick up location, let us know!
May 22 – September 20, 2024
This year‘s weekly vegetable subscription will run Wednesday, May 22 through September 20. It’s an 18 week season once again. Full details about this year‘s weekly vegetable subscription are on the pekareksproduce.com web site.
Turning Veggies into Hogs!
We will once again be raising hogs in 2024 at Pekarek’s Produce. This will be the fourth year that Ryan and Margret have raised hogs.
| How much meat is it? In a whole hog, we will generally expect hogs to weigh around 300 Lbs and have 160 pounds of useable meat. This translates into approximately 60 pounds of Chops, Ribs, and Steaks, 30 pounds of Ham, 25 pounds sausage, 20 pounds bacon, and 20 pounds of oddiments (lard, liver, hocks, etc). How does it work? If you are interested in getting a pig, you make a deposit ($100 for a whole and $50 for a half). Pekarek’s Produce will take your hog to the Rolling T’s Custom Kitchen for processing in late July or August – or the Brainard Meat locker in early August. You will talk directly to the meat locker at this time and tell them exactly what cuts of pork you want and how big or small you want them… don’t worry, they can walk you through it. I like a lot of roasts and smoked meats… so the smoking increases my cost a little, but its totally worth it when you eat it! Then you pick up your meat directly from the meat locker when it’s butchered and packaged. You will make a final payment to Pekarek’s Produce and one to the meat locker. In total, the hogs usually cost from $3.00 to $3.60/pound, depending on how you choose to package and have your meat cut.Final cost of a whole hog will be around $300, including your deposit (payable on delivery). We don’t have a set price ahead of time `because we will have some variation in how much each pig weighs. We charge you for the cost of raising the hog (purchasing piglets, food, etc) plus a small profit. Payment for the butchering will be paid directly to the meat locker at pick up. |
Upcoming Events on the Farm
Pop Up Markets:
Wednesday, March 6, from 2 – 5 p.m.
Wednesday, April 3, from 2-5pm.
Store hours will begin mid-April or May.
Spring Plant Sale: Select from a several varieties of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, cabbage, kohlrabi, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, rosemary, dill, cilantro, catnip, oregano, parsley, sage, mint, chives, basil, lavender and more! Save the Date: May 3, 4, 5.
Summer Farm Tour: More information to come.
Spring Newsletter 2024
Is it Spring yet?
| Hi folks. It’s officially February and the farming has begun… Well kind of. Most of our farming in the winter looks like selecting seed, being told seed is on back order or out of stock, scrambling to find different seed, and spending time prepping for spring. In January we spent a lot of time dealing with snow. When we’re lucky, that means using a tractor and a loader to scoop. But when it comes to greenhouses, it looks more like Ryan with a broom above his head. |
Ryan Cleaning Snow of the High Tunnels
| In the month of February, we’re kind of an “in-between” time, where a few crops are growing and we are trying to finish selling all of the crops that we have in storage. Right now we have red potatoes, yellow potatoes, purple potatoes, yellow onions, red and purple daikon radishes, orange carrots, winter squash (butternut, buttercup, acorn, delicata, and sunshine) and SPINACH! We had lettuce growing in the greenhouses until the cold snap in January when mother nature said “NO!” We do have a great batch of spinach that has happily come through the cold temperatures and is waking up with these 40’s and 50’s this week. |
Pekarek’s Produce
Weekly Vegetable Subscription
We are also gearing up for the Weekly Vegetable Subscription. We are working with our site hosts from last year to get everything scheduled and set up.
We would like to add one or two more pick up sites this year. If you really enjoy your community, and like the local foods, consider signing up to be a Volunteer Site Host. A host can be residential, commercial, community or other site. Learn more here. OR, if you have an idea for a new site host and pick up location, let us know!
May 22 – September 20, 2024
This year‘s weekly vegetable subscription will run Wednesday, May 22 through September 20. It’s an 18 week season once again. Full details about this year‘s weekly vegetable subscription are on the pekareksproduce.com web site.
Veggie’s Available at Pop Up Market
Wednesday, February 7
2-5 pm
spinach
red potatoes
yellow potatoes
purple potatoes
yellow onions
red and purple daikon radishes
orange carrots
butternut squash
buttercup squash
acorn squash
delicata squash
sunshine squash
Happy Memorial Day
Weekly Vegetable Subscription Newsletter
Week 2 – May 31, 2023
Memorial day festivities in Dwight, Nebraska
Happy Memorial Day from Pekarek’s Produce!
It’s been a fun week and Memorial day is one of the very few holidays that we actually take off around here. Ryan and Margret play trumpet for the services, the boys serve for the cemetery services, and we all follow along.
What’s in this week’s bag?
Spinach
Cucumbers
Radishes
Salad Mix
| Add vegetables to your bag each week by visiting pekareksproduce.com/shop and purchase what you want to add to your weekly vegetable subscription before 5:30 am each Wednesday, and we will add the produce to your bag for that day. |
| On The Farm |
High Tunnels and Greenhouse Work
| This week’s peek on the farm – It’s dry! I asked Ryan to help me write this week’s newsletter, and it sounded a bit like a poem… It’s dry. We planted pumpkins. I hate ground squirrels. It’s dry. The peas are blooming. The pumpkins aren’t up yet. It’s dry. The ground squirrels are eating everything. It’s dry. It was all said in good fun, but really, I believe “DRY” and irrigation is going to be a theme at the farm this summer. Check out the facebook reel below to see how we set up drip irrigation in strawberries last week. |
Pruning Raspberries
Raspberries are still growing strong, even in the drought! We took the time this week to shape them up so that they can continue growing and bear fruit all summer. It’s almost raspberry season, and we can’t wait.
| There’s so much to plant on the farm this time of year. Photo on the left: Planting pumpkins on our home-made rig. Center photo: Rhubarb is growing in the field. Photo on the right: Ryan’s view from the tractor watching Jacob cultivating. |
CHECK US OUT IN
Shorts, Reels, and more
This week’s We’ve been trying to share different aspects of the farm this year in a new way for us – short videos…. or as the youtubers might call it: “shorts.” So be sure to check us out on YouTube, Facebook Reels, Instagram, or TikTok.
Check out this one on irrigating strawberries It’s a back saver.
The Start of the Weekly Vegetable Subscription
Weekly Vegetable Subscription Newsletter
Week 1 – May 24, 2023
| The weekly vegetable subscription starts this Wednesday. Be sure to pick up your vegetables! |
What’s in this week’s bag?
Asparagus
Cucumbers
Lehigh Potatoes
Salad Mix
| Did you know you can add vegetables to your bag each week? Simply go to pekareksproduce.com/shop and purchase what you want to add to your weekly vegetable subscription before 5:30 am each Wednesday, and we will add the produce to your bag for that day. |
| On The Farm |
High Tunnels and Greenhouse Work
| Each week we will try to give you a brief sneak peek of what’s going on around the farm. Most of our efforts these days are going to planting and fighting drought with drip irrigation! Check out some of our recent work in photos below. |
| There’s so much to plant on the farm this time of year. Photo on the left: Katie and Rebecca transplanting lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, and more. Center photo: The view from Ryan’s seat while seeding carrots, beets, and radish. Photo on the right: Grace, Jacob, Amy, and Ryan transplanting flowers. |
CHECK US OUT IN
Shorts, Reels, and more
We’ve been trying to share different aspects of the farm this year in a new way for us – short videos…. or as the youtubers might call it: “shorts.” So be sure to check us out on YouTube, Facebook Reels, Instagram, or TikTok.
Weekly Vegetable Subscription- June 14th, 2022, Update
 Hey Folks! Hope you all are staying cool in this extra warm weather! Some of the workers find it necessary to go into the walk-in cooler on days like this week to cool off!  Week 4: Vegetable Subscription Radish Kale Cucumber Salad Mix Kohlrabi Warm weather Hopefully this June “Strawberry Moon” will turn the tide for our strawberry plants. The winter led to big losses for this year’s strawberry crop. Combined with the wonky spring we had, warm weather on the farm can put an early end to certain crops like strawberries. It also means that the start time on the farm changes from 8 o’clock to 7 AM. This will likely continue through this week and into next, with some days STARTING at 6 AM. Warm weather like this is typically good news for most crops on the farm, it also means irrigating our vegetables takes more time. On the Farm Strawberry season will be short this year – the inconsistent weather in months previous combined with this heat is hard on the blossoms (which turn into strawberries). While we have some produce available online; strawberries, at least for this week, will be available for purchase at the local farmer’s markets (Hub & Haymarket). Soon, we will have snow peas and sugar snap peas, followed by shelling peas in another week or two. Yellow squash and zucchini are coming along nicely and should be producing here in the next week or so. Raspberries are slow this year. We hope to be picking them before June is over. They also had a tough winter and some loss. But, unlike the strawberries which have a short season, raspberries start producing in June and last for a couple of months. They have a long life in the field, but because of the fresh eating variety we grow, they are only meant to be stored a few days. That means, just like the strawberries, they are picked and in your hands in a matter of a day or two. Come Check Out The Store!  The potatoes are growing nicely and will be available in July. Sweet corn season is a bit late for us this year…probably not until the second week of July. Popcorn, despite last year having some ground squirrel problems, it seems nearly every seed came up. Kohlrabi I tend to forget that not everyone is familiar with Kohlrabi. Kohlrabi is that little green alien looking ball in your vegetable bag. In our house we eat this raw often. You peel the outer green layer and then slice it into thin strips. Then you eat it like a carrot. Margret loves kohlrabi with cream cheese and some of our workers prefer it with some ranch. It’s also great in stir fry, soups, and baked like to chip in the oven. Try incorporating kohlrabi into an Asian Cuisine and its sure to be a hit.  Housekeeping We hope you are enjoying your weekly vegetable bag. If you know you are going to be gone, send us a text and we will get your produce donated immediately. If you don’t pick up your produce bag, we will take it back to the farm and hold it for 1 to 2 days. If it’s not picked up at that time, we will donate it – we really want you to enjoy your produce, so we will work with you as much as possible! Online Ordering – Additions to your Weekly Subscription If you would like to add produce to your weekly vegetable subscription tomorrow, you can go online to pekareksproduce.com/shop and place your order by 9am tomorrow. We will add it to your regular bag for tomorrow. Have Questions? We can’t wait to see you! If you have questions, please text or call Katie at (402) 560-3110 Ryan at (402) 641-3305 or Michael McCray at (303) 912-0095 Your Farmers, (Written by Michael McCray) on behalf of Ryan, Katie, Jacob, Margret, Michael, Lukas, Grace, and Crew Forward to a Friend |
Early April Update
Hello Friends!
It’s starting to feel like spring around here! Ryan set up the delivery date in late April for more strawberries and asparagus plants. Six thousand strawberry plants will go in the field around May 1. They won’t produce strawberries until 2023 and 2024. The strawberries you eat from us in 2022 (hopefully!) were planted in 2020. Our matted row strawberries are a three-year crop with harvests of berries in the second and third years.
The 3000 asparagus roots will go in the field in late April. They won’t be ready for a full harvest until 2024 or 2025! Sometimes farming is a long-term proposition. For contrast, radishes planted outside at the same time would be ready to eat in 35 days.
Field Work
| We had some nice cold days last week that Ryan thought would be perfect to spend the day outside! Ryan was out on the tractor prepping beds for spring planting. |
| This land was in vegetables and soybeans last fall. Back in October it was disked, bedded, and seeded with a cover crop of rye and oats and harrowed. The disk stirs up the soil and cuts old plant residue. The bedder creates a big fluffy row that is easy to plant in. The harrow gets the rye and oats seed covered with a small amount of soil. Next, we wait all winter while the rye grows; the oats grew and died last fall. Next a pass with the big 6 ft rototiller on the tractor. Next a pass with the bedder to form a rough bed and install 2 or 3 lines of drip tape to irrigate the crop. |
| FINALLY, a last pass with the bedder to refine and smooth the bed. If all goes right, we have a flat smooth surface with three marks on it to plant seeds or set plants. The moral of the story — it took 7 passes with a tractor to get a bed ready for planting. Oh, and, it was so windy on the day of final bed shaping that coffee was literally blown out of Ryan’s mouth while he was trying to get a drink to warm up! |
Weekly Vegetable Subscription
| Did you know that in a typical year, there are more 30 different vegetables in the Pekarek’s Produce Vegetable Subscription? This includes tomatoes, watermelon, broccoli, butternut squash, cabbage, cantaloupe, carrots, cauliflower, peppers, cucumbers, eggplant, red & golden beets, green beans, green onions, jalapeños, kohlrabi, onions, potatoes, radishes, salad mix, snow & sugar snap peas, spaghetti squash, spinach, sweet corn, sweet potatoes, cherry & roma tomatoes, turnips, cantaloupe, yellow squash, and zucchini! Be sure to check out the weekly vegetable subscription at pekareksproduce.com/csa and share with your friends. Sign up by May 17. |
Have Questions?
We can’t wait to see you! If you have questions, please text or call Katie at (402) 560-3110 or Ryan at (402) 641-3305.
Your Farmers,
Ryan, Katie, Jacob, Margret, Michael, Lukas, and Grace