Where has Alex Frecker been?!?

Alex Frecker (left) and his farmers market booth (right).

Hi my favorite people,

It’s a new month. It’s SPRING and we’re feeling pretty good about cruising out of winter. To us, Spring means strawberries, zucchinis, bunched torpedo onions and baby zucchinis. And when I think of these items, one person comes to mind: Alex Frecker. For those of you that have been getting a farm box for quite some time now you may have been wondering to yourself where Alex Frecker has been. Because oddly enough we haven’t been getting much stuff from him the past few months… So let me just tell you something.. Alex Frecker (Frecker Farms) is BLOWING UP!

Alex has been farming at my fathers old farm for the past five or so years here in Carpinteria. It’s been awesome to watch him start his own farm with just three acres to absolutely crushing a 45 acre farm. And in the past few months Alex has doubled his Farmers Market booths making him do a total of nine markets a week (YIKES)! On top of the sudden high demand, Alex says this has been the toughest winter he’s experienced in all of farming. With the cold nights, Alex dealt with tremendous frost. Alex says that with so much rain, it was difficult to keep up with tractor work, weeding, and harvesting.

But friends here’s the deal, Alex worked hard and pulled thru winter. Bodhi (my son) and I went out to Alex’s farm the other day and I can’t really describe how incredible it looked. His strawberry field was HUGE and there were so many red strawberries. There was a ton of white flowers on the plants and the bees were in heaven. One thing that was awesome to see was Alex’s response to a mite infestation on his new strawberry field. With the warmer nights, these mights have been attacking the leaves of the strawberry plant creating a nutrient deficiency. Being a certified organic farmer, Alex sprinkled Persimilis mites (beneficial mites) on the plants to eat the bad critters. To offset the nutrient deficiency, Alex has been feeding his plants healthy organic fertilizers. And it seems to be helping. Alex’s strawberries are looking fantastic and Bodhi loved them! We are excited to put Alex’s strawberries in your farm boxes in a few weeks and in the meantime you can add some of his strawberries in your farm box. Scroll down to see some awesome pics of his farm, and a not so awesome pic of a conventional farmer spraying for mites. What a difference!

Thank you for letting us and these farmers feed your happy souls.

The video above is Alex adding compost that was made ON his farm to his soon to be strawberry field. Below is the strawberry field after it’s been prepped, planted and sprinkled with love. Can you see all of the white flowers that will eventually be berries? This is exciting stuff guys.

RECIPES!!

Friends we want to see what YOU do with your farm box! So tag us with your box, meals and snacks! And remember to always bring back your farm box.