Harvest Land has had solar panels awaiting installation for three years now, and they’ve finally started going up this year. The solar panel installation began in May, after the farm got their long-awaited “grow lights,” a warming and illuminating mechanism which have extended Harvest Land’s growing season and ensured the greenhouse can operate year-round.
“We haven’t had the time or the money to install the solar panels until now,” said Harvest Land Director Dawn Wormington. “Now that the greenhouse is up and running, we’re able to. We’re a very small crew,” she explained and noted that she had been awaiting the grow lights. “The solar panels will help power them,” she said.
Although the Osage Nation does not have a green policy, according to Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, the solar panels will save Harvest Land general energy costs, Wormington said.
“We don’t know how much [energy savings] yet, because we’re just now opening [the boxes] up and finding out how [many panels] we have. … Once they’re all installed, we’ll involve the electric company,” said Wormington.
Currently, half of the solar panels are installed and they are helping prepare the fall harvest. “A lot of squash, beans and peas” are now going out for distribution from Harvest Land to the community, with the fresh food feeding mouths via Osage Casinos as well as the newly-opened Farm Hippie market in Pawhuska and at the popular eating establishment Dirty Laundry.
Harvest Land produce will also be for sale on Oct. 3 at the mobile farmers markets in Pawhuska, and in the following month, in Hominy and Grayhorse on Nov. 6. Wormington said that there will be an additional farmer’s market at Christmas time, although the date has not yet been set.
Harvest Land still has multiple projects developing as they get their solar panels up and running. A newly running hydroponic setup has lettuce seeded on floating planters, and their roots will be fed by tilapia swimming in the large pools of water.
“We now have 100 teenage tilapia and 400 fingerling tilapias,” said Wormington. “They are still growing, and until they reach their mature size, they will not be sufficient to provide nutrients to the plants. That being said, they are growing as expected and doing well.”
The next project focus at Harvest Land will be turning their garage into a storefront, to help Harvest Land expand their public-facing sales profits. They already have a Shopify store and hope their offerings will continue to become more popular once the garage is converted into a store.
“We like weird things, we try to do different, because people like different,” she said. “We do a lot of hot peppers, different ones, things that people don’t hear about. … you have to think outside the box. Our people here came up with our super-hot Osage pickles. We made an Osage outlaw spice with our ground-up peppers. Nobody wants to buy normal stuff …”
On the topic of income, Wormington said Harvest Land is making progress. She is still sifting through grants and ensuring compliance, but since the grow lights have been working she’s very optimistic.
The stops and starts and long project timelines are something Harvest Land staff have had to tolerate, said Wormington – because in the world of growing, things take time. The elderberries at Harvest Land are one example.
“This year, the [elderberries] finally reached maturity and we were able to harvest and process them after three years of growth,” said the director. Help from the Osage Nation Summer Youth Employment Program and the University of Missouri supported the elderberry harvest and although Wormington hoped to use them in the distillery, as of May, she said their contractor has not been responding to calls.
“No comment,” said Wormington, when asked about the updated status of the distillery.
Multiple projects will remain ongoing at Harvest Land for the foreseeable future, and the latest is a new pond installed by Bird Creek, which will be used to water the plants.
Near the pond, an orchard of five-foot-tall saplings are maturing, and chickens occasionally roost in the trees after laying their eggs.
“We just got our kitchen person back,” Wormington said. That means the mobile markets will have both canned and fresh goods, including 25 jars of Osage Nation honey available at each market for purchase.
Upcoming Harvest Land mobile markets will be Nov. 6 in Grayhorse and Hominy. On Nov. 6, the Grayhorse mobile market hours will be open from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and Hominy hours will be on that same day from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Cash, check and credit cards are accepted. Follow https://www.facebook.com/HarvestLandOsageNation/ for more updates.
