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.
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Roy Boutard Day
This past Sunday, May 1st, was the grand opening of the Berkshire Botanic Garden for the 2011 season. Given that it was a beautifully sunny day, that I love botanical gardens, and that the event was free, I zig-zagged my way from South Egremont to West Stockbridge to see what all the fuss was about.
The fuss, it appears, was not only about the elegant and delightful gardens that are patiently awaiting their gardeners' vision for the Spring, but also about Roy Boutard, who led the Botanic Garden as its Director for an impressive thirty years. Roy Boutard shaped the lanscape and culture of the Botanic Garden from 1954 to 1984. After his death this past year, the Garden resolved to name each Spring Opening Day in his honor, such that his vision and incredible commitment to the Garden could live on and be remembered.
I never met Roy Boutard, but after the tour I took through the gardens with horticulturist David Burdick, I felt as if I understood just how significant a person he was to the garden, and how his infectious enthusiasm for plants lives on today through his colleagues. According to Burdick, Boutard lived by the philosophy that you can never have enough plants - you can never have enough varieties, enough plantings, or enough new material to introduce to the gardens. Burdick took us around the grounds and pointed out areas that changed under Boutard's direction, as well as specific plantings that were significant to Boutard's career and vision. For example, a dense stand of conifers that Boutard planted when they were "kittens," as he had called them, had matured into "cats" and had been relocated throughout the grounds. In fact, everywhere you looked you could see a beautiful mature conifer from Boutard's original planting when they were mere saplings.
If anything, Burdick's talk about Roy Boutard's career with the Berkshire Botanic Garden inspired me to think about what's possible if you commit not only to the idea of a garden (or to any goal that one can pursue passionately), but to following its whims and meanderings to "completion." Just like with the farm work I'm doing now -- or any task anyone ever does, for that matter -- one step at a time will get you there. Realizing that an entire bed needs to be ripped up, fertilized, turned under, raked, planted, irrigated, covered...etc. can be utterly exhausting. But there is beauty in taking a deep breath and jumping whole-heartedly into each task. Once it's done (for the moment at least), it will feel glorious.
The colors, textures, and smells of the Berkshire Botanic Garden were inspiring in and of themselves:
The fuss, it appears, was not only about the elegant and delightful gardens that are patiently awaiting their gardeners' vision for the Spring, but also about Roy Boutard, who led the Botanic Garden as its Director for an impressive thirty years. Roy Boutard shaped the lanscape and culture of the Botanic Garden from 1954 to 1984. After his death this past year, the Garden resolved to name each Spring Opening Day in his honor, such that his vision and incredible commitment to the Garden could live on and be remembered.
I never met Roy Boutard, but after the tour I took through the gardens with horticulturist David Burdick, I felt as if I understood just how significant a person he was to the garden, and how his infectious enthusiasm for plants lives on today through his colleagues. According to Burdick, Boutard lived by the philosophy that you can never have enough plants - you can never have enough varieties, enough plantings, or enough new material to introduce to the gardens. Burdick took us around the grounds and pointed out areas that changed under Boutard's direction, as well as specific plantings that were significant to Boutard's career and vision. For example, a dense stand of conifers that Boutard planted when they were "kittens," as he had called them, had matured into "cats" and had been relocated throughout the grounds. In fact, everywhere you looked you could see a beautiful mature conifer from Boutard's original planting when they were mere saplings.
If anything, Burdick's talk about Roy Boutard's career with the Berkshire Botanic Garden inspired me to think about what's possible if you commit not only to the idea of a garden (or to any goal that one can pursue passionately), but to following its whims and meanderings to "completion." Just like with the farm work I'm doing now -- or any task anyone ever does, for that matter -- one step at a time will get you there. Realizing that an entire bed needs to be ripped up, fertilized, turned under, raked, planted, irrigated, covered...etc. can be utterly exhausting. But there is beauty in taking a deep breath and jumping whole-heartedly into each task. Once it's done (for the moment at least), it will feel glorious.
The colors, textures, and smells of the Berkshire Botanic Garden were inspiring in and of themselves:
Daffodil hill
Hellabora in bloom
Brilliant forsythia
Tulips - quaint New England style
Magnolia blossom
Our tour through the garden
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Grafting Tomatoes
Today was an adventure in botany.
In an attempt to beat the looming storm coming from the tornadoes and such down South, we headed out to the fields first thing in the morning with scallions, kohl rabi, and bok choy seedlings to transplant. One whole bed of scallions (planted in bunches of ten), half a bed of bok choy and half a bed of kohl rabi. As interesting as that was, it doesn't compare to what we did next.
After having a light lunch and changing out of our wet clothes (because, of course, it started raining), we packed up a bunch of tomato seedlings and supplies to graft tomatoes in the barn. It was decided that the barn would be the best place to do this because we could control the environment much better than in the greenhouse -- keeping it at a steady temperature with little light and no wind to damage the fragile plants.
It has to be said that I love different plant propagation methods -- rarely do I ever not have a cutting or two rooting in a jar of water somewhere in my home. (That sounded just as dorky in my head before I typed it, but it's true so it stays in the blog!) Needless to say, this was totally up my alley.
The rootstock that we used is called "Maxifort." This tomato variety is solely used for grafting because of its ability to produce a better yield for weaker tomato varieties when grafted together. The varieties that we grafted to the Maxifort were Brandywine, Valencia, Green Zebra, and Purple Cherokee (heirlooms). For a step-by-step instruction on the exact method we used for grafting, check out the video below:
We followed all the steps of this method except for the stringent level of cleanliness used in the video's laboratory setting, which we found impossible to do on a farm...especially since our hands were covered in soil from potting up the tomatoes! We did what we could.
In an attempt to beat the looming storm coming from the tornadoes and such down South, we headed out to the fields first thing in the morning with scallions, kohl rabi, and bok choy seedlings to transplant. One whole bed of scallions (planted in bunches of ten), half a bed of bok choy and half a bed of kohl rabi. As interesting as that was, it doesn't compare to what we did next.
After having a light lunch and changing out of our wet clothes (because, of course, it started raining), we packed up a bunch of tomato seedlings and supplies to graft tomatoes in the barn. It was decided that the barn would be the best place to do this because we could control the environment much better than in the greenhouse -- keeping it at a steady temperature with little light and no wind to damage the fragile plants.
It has to be said that I love different plant propagation methods -- rarely do I ever not have a cutting or two rooting in a jar of water somewhere in my home. (That sounded just as dorky in my head before I typed it, but it's true so it stays in the blog!) Needless to say, this was totally up my alley.
The rootstock that we used is called "Maxifort." This tomato variety is solely used for grafting because of its ability to produce a better yield for weaker tomato varieties when grafted together. The varieties that we grafted to the Maxifort were Brandywine, Valencia, Green Zebra, and Purple Cherokee (heirlooms). For a step-by-step instruction on the exact method we used for grafting, check out the video below:
We followed all the steps of this method except for the stringent level of cleanliness used in the video's laboratory setting, which we found impossible to do on a farm...especially since our hands were covered in soil from potting up the tomatoes! We did what we could.
Rainy days and Onion Starts
This Spring has been a cold, rainy one. And if you're a farmer, you've had to wait day after rainy day, wondering if you'll ever be able to transplant all those seedlings that are more than likely taking up precious space in your greenhouse.
A couple days ago, after starting some pea and sunflower sprouts in the greenhouse and setting the lettuce, chard, brussel sprouts, and kohlrabi outside to harden off, the farm manager decided it was worth it to try to plant some of the 9,000 onion starts she had ordered from Johnny's Seed Company. Despite the thin mist, we donned rain pants and barreled down the hill to where the beds had been prepared with black plastic (to protect the soil from the nasty weed galinsoga).
Puncturing the plastic every five inches in long rows, we created little holes in the soil to place the small onion starts.
Basically, an onion start is a baby onion. In order to plant large onion seedlings when the soil can first be worked, you would need to start the seeds in your greenhouse smack-dab in the middle of winter, say January or February. To many farmers in the North East, this is cost prohibitive. Purchasing onion starts from a warmer climate far outweighs the cost of heating a greenhouse during the coldest months of the year. Not to mention the fact that it would take away from your off-season. So these "onion starts" are grown in the greenhouse, removed from the soil, bunched and boxed, and sent to your doorstep. There they wait until you're ready to plant them in the field. As long as you keep them cool and dry, they'll be fine.
So we marked the rows, pierced the plastic, dug the holes, and planted the onion starts over and over again, as the fine mist changed its pace and turned into a downpour. No turning back!
As soon as I upload pictures from my camera, I'll post some photos from the fields and greenhouse. Since Onion Planting Day (which actually ended up spanning three days), we've planted chard, lettuce, bok choy, kohl rabi, and scallions. So far, it's rained at least once every day. The crops are happy and well-hydrated!
A couple days ago, after starting some pea and sunflower sprouts in the greenhouse and setting the lettuce, chard, brussel sprouts, and kohlrabi outside to harden off, the farm manager decided it was worth it to try to plant some of the 9,000 onion starts she had ordered from Johnny's Seed Company. Despite the thin mist, we donned rain pants and barreled down the hill to where the beds had been prepared with black plastic (to protect the soil from the nasty weed galinsoga).
Puncturing the plastic every five inches in long rows, we created little holes in the soil to place the small onion starts.
Basically, an onion start is a baby onion. In order to plant large onion seedlings when the soil can first be worked, you would need to start the seeds in your greenhouse smack-dab in the middle of winter, say January or February. To many farmers in the North East, this is cost prohibitive. Purchasing onion starts from a warmer climate far outweighs the cost of heating a greenhouse during the coldest months of the year. Not to mention the fact that it would take away from your off-season. So these "onion starts" are grown in the greenhouse, removed from the soil, bunched and boxed, and sent to your doorstep. There they wait until you're ready to plant them in the field. As long as you keep them cool and dry, they'll be fine.
So we marked the rows, pierced the plastic, dug the holes, and planted the onion starts over and over again, as the fine mist changed its pace and turned into a downpour. No turning back!
As soon as I upload pictures from my camera, I'll post some photos from the fields and greenhouse. Since Onion Planting Day (which actually ended up spanning three days), we've planted chard, lettuce, bok choy, kohl rabi, and scallions. So far, it's rained at least once every day. The crops are happy and well-hydrated!
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