I began my internship at Prema Farm on Wednesday, November 28th. The farm is located at 1350 Long Valley Road, which is just across the California border, about 30 minutes north of downtown Reno. During my first day, I got a tour of the farm, which is certified organic and on a small, 1.5 acre plot of land.

At Prema, there are three heated greenhouses, a heated propagation house for germinating seeds, and a small covered structure with a wash station and tool bench. They just finished building the structure of the third heated greenhouse, so a lot of what I helped with during those first few days was with the electrical work on that greenhouse. By the end of the week, I had helped wire two thermostats, hung four fans, and got one heater working. Zach, the farm manager, was there everyday that I was and I worked closely with him most of the time. This was my first experience working with electrical systems and it was amazing to learn so much in just a few days.

Friday was harvest day in preparation of market day on Saturday. Prema is part of the first winter farmers market in Reno, which just began this year, and will be there every Saturday selling their produce. Along with the help of two other people that work at Prema under Zach’s guidance, I harvested salad mix, arugula, carrots, radishes, bok choy, kale, rainbow chard, and turnips.

On Saturday, we had to quickly get the last of the outside carrots out of the ground before the heavy freeze hit. We harvested almost 500 pounds of carrots from just one 50 foot bed- during a blizzard!

Now that the carrots are out of the ground, all of the growing and harvesting will be taking place in the heated greenhouses.