Photos from Week 4: Mulch!

Week 5 at Harvest of Joy Farm LLC

Weather Forecast: Partly cloudy, highs in the 70s

It's the week we've all been waiting for!! Or at least the week I'VE been waiting for, as we're finally going to get to plant a few things outside of the hoophouse. According to our planting schedule, the cabbage, kale, and kohlrabi should have been in the ground two weeks ago, but as you've seen, it's just been too wet.

It's still too wet in the back strip where we intended to plant them (that's the area where you laid mulch last week). I attempted to work up a few beds back there today and found standing water under the mulch:

The water table has risen so high that it's actually coming up to the surface under the beds. So, we're going to have to re-configure our carefully wrought plans at the last minute in order to contend with this reality. We'll be transplanting the brassicas into the somewhat drier beds behind my house rather than into the back strip  and John will be discing up some land on his property tomorrow morning in the hopes that we can shift some of the crops that were supposed to go into those beds over to his place.

So that's the plan for class this week--you'll be broad-forking the beds, raking them out, working in some fertilizer, and tucking our little plants into the ground. I'm really looking forward to seeing some green out there in the garden area!

Also, I found my first tick today, so be forewarned that you might bring home some unwelcome hitchhikers--if you feel the need to use tick repellent you might want to bring some with you.

Pole Barn Garden

I met my uncle Kenny at my family's property on Friday afternoon. He had already rototilled the area we were going to plant with a large tractor. Even though there tends to be a lot of clay on our property, the plot we planted was actually quite sandy. This meant that it wasn't too wet, so hopefully something grows! We staked out a couple of rows and planted yukon gold potatoes, sugar snap peas, green beens, and sunflowers. My uncle has never planted peas before and he didn't know whether or not his green beens would need a trellis, but I think if any of those two come up we will need to create some kind of support system.

I tried to share my tidbits of knowledge with him, mentioning the possibility of raised beds ("That sounds like a lot of work.") and the problems with soil compaction. To my surprise, after I carefully placed the seeds (or tubers) in the ground and covered them with dirt, he proceeded to show me his traditional method, which included stepping on the seeds we'd just planted. Needless to say I was cringing a bit at that point, as well as when he told me he'd spread chemical fertilizer over the whole plot before we started. I think I'm going to have to balance sharing my knowledge and learning from his experience throughout this process, but so far it's been really good to have my own area to plant and to spend time with an older member of my family in the sunshine.

If any of you would ever like to come with me for a visit, just let me know!

Sprout Urban Farms (Battle Creek, MI)

Just wanted to share an article that my friend Zinta Aistars just published on a really cool community garden/urban farm in Battle Creek: Much more than vegetables grow at Sprout Urban Farms.

And here's the farm's website: Sprout Urban Farms.

Janelle Makes an Apple Tree

Dirt vs Soil: The Soil Food Web

We got our soil test results back this week and John and I talked a bit in class today about how we might use these tests to better understand what is happening in the soil of our different growing areas. We also talked at length about the limitations of such standard soil tests, which measure the chemical make-up of soil but don't take soil biology into consideration. In this 15 minute video, soil biologist Dr. Elaine Ingham gives a nice, succinct  overview of the role soil biology plays in the health of plants and how agricultural practices affect the life within the soil:

And for more in-depth information about the soil food web, check out the National Resources Conservation Service's "Soil Biology Primer". Here's the soil food web diagram from the primer that we looked at in class:

Week 4 at Harvest of Joy Farm LLC

Weather forecast: Monday, high of 65 degrees F, mostly sunny; Tuesday, high of 58 degrees, 80% chance of rain.

Well, the story of this spring seems to be wet and cold. Eight inches of rain fell last Thursday onto ground that was already saturated with moisture. So not only did the ground not dry out any since you were out last week, it's significantly wetter than it was last Monday and Tuesday. We are a full week behind in our planting plans and I can't imagine that we'll be able to get anything into the ground until the end of this week at the latest, but there's not much we can do about that! At this point it looks like we may have to delay our CSA harvest season until the first week in June and try to run it later into the fall instead. And that's assuming that things are going to dry up and warm up after this week. If this weather keeps up into the first part of May, I'm not sure what we'll do.

But we'll do something. This may seem like a crisis, but this sort of challenge is a normal part of farming. Last year area farmers contended with an unseasonably warm spring, followed by several hard freezes and then the worst drought we'd seen in years. We make extensive and detailed plans, but have to be prepared to change them at a moment's notice depending on the growing conditions of the year.

I'd hoped you'd be helping us work up beds and put seeds and plants in the ground this week, but it's far to wet for that. Instead, we'll focus on grass control around the perimeter of our smaller growing areas. Our biggest challenge is a grass called quack grass, which spreads itself by underground runners. Every year they try to sneak under our fences and into the rich garden soil and every spring we dig, pull, and smother them. I actually find pulling quack grass somewhat cathartic and I wrote a post on the farm blog last March in which I muse about pulling quack, foraging for wild edibles, and the state of organic agriculture. You can read it here: March Meditation.

We may also do some seeding of lettuces in plug flats and apple grafting, especially on Tuesday when we've got that 80% chance of rain. Please come both days prepared to get muddy.

Garlic plants poking through the snow Saturday morning

Michael Pollan, Joel Salatin & our relationship to all beings

As I've been sharing my gardening/farming perspectives with you these past couple of weeks, I've been noticing how much I've been talking about relationship--my relationships with my business partners, my family and its land, our CSA members, the plants, the soil, and the diversity of non-human beings that live on this land with me. In his book The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan explores human relationships with plants from a plant-centric rather than human-centric view, suggesting that plants are using us to further their own evolution as much as we're using them to sustain our lives. I just came across this great TED talk in which Pollan expands upon that idea and proposes a system of agriculture which nurtures the relationships between species--plants, animals, soil microbes, farmers, and eaters--to create a self-sustaining system in which the health and well-being of all participants is enhanced. He uses Joel Salatin's Polyface Farm as a model for this type of farming system. Here's a link to the talk: Michael Pollan: A plant's-eye view.

Also, you can watch the film version of The Botany of Desire free on the PBS website: http://video.pbs.org/video/1283872815/. The first thirty minutes are a discussion of the history of the relationship between apples and humans, so you might be especially interested in that section given all of our recent discussions about apple production. But we'll be planting potatoes soon, so that might be an interesting section to watch as well. I think it's the last one.

From Seeds to Supper Project Overview

As people interested in sustainable and locals foods we all have some grasp of what happens a farm, who we come to love at the market. Takes a seed, puts it in some dirt, and then miraculously after a few weeks or months we have something delicious to eat. It's AWESOME! But there's so much more to it, there has to be. There has to be a demand to keep these farmers going and like every other business there is a lot that goes into the finished product and the marketing of it.

I want to understand more about the farmers, their farms, and how they keep them going. I recently spent time on a friend's sheep farm and got cozy there thinking, well this is something I could do. I want to look into what it takes to make that happen. Everything from where/how to get land, amount needed to survive, how people deal financing the farm, and what they have to do to create a name for themselves. In doing so I hope to gain a better understanding for what's on my plate and the wonderful people who grow it.

As of now the final project will hopefully be some sort of brochure/pamphlet about what really happens behind the scenes of the markets and back on the farms so that consumers will have a better understanding of what they're buying.

Great local food sources, if you don't already know them:

Bear-foot farms - organic (non-certified) meats, eggs, and produce from Paw Paw, MI

Mattawan Creamery - goat cheese and yogurt, Mattawan, MI

Jake's Country Meats - Nitrate free, not necessarily organic/grass fed BUT good MI sourced fish!  Decatur, MI

Elder Fire Farm

Bonamego Farm - Having a foraging class on the 28th! $20/person, Lawrence, MI

And of course many more!!


Locally-Made and Some Locally Sourced Value-added Products:

Cherri's Chocol'art - has teamed up Bear-Foot Farms to produce delicious chocolate cover bacon! She also just has stellar caramels

Bilberry Jams - Spiced tomato jam is a personal favorite

Kahoona Kitchen Granola - the chocolate mint bars taste like Andes mints

Tudor House Tea Company - Chocolate-chai walnuts, hand made by the owner

Dough Chicks - gluten free orange cranberry biscotti

Bakewell Co. -  quiches that are to die for!

Sunpenada - amazing specialty empanadas! The Bella Vita is a personal favorite

Lupita's - salsa, chips, and tamales

Anything and everything from Can-do Kitchen!

... etc.

And remember only 1 more week on the indoor markets and then it's back to Bank Street! Wohoooo!

Fletcher Collective Project Overview

Hey everyone, my project for this class is going to be planning and implementing a garden at my home (The Fletcher Collective). As you may have noticed at our last brunch, we have a handful of raised beds that should serve as the bulk of our garden space. I'm going to be partnering with one of my housemates (Ben Brown) in planning and implementing the garden. As of yet we don't know exactly what we are going to plant, but we should have enough space to raise a large variety of crops. We'll be using whatever we already know about sustainable agriculture and my own learning from our class/farm time. I also just noticed that we have an (slightly disheveled) apple tree in our back yard as well. Hopefully we can do something with that.

My learning goals for this project are to get more practice actually working with the earth, and to implement some of the methods we've discussed in class in my own living context. I want to gain a deeper understanding of all the steps involved in the sustainable gardening process from seed to harvest. Planning and raising my own garden at my house should allow me to do that, and also has the added bonus of allowing me to check in on my plants everyday to see how they're doing and study their growth patterns and temperaments.

I'm super excited to get rolling, if any of you guys want to come check out the garden or help at all with it, just let me know. I'm sure w can work out a time.

The Vegetannual

In her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (fantastic book! Go read it!) Barbara Kingsolver creates an imaginary plant called the "vegetannual" to help visualize when fruits and vegetables will come into season. At the farm today we were discussing when fruits and vegetables ripen and I think the vegetannual is a really easy, fun and useful way to visualize the harvest season. Here is a very excellent example of a vegetannual...keep in mind Barbara Kingsolver lives in Appalachia so her seasons are a little ahead of ours here in Michigan :)

(image source)

Week 3 at Harvest of Joy Farm LLC

Weather forecast: Monday, 70% chance of rain, high of 58 degrees F; Tuesday, mostly sunny, high of 53 degrees F.

Well, folks, you are certainly getting a taste of one of the most challenging aspects of farming life--the weather! For the third Monday in a row rain and chilly temps are predicted. And it sounds like the wet, cold weather is going to follow us through most of the week. If it doesn't warm and dry up soon, this weather is going to make it very challenging for us to get our spring crops in the ground in time to begin our scheduled CSA harvests at the end of May.

If it's not actually raining while you're out here, I may have you help us lay cardboard sheets around the perimeter of a couple of our growing areas as a quack grass control measure. (Since we don't use herbicides, we have to rely on physical means to keep weeds out of our growing beds.) If it is raining, however, I think we'll work inside the hoophouse. We got the new plastic put on this afternoon, so it will give us some shelter. I've reserved one bed for you to play with, so you can practice using my favorite tool of all time, the broadfork, to work it up. You'll probably want to work in some compost and fertilizer and then you can decide what you want to plant.

We've got a small amount of soil-blocking to do this week (broccoli), so if any of you want a little more practice with the soil-blocker, you can work on that as well.

See you all soon!

Second Week Pictures!

This is the first time I've ever tried to add pictures to blogger, we'll see how it goes. I'm sure, if you are so inclined, that you can click on the images to see them bigger. I know that they're mine and all, but I still swear bigger is better.

Amy Reflects

Hi Everyone!

I've had a series of loosely connected thoughts gathering in my head since we met on Thursday, so I thought I'd take a minute to explore those connections while sharing them with you all. Not long after our brunch, I stumbled across a link to this NPR blog piece which speaks to some of the issues of biodiversity we touched on as we were talking about the respective merits of government funding for field crop production and conservation programs: Cornstalks Everywhere But Nothing Else, Not Even A Bee.

Author Robert Krulwich is clearly disturbed by the relative lack of biodiversity in the examined cornfield as opposed to the Cape Town park or the upper reaches of the Costa Rican forest. "There's something strange about a farm that intentionally creates a biological desert to feed one species: us," he writes. But couldn't a case be made that since the energy in the cornfield is going primarily toward producing food and other products for humans, the limited diversity in this ecosystem is more valuable to us than the "excess" of biodiversity in the park and forest, which doesn't appear to benefit us directly or economically? Krulwich himself admits that the cornfield is "efficient." What good is all that diversity if we can't eat it, wear it, drive it, or sell it? 

I want to respond to this question (a valid one!) with some excerpts from Aldo Leopold's "The Land Ethic," which can be found in A Sand Country Almanac (or if you're interested you can also read it online here: http://home.btconnect.com/tipiglen/landethic.html):


“All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in that community, but his ethics prompt him also to co-operate (perhaps in order that there may be a place to compete for).

The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.

This sounds simple: do we not already sing our love for and obligation to the land of the free and the home of the brave? Yes, but just what and whom do we love? Certainly not the soil, which we are sending helter-skelter downriver. Certainly not the waters, which we assume have no function except to turn turbines, float barges, and carry off sewage. Certainly not the plants, of which we exterminate whole communities without batting an eye. Certainly not the animals, of which we have already extirpated many of the largest and most beautiful species . . .

One basic weakness in a conservation system based wholly on economic motives is that most members of the land community have no economic value. Wildflowers and songbirds are examples. Of the 22,000 higher plants and animals native to Wisconsin, it is doubtful whether more than 5 per cent can be sold, fed, eaten, or otherwise put to economic use Yet these creatures are members of the biotic community, and if (as I believe) its stability depends on its integrity they are entitled to continuance . . . 

To sum up: a system of conservation based solely on economic self-interest is hopelessly lopsided. It tends to ignore, and thus eventually to eliminate, many elements in the land community that lack commercial value, but that are (as far as we know) essential to its healthy functioning. It assumes, falsely, I think, that the economic parts of the biotic clock will function without the uneconomic parts. It tends to relegate to government many functions eventually too large, too complex, or too widely dispersed to be performed by government . . .

It is inconceivable to me that an ethical relation to land can exist without love, respect, and admiration for land and a high regard for its value. By value, I of course mean something far broader than mere economic value; I mean value in the philosophical sense.

Perhaps the most serious obstacle impeding the evolution of a land ethic is the fact that our educational and economic system is headed away from, rather than toward, an intense consciousness of land. Your true modern is separate from the land by many middlemen, and by innumerable physical gadgets. He has no vital relation to it; to him it is the space between cities on which crops grow. Turn him loose for a day on the land, and if the spot does not happen to be a golf links or a 'scenic' area, he is bored stiff. If crops could be raised by hydroponics instead of farming, it would suit him very well. Synthetic substitutes for wood, leather, wool, and other natural land products suit him better than the originals. In short, land is something he has 'outgrown.'

Almost equally serious as an obstacle to a land ethic is the attitude of the farmer for whom the land is still an adversary or a taskmaster that keeps him in slavery. . .”


As I tucked the redworms from the vermicompost pile we sorted last week back inside their bin and into the fresh bedding you made for them, I thought about a particular piece of advice I'd given you about vermicomposting--how to watch the worms to see which foods were their favorites and which they didn't like so much. It occurred to me that as much as I value the big pile of rich compost they've produced for me, my primary concern is that the worms themselves are happy and healthy. Is it odd to say that I'm fond of my worms? I'm fond of them. The compost is a by-product of our relationship and as long as that relationship is in good standing, I'm bound to get a good harvest of compost. But I don't go out of my way to feed them their favorite foods every now and then because I want compost. I do it because I like them. They have inherent value for me as organisms with whom I share my life.

It's the same with the plants, really. Of course I hope that in a few years we'll have this business built up to a point where it's bringing in an income for Diane, John, and myself. But uppermost in my mind is the health of the plants, the soil, the surrounding ecosystem. If I'm not familiar with and in good relationship to the bio-diverse organisms with whom I share this piece of earth, then this whole organic farming project falls apart. And though many aspects of this planet we inhabit are still mysterious to us, I think we know enough now to say with some scientific confidence what many so-called "primitive" peoples might have told us centuries ago: if we as a species insist on acting primarily out of short-term individual self-interest rather than in the best interests of the "community of interdependent parts" (Leopold's words) of which we are members, then we knock apart the biotic web that sustains and enriches our lives. 

Unfortunately, we've become so disengaged from the natural world that we don't even recognize loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystems as factors in many of the problems we're grappling with in this "technological age." This estrangement allows us to call thousands of acres of cornfields "efficient," a declaration only possible if we look solely at the sheer tonnage of grain coming off those fields and ignore the economic and ecological costs of producing that grain, including the costs to our own health.

Robert Krulwich's piece looks intensely at the effects of agricultural practices on one very small land area. Jonathan Foley's TED talk, Jonathan Foley: The other inconvenient truth, is a rather distressing look at the global effects of agriculture. Among his statistics: 40% of the earth's land has been cleared for agriculture; agricultural irrigation is the biggest use of water on the planet, drying up many lakes and rivers while fertilizer run-off pollutes many more; and agriculture is the single biggest contributor to climate change, generating 30% of our greenhouse gas emissions. It seems like any way you look at it, farming is bad for our planet. 

I'm convinced it doesn't have to be. We created this destructive system and we can change it. But in order to change it, we are going to have to change ourselves. Joel Salatin recently published a piece in Wanderlust Journal entitled "What You Can Do" in which he suggests that we re-consider what we truly value. He asks us to envision a world where eating a locally-sourced, home-cooked meal is more important to the majority of parents than having their kids in a soccer league, where families stay home to can tomatoes rather than take vacations to Disneyland. Can you imagine it? I can't, not unless our ethics fundamentally change and evolve to include the land and the non-human beings with whom we share it, unless we come to see ourselves as Leopold saw us, as "plain member[s] and citizen[s]" of a diverse biotic community, rather than "conqueror[s]" of it.

-Amy

Lawns to Urban Gardens

Hey everyone,
Check out this article on Urban gardens in Paris! There is a link to a great TED talk video about the historical connection between yards and farming!

http://www.foodpolitic.com/a-new-breed-of-urban-gardeners-are-flocking-to-paris/

Thursday, April 11: First Brunch!

For our first class brunch, we were hosted by Max and Hannah at Max's house (the day before their SIP readings, no less. Bravo!) It was a really lovely morning: sitting around the table together chatting with quiche warm in our bellies, safe from the cold rainy weather.

The quiche was delicious and made entirely from scratch. 

We first talked about course logistics, such as the brunch schedule, farm visits, the hoophouse raising at Green Gardens, and independent projects. Everyone offered their reflections on the first two weeks, and we discussed some form of more formal written reflection moving forward. Finally, we covered a number of conceptual issues: from government subsidy policy and the Farm Bill to acquiring (and keeping) farm land; Amy was kind enough to share her own story about the latter piece. Overall, one emergent theme was definitely how hard we're realizing small farmers work to provide healthy fresh produce to their community and care for the land!

Tuesday, April 9: Germination experiment

We started a little experiment this week!

Amy designed an experiment that would show us all the things she's been telling us about the best way to plant and germinate seeds indoors for transplanting. Each cross-section of the trays are planted with the same variety of yellow tomato, the Golden Ray. Two of each tray have a soil-less planting mix (A) and the other two have the compost soil mix (B) that we've been using for all the soil blocking. Each of the three separate trays will be placed in locations that receive varying amounts of light.

This is posted on the bulletin board so we remember how we set up the experiment!

This will allow us to see the effects of both soil quality and light on the germination of seeds of the same plant variety. We'll be able to observe the results over the coming weeks. Cool, huh?

April 1 and 2: Soil samples

On our first work days, one of the things we did was gather soil samples from four different areas around Harvest of Joy.

 These included the area near the hoophouse that was a garden before a field, a field with good soils that has been under cultivation ~3 years, a sandy area planted last year with poor results, and a new area to be planted this year down by the river.

Soil was gathered from different spots in each location and aggregated to give us a representative sample of the soil in the field. These will be sent off to the MSU Soil and Plant Nutrient Laboratory for soil testing, which will give us a detailed break down of the type of soil and nutrients present. (http://www.psm.msu.edu/SPNL/)

We also did a little experiment of our own right there on the porch!

Adding about 16 oz of soil and a full jar of water, we were able to see the layers of soil-- from clay to silt-- and their different colors. They told us a lot about the soil composition and looked beautiful too!

Wendell Berry

For Max, Gabriella, and Hannah, who put on a FANTASTIC poetry show tonight!

The Man Born to Farming

The grower of trees, the gardener, the man born to farming,
whose hands reach into the ground and sprout,
to him the soil is a divine drug. He enters into death
yearly, and comes back rejoicing. He has seen the light lie down
in the dung heap, and rise again in the corn.
His thought passes along the row ends like a mole.
What miraculous seed has he swallowed
that the unending sentence of his love flows out of his mouth
like a vine clinging in the sunlight, and like water
descending in the dark?

-Wendell Berry


Coincidentally, Berry touched on some of the economic issues we talked about at brunch today in his 2012 Jefferson lecture entitled "It All Turns on Affection" in which he makes the case for an economic system based on affection rather than exploitation. Here's an excerpt:

"In this age so abstracted and bewildered by technological magnifications of power, people who stray beyond the limits of their mental competence typically find no guide except for the supposed authority of market price. “The market” thus assumes the standing of ultimate reality. But market value is an illusion, as is proven by its frequent changes; it is determined solely by the buyer’s ability and willingness to pay.

By now our immense destructiveness has made clear that the actual value of some things exceeds human ability to calculate or measure, and therefore must be considered absolute. For the destruction of these things there is never, under any circumstances, any justification. Their absolute value is recognized by the mortal need of those who do not have them, and by affection. Land, to people who do not have it and who are thus without the means of life, is absolutely valuable. Ecological health, in a land dying of abuse, is not worth “something”; it is worth everything. And abused land relentlessly declines in value to its present and succeeding owners, whatever its market price.

But we need not wait, as we are doing, to be taught the absolute value of land and of land health by hunger and disease. Affection can teach us, and soon enough, if we grant appropriate standing to affection. For this we must look to the stickers, who “love the life they have made and the place they have made it in.”

By now all thoughtful people have begun to feel our eligibility to be instructed by ecological disaster and mortal need. But we endangered ourselves first of all by dismissing affection as an honorable and necessary motive. Our decision in the middle of the last century to reduce the farm population, eliminating the allegedly “inefficient” small farmers, was enabled by the discounting of affection. As a result, we now have barely enough farmers to keep the land in production, with the help of increasingly expensive industrial technology and at an increasing ecological and social cost. Far from the plain citizens and members of the land-community, as Aldo Leopold wished them to be, farmers are now too likely to be merely the land’s exploiters.

I don’t hesitate to say that damage or destruction of the land-community is morally wrong, just as Leopold did not hesitate to say so when he was composing his essay, “The Land Ethic,” in 1947. But I do not believe, as I think Leopold did not, that morality, even religious morality, is an adequate motive for good care of the land-community. The primary motive for good care and good use is always going to be affection, because affection involves us entirely. And here Leopold himself set the example. In 1935 he bought an exhausted Wisconsin farm and, with his family, began its restoration. To do this was morally right, of course, but the motive was affection. Leopold was an ecologist. He felt, we may be sure, an informed sorrow for the place in its ruin. He imagined it as it had been, as it was, and as it might be. And a profound, delighted affection radiates from every sentence he wrote about it.

Without this informed, practical, and practiced affection, the nation and its economy will conquer and destroy the country."

You can watch the lecture in it's entirety here:

http://events.tvworldwide.com/Events/NEH2012JeffersonLecture.aspx

Monday, April 8 Photos: Seed-starting, vermicompost, apple grafting

Perlite & Vermiculite

On Tuesday this week we talked a bit about perlite and vermiculite in seed starting mixes but I wasn't entirely sure what these materials were made of. So . . . 

Perlite, according to Wikipedia: "Perlite is an amorphous volcanic glass that has a relatively high water content, typically formed by the hydration of obsidian. It occurs naturally and has the unusual property of greatly expanding when heated sufficiently. It is an industrial mineral and a commercial product useful for its light weight after processing." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perlite

And Vermiculite: "Vermiculite is a hydrous, silicate mineral that is classified as a phyllosilicate and that expands greatly when heated. Exfoliation occurs when the mineral is heated sufficiently, and the effect is routinely produced in commercial furnaces. Vermiculite is formed by weathering or hydrothermal alteration of biotite or phlogopite.^[1]Large commercial vermiculite mines currently exist in Russia, South Africa, China, and Brazil." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermiculite

Also on Tuesday we started some experiments with different seed-starting conditions so that you can get a visual sense of what a healthy (and unhealthy) transplant looks like. We used two different planting mediums Metro Mix 300 from Sun Gro horticulture and Seed Starter 101 from Morgan Composting.

Metro Mix ingredients: "Vermiculite, bark, Canadian Sphagnum peat moss, coarse perlite, bark ash, starter nutrient charge (with Gypsum) and slow release nitrogen and dolomitic limestone." (I think I told you that this was a nutrient-less mix, but as I look at the ingredients, I see that I was wrong in this. It does have that "starter" nutrient charge.) http://sungro.com/products_displayProduct.php?product_id=104&brand_id=17

Morgan's Seed Starter 101 "contains products like worm castings, meat and Bone Meal, Feather Meal, and paramagnetic rock." http://www.dairydoo.com/Morgan_Composting/For_Greenhouses.html

We planted four tomato plants in each of three 4-chambered plastic pots with two chambers filled with Seed Starter 101 and the other two with Metro Mix 300. We put one pot under a grow light, one in a sunny (well it will be if the sun ever comes out) window, and the other in a shady area of the porch. We'll water them and see what happens!

Cary Fowler: Protecting the Future of Food

Hey all--

Today on the farm we talked briefly about seed banks or libraries, and the largest one in the world in Norway. I heard this story on NPR the other day and thought it was very intriguing, but learning about genetics and seeds and biodiversity on Amy's farm really made the two facets come into focus.

Here is the full Cary Fowler TED talk that was featured on NPR.

-Hannah


 

Week 2 at Harvest of Joy Farm LLC

Forecast: 50-60% chance of rain, high of 59 degrees F.

Well, I'd hoped to have you all help with bed preparation and pea planting this week, but given the forecast for rain most of this week, Diane and I are scrambling to get the peas planted yet today (Sunday) before the wet weather starts in.

Please bring your raincoats and waterproof shoes (if you have them) in case the rain is light enough that we're able to work outdoors on Monday or Tuesday, though. Inside activities I have planned for us include starting broccoli, tomato, eggplant, and pepper transplants; harvesting vermicompost and setting up fresh bedding for the worm bins; and possibly an apple tree grafting demonstration by John.

We've been busy this week renovating our hoophouse and building transplant benches to go inside it. If you'd like to see some photos, check out our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Harvest-of-Joy-Farm-LLC/168871449887455.

 I'm looking forward to our brunch at Hannah's house this Thursday. I'm going to suggest that we each read the first 71 pages of "Sharing the Harvest" before we meet and then we can talk about how the ideas in the first two sections of the book intersect with the realities of life on my farm.

We also need to talk about organizing the rest of the brunches, your independent projects and blog contributions, and organizing visits to other farms.

Enjoy today's sunshine! Sounds like we might not see it again for a few days.

What to Plant? Crop & Varietal Selection

We ended up talking a quite a bit this week about how we select the crops and plant varieties to grow each year for our CSA members. We also touched on issues of genetically modified, hybrid, and organic seed production. So I thought I'd share with you a blog post I wrote last year on the farm blog regarding these issues. In it, I give some basic information about the difference between hybridization and genetic modification in seed production: Wonderful Seeds.

A few of you were also wondering how our crop list has changed from year to year. You can view last year's crop list on the Wonderful Seeds blog post I referenced above. And I'll paste our 2013 crop list at the end of this email. But in short, in 2012 we planned 31 different crops and 70 different varieties of plants within those crop categories. In 2013 we've planned 37 different crops and 108 different varieties.

I also want to recommend this video of a TED talk by Winona LaDuke entitled Seeds of Our Ancestors, Seeds of Life. In it, she talks about the relationship that her Anishinaabekwe people have with certain food plants that have sustained them for generations and how they've fought the attempts to genetically engineer and patent these crops, as well as why climate change makes it more important than ever that we preserve and encourage genetic diversity among food crops. It's a really good talk and just under 17 minutes--it's worth your time.

What LaDuke says about the relationship between certain plants and her people may sound a bit esoteric, but it absolutely rings true to my experience. When you work with plants year after year, spending your life energy nurturing them and helping them flourish so that they can in turn feed you and sustain your life, you develop an intimacy with them, an affection, maybe even love. You get to know what they like, what they don't like, and certain varieties become your favorites, become plants that you can't imagine going through a summer without. They become your relatives.

I have long-standing relationships with many of the varieties listed below, but others are new ones that I hope to begin developing friendships with during the coming year.

2013 Crop & Plant Variety List
Arugula: Standard Arugula, Astro
Basil: Genovese Compact Improved
Beans, Green Snap: Provider, Fortex
Beans, Yellow Snap: Pencil Pod Wax
Beets, Red: Red Ace F1
Beets, Golden: Touchstone Gold
Braising Mix: Johnny's Braising Mix
Broccoli: DiCicco, Green Magic F1, Piracicaba
Brussels Sprouts: Roodnerf, Gustus F1
Cabbage, Green: Gonzales F1
Cabbage, Red: Ruby Perfection F1
Radish: Mokum F1, Nantes Fancy
Chard: Ford Hook Giant, Peppermint Chard, Red Rubarb Chard
Cilantro: Calypso
Cucumber: Marketmore 76, Green Finger
Dill: Dill
Edamame: Butterbeans
Eggplant: Orient Express F1, Rosa Bianca
Garlic: Music, Persian Star, Thai Purple, Silverskin, Inchelium Red
Kale: Beedy's Camden, Dwarf Blue Curled Scotch, Lacinato, Sutherland, Madeley
Kohlrabi: Early White Vienna
Leeks: King Richard
Lettuce, Head: Winter Density, Forellenschluss, Jericho
Lettuce, Salad Mix: High Mowing's Gourmet Mix
Melons: Delicious 51, Hannah's Choice F1
Mustard Greens: Red Mustard
Onions, Red: Red Burgundy
Onions, White: White Sweet Spanish Jumbo, Candy F1
Pac Choi: Mei Qing Choi F1, Shanghai Green Pac Choy
Peas, Snap: Sugar Ann
Peas, Snow: Oregon Giant
Peppers, Anaheim: Numex Joe E Parker
Peppers, Jalapeno: El Jefe Jalapeno
Peppers, Sweet Bell: King of the North, Jupiter, Golden California Wonder
Peppers, Sweet Italian: Stocky Red Roaster, Marconi Red
Potatoes: Kennebec, Russet Burbank, German Butterball, Dark Red Norland, Yukon Gold
Pumpkins: Charisma F1, Jack O' Lantern, Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin
Radish: Cherry Belle, Pink Beauty, White Beauty
Scallions: Nabechan F1, Deep Purple
Spinach: Tyee F1
Squash, Spaghetti: Spaghetti
Summer Squash, Patty Pan: Y-Star, Sunburst
Summer Squash, Yellow: Saffron
Summer Squash, Zucchini: Black Beauty, Golden Zucchini
Sweet Corn: Bodacious RM F1
Tomatoes, Cherry/Plums: Cherry Roma, Mountain Magic F1, Chocolate Cherry, Esterina F1, Juliet F1, Hagan Little Yellow, Sungella, Gobstopper
Tomatoes, Slicing: German Johnson, Golden Sunray, Amish Paste, Prudence Purple, Cosmonaut Volkov, Defiant PHR F1, Ruby Gold, Big Rainbow, Boxcar Willie, Bobcat, New Girl
Tomatoes, Specialty: Green Zebra, Black Prince
Turnips: Hakurei F1, Purple Top White Globe
Winter Squash: Delicata JS, Sweet Dumpling, Waltham Butternut

Mantis Love

We found a praying mantis egg case as we walked across the field behind my house this afternoon. If you'd like to see what it's going to look like when several hundred baby praying mantises emerge from that little egg case, check out this video: Praying Mantis Life Cycle. The egg case shown is from a slightly different type of praying mantis than the one we found today--that's why the egg case is a different shape.

And if you'd like to see the mantis in action, check out this Animal Planet clip: Nature's Perfect Predators - Praying Mantis.

Here's one patrolling my Swiss Chard patch: