Happy VD! This is a special Valentines Day issue of the Fresh Earth Farms Newsletter! First, here are some special Valentines Day announcements.
We are still taking orders for 2026! Sign-up now and tell all your friends!
Still wondering if anyone is interested in Nuts and Legumes. As I mentioned in previous newsletters we are thinking about offering a NutShare and a LegumeShare (formerly known as BeanShare but since it would also have lentils and dry peas I thought LegumeShare was more appropriate). We have had some interest but so far not enough to offer the option. To review, there would be two NutShares — one that is unsalted used as ingredients in cooking, and another that may have salt or chocolate or whatever to be a healthy snack option. The LegumeShare is all organic. The nuts in NutShare may or may not be organic — we don’t have a lot of choice. Let me know if you are interested! I’d love to offer another local alternative to Big Grocery.
Dow News
The Dow is over 50,000. NASDAQ is smashing records. American retirement accounts are booming. That’s what we should be talking about. But instead here is…
Farm News
One aspect of farming that I suspect many want-to-be farmers don’t consider before becoming a farmer is that growing plants is just one small component of farming. It seems to me the bigger component is fixing things. So if you aren’t good at fixing things or don’t like fixing things I cannot recommend farming. And the things you fix run the whole gamut of repairable items. Being a tractor mechanic is essential. Farming is hard on tractors and equipment. Plumbing is important. Can’t grow and wash plants without having water to do so. Electrical knowledge and skills helps tremendously. It seems like we are always adding or repairing some electrical device. Fencing? Didn’t think so unless you were a rancher but deer have no boundaries so you have to create boundaries for them. And most recently HVAC — which seems to encompass a lot of these skills including mechanical, electrical and plumbing.
So this past week I took off my tax accounting khakis and put on my HVAC coveralls and went to work on the greenhouse heater.
We bought the greenhouse structure in 2005 if I recall correctly. So getting 20 years out of the original heater is pretty solid I guess. Over the years we had to replace a few of the parts like the controller and the gas control valve but for the most part it worked reasonably well. Then this fall the burner started acting funny. Flames were coming out of holes in the burner where there weren’t holes when we bought the heater. And since these were new holes where there shouldn’t be holes the burner didn’t always light correctly — some of the burner’s burners didn’t light at all. I also noticed at times the gas lit where the air mixes with the fuel — I suspect that isn’t a good place to have flames.
I was hoping to only have to replace the burner in the old heater but two things stopped me. One: burners seem to cost over half the price of a brand new heater so like $900 and Two: they no longer sold replacement burners for this heater. I guess point two made point one superfluous. Anyway I had to replace the whole heater.
My hope was that I could find the same heater with the same dimensions and configuration and just swap it out. Then it wouldn’t involve a lot of thinking. But I should have figured if they no longer sold the replacement burner for this heater they probably don’t sell this heater, which turned out to be the case. I eventually settled on a heater that was from the same manufacturer but with a completely different configuration. This resulted in a lot more futzing to install it.
What surprises me most about heaters is how gosh darn heavy they are. The new one is like 170 lbs. The old one is similar in mass. So installing it is not a one person job. Sure I can lift a 170 lb heater over my head but I can’t do it one-handed while fastening the bolts with the other. It is just too awkward. But with a little help from my son Chris we were able to get it hung without anyone getting hurt.
Of course the connections were in a different location than the prior heater and for some reason the manufacturer had to make the connection wires inside the cabinet about two feet short of where the power supply wire enters the cabinet. The old heater had the wire connection point inside a little box on the outside of the heater. So my power supply wires were two feet short of where they had to connect. Frustrating. But at least the manufacturer saved $0.32 on wire and I suspect they passed this savings on to me in the form of a lower price!
The exhaust pipe connection location was also in a completely different place. Plus the setback from the back wall was further than the original heater so I had to get a longer flue pipe, cut a new hole in the greenhouse plastic, patch the old hole and rejigger the flue support bracket. Not a big deal but still time consuming and unfortunate.
Finally, the gas connection of course was also in a different location and orientation so there was some minor gas plumbing I needed to do to make the connection work. Luckily I didn’t have to buy any new pipe — not that pipe is expensive but it would have involved another trip to the hardware store. Speaking of which, not to brag or anything, but I completed this task with only one trip to the hardware store! Those of you who do their own home maintenance know what an unbelievable achievement this is.
So now that I have a new heater for the greenhouse my next step is to try to get the greenhouse control system working better. Time to take off the HVAC coveralls and put on the software programmer hoodie — or maybe the electrical engineer pocket protector. Maybe both. Wait, why do hoodies not come with pockets that fit the standard pocket protector?
As always, feel free to send in questions, comments, suggestions, orders or updates to the Dow Industrial Average, which is what we all should really be talking about.