Farming is tiring (but oh so satisfying)

The title says it all. This week was hard.

With this week's wave of hot and humid summer weather came a long list of farm chores to keep the new plant growth in check. It suddenly felt like the fields were alive and we had to race against the clock so that everything that needed to go in the ground was in ground, everything that needed to be weeded was weeded, and everything that needed to be trellised was trellised. I keep a journal of everything we do on the farm from day to day, and since this week was particularly interesting (and exhausting), I'm going to share what we did, Monday through Saturday. Here we go!

It started off with a relatively cool Monday, which is the day we planted all the non-tomato nightshades and curcubits in the field. We spent the day planting beds of peppers, eggplant, squash, and cucumbers. We covered the beds with floating row cover and then moved soil bags to hold down the edges of the remay (white fabric that lets light in, keeps heat in, but keeps bugs out). It was so wonderful to look out onto section four at the end of the day and see that every single bed had something growing in it! Four beds of onions, one bed of chard, two beds of peppers, two of eggplant, two of squash, and two of zuccini.

Then came Tuesday. Oh Tuesday, the day of moving soil bags and wooden pallets and wooden stakes. Today was the day we staked the peas. One after the other, row after row, bed by bed. I was told that the soil this year was particularly soft, and that the stakes were easier to drive into the ground. I guess that just means that if this had been last year, I probably wouldn't like peas. But when we went back out into the fields the next day, the pea section looked lovely. Because of the old wood and the trellising, it has an almost "secret garden" kind of feel. I can now visualize what it will be like to walk through the pathways at the height of summer, picking sweet sugar snaps with large pea plants towering over me. It will be beautiful.

On Wednesday I started off making signs for the plant sale we had this Friday, which was pretty successful. After that, we planted all the cherry tomatoes, plum tomatoes, tomatillos, and husk cherries in section two, and then two beds of cutting flowers (sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, celosia...) in section one. After that...tomato pruning and seeding in the greenhouse.

Thursday was hot and humid. It was even hotter than Wednesday, which was hotter than Tuesday and much hotter than breezy, overcast Monday. On Thursday we made a total transformation of the herb garden from a mess of weeds and fungus and overgrown perennials to a neat garden with 6 distinct small beds. The perennials of the garden are sage, thyme, oregano, lemon balm, and mint. We planted curly parsley, Italian parsley, two types of basil, more oregano, more thyme, more sage, and some cutting celery. Dill and cilantro were direct-seeded.

In the afternoon, everything on the farm that we had been doing for the last month or so really came together for me. In order to cultivate the beds with a tractor, I pulled off the remay from beds in section 5,  3, and 2, and wow! Vegetables! Everything that we had covered after transplanting was healthy and growing, and especially after the tractor went through and got the bulk of the weeds out, the beds looked amazing! To our farm manager, the lettuce heads weren't large enough to harvest, and there is still an elevated level of stress with regard to what will be ready for the CSA. But to my untrained eye and inexperience as a farmer, I was floored to see such greenery that had truly been covered by the remay since we had transplanted the seedlings. It looked like....like... a farm!

On Friday, we harvested spinach and radishes, then washed and boxed them for the farmer's market the following day. After a variety of small tasks in the greenhouses (switching the drip, watering) and in the fields (fixing the remay in section #1, using a scuffle hoe in section #2), I staffed the plant sale for a couple hours. Before I quit for the day, I weeded the perennial border near the barn so that we have room to plant some annuals next week.

Saturday, 6:45 am. We load the truck for the farmer's market and head off. I drive the truck with the plants. After we unload, myself and another farm worker drive back to the farm and load up with more plants. At the farmer's market, I talk to customers, keep the plants stocked, and ring people up. There were three of us all together, so two could sell plants and one could sell the spinach and radishes. At 1:00, we packed up, drove back to the farm, and unloaded.

And then on the seventh day, we rested. :)

Except for part of the day, I didn't. After a nice relaxing morning-- I took a jog and then went to a yoga class in town -- I measured out a ten by ten plot of land near where I'm staying on the farm. It's been wonderful to learn so much about growing vegetables while working on someone else's farm, but I've been itching to grow my own too. Not that I can't eat what's grown in the fields, but there's something special about just tending to a handful of your own plants to feed yourself during the growing season. Some peppers, tomatoes, kale...and okra! So I outlined the plot and started to rip up the sod with a digging fork. (But when I got tired, I stopped. It's Sunday for goodness sake!) I also sowed some okra seeds in a 6-pack in the greenhouse. I bought a package of "clemson spineless" okra seeds at the natural foods store in town. If this heat and humidity is any indication of what is to come for the rest of the summer, I think the okra will do just fine.

My intent is that this small garden plot will give me a little relief and relaxation during the course of the growing season. Because when you're working on the farm and you need to transplant hundreds of seedlings in an afternoon, you can't tenderly place each one into the ground before moving onto the next. And when you're getting paid by the hour, you can't leisurely remove weeds, observing the tiny hairs on the stinging nettle and admiring the diversity of weeds that so quickly took up space where you just so happen to want to plant tomatoes. It's not that I don't enjoy the farming, but the approach to vegetable growing in a garden (versus a farm) is very different, and I'm beginning to miss some aspects of gardening's smallness. In my garden plot, at the end of the day, I will have all the time in the world to admire my plants.

I look forward to it.