Website

If you are reading this on our NEW website, welcome!! If you are reading this on our blog, you may want to check out cloverlyfarm.com for more information about the farm.

Getting a website has been a long, arduous process. We're very happy to have gotten this far! I am super excited to start posting information about our CSA, answering questions, and having discussions with people of the community. This is a very large and important step toward getting the word out and becoming more involved with the people around us.

We have given ourselves a deadline to recruit CSA shareholders, which means we have an even earlier deadline of fleshing out the last details of the CSA. There are many questions to answer, such as:

How many shares will we be able to handle?

Where will they be distributed to the shareholders, and how?

How much will a share cost?

How many vegetables will be in a share?

And much, much more.

We were hoping to get more community feedback, but it is a difficult time of year, and we understand that. So, we're going to make our own executive decisions and hope that it suits the community well.

To see all of our plans in their final version, stay tuned for the page "CSA" on our website, coming very soon. This will have everything you may need to know about what a CSA is, how it will work, and what ours in particular will look like. If you still have questions, pop into our Discussion board (also coming very soon. Maybe even tonight) where there will be a discussion regarding the Q&As of CSAs.

Thank you for being a follower of Cloverly Farm. We are really lucky to have people who are willing to stick with us through thick and thin. We hope that the website will offer you much better resources for getting involved and learning about who we are and what we are up to. Please visit and, as always, be sure to give us your input!

-Terra

Videos

You may remember I am somewhat of an artist. I do drawings, found-object sculpture, and small-scale glasswork mostly. Every once in a while I branch out and dabble in something different. Stop-motion video is one of those things that I like to try out once in a while. I made these for a class of mine at school, and thought they were perfect for our mission. So check them out! Let me know what you think. They're kind of silly and pretty amateurish, I admit, but I try to make them fun.

Enjoy!

-Terra

2011 Begins Now!

I wonder how likely it is that anyone is still reading this blog? If you've been checking regularly for updates these last two months, I'm deeply sorry for your ongoing disappointment. If you're rejoining us now, I promise that the updates will be more regular and forthcoming in the future, and if you've just discovered us, ignore all that. This is a highly active blog with a huge following, that you should share with all your friends because it's so awesome! Got that? Good! Moving right along...

The lack of activity on these pages the last two months has corresponded to a lull in our activities in Greenfield. For most of October and November, Terra has been concentrating on school and I've been catching up on personal business in Lexington. We've also both been participating in National Novel Writing Month for the past 30 days, and as of today have both completed that monumental task successfully! The farm hiatus is coming to an end however. Beginning today, we are gearing up for the 2011 season.

Now you might be wondering what 2011 is going to look like compared to 2010, our inaugural year. Hopefully, the answer will be very different. The biggest change, and one you will be hearing a lot about over the coming weeks, is that we will be introducing a CSA this year. We are still in the planning stages for this, and will be making a lot of our decisions about the scope of our farm based on the demand we see and the amount of capital we can raise before the growing season starts. Last year, we successfully demonstrated that we can grow a variety of delicious vegetables. This year will be about turning that effort into a successful business and scaling it up to a point where it actually makes a noticable difference in the larger community.

The first step of this process will be developing a business plan and determining what large investments we will be making this spring. We will need to make equipment purchases and also upgrade our facilities to meet our goals this summer, and we would greatly appreciate feedback and involvement at this stage in order to clarify our planning and give us some concrete data to build upon. I invite anyone who would potentially be interested in purchasing a CSA share from us this season to post thoughts. Specifically, we're looking for what types of produce you routinely use in your cooking, how you would prefer us to distribute it to you, and what you might reasonably expect to pay for it. Information like this will enable us to plan our crop layout and distribution scheme.

Terra and I are both very excited about what 2011 has in store. We had a lot of fun last summer and met some fantastic people along the way, and this year promises to be even better. Please post your thoughts and stay tuned for more!

-Dan

Farming Alone

Things have gotten a bit more difficult at the farm now that Terra is back in school. I've still been making regular trips up to Greenfield to maintain the plants and start packing equipment away for the winter, but the pace of my work is quite different now. I've noticed that it's easier to focus on one specific task for a certain length of time, but when I reach the end of that task it's harder to start another. I am more tired at the end of the day, and I feel as though I've accomplished less overall even if I can pick off specific chores.

Because of my experience this summer, I have become convinced that farming at a scale that produces goods needs to be collaborative in order to be truly successful. I'm sure there are cases where one single farmer has managed to produce an abundance of goods and taken them to market, just as there are cases where an individual has made a successful film or staged a play entirely alone. But these are exceptions to a widely established model: in farming, just as in performing arts, the end result is almost always an expression of the creativity, dedication and effort of multiple individuals.

So though I am farming by myself, I would not go so far as to say that I am farming alone. Our garden, which is still producing an abundance of vegetables, has come to this point as much though Terra's dedication as my own, and I should also credit Terra's family, my family, and all the others who have supported our grand experiment this summer. On long afternoons of solitary tomato and bean picking, it is the thoughts of what we set out to accomplish at the beginning of this year, and all the people who got us there, that keep me from feeling lonely.

-Dan

Winding down, Gearing up.

I can't believe that it's already mid September. For me, this summer has been a chaotic blur of farming, working in Lexington, and lots of driving in between. In the last four months, the only time I've been in one place more than four days at a time was when Terra and I were in Maine. So while I'm sad to see the farm winding down for the season, it's also a bit of a relief; I won't have quite so much on my plate in a few weeks time.

Once the day-to-day work at the farm comes to a close, however, Terra and I are going to turn our attention to the very large and involved task of planning for next season, now that we are fairly certain that there will indeed be one. Early on, we decided that this season was mostly about testing out what works and what doesn't, and it has worked out well in that regard. Going into the planning process, there are already a few things about next year Terra and I are in total agreement on (winter squash gets it's own field, for instance), as well as some things that we will be discussing at length and working out some appropriate solutions for.

A few items in the latter category include the formation of a CSA, the future development of the Greenfield Farmers Market, and the scope of our farm come next spring, accounting for Terra's and my living situations. For those of you still reading our blog (I know the updates have been sporadic during the growing season), we'd like to invite comments and active participation as we begin this process. This is going to be a busy winter for Cloverly Farm, and it will be April 2011 before we know it.

Our Routine

So I think we're well established enough to be able to say that we have a 'routine'. Granted, it is always changing. But I thought it was fair to spell out the basics here:

Our most successful endeavor so far has been home and office delivery. It started by calling our friends at their homes and places of work and asking if they, their families, and their coworkers were interested in a delivery. We got a lot of positive responses, and we've made a list of people and places that we visit about once a week. The list seems to grow every week, and now we have three businesses and five homes that deliver to regularly!

How the delivering works: Dan and/or I load all the veggies into the back of the car after making some phone calls to see who is interested in veggies today. Then we drive over, and depending on the place, we bring all the veggies inside for people to browse, or we let people come out to our "portable farm stand" in the back of the car.

We also have done special deliveries, such as meeting people at a public location for a delivery. We really strive to be accommodating (I mean, if people want our veggies, they should be able to get them!) and we've made a lot of progress through this method of sale. Even with the farmer's market and whatever else happens, I still see home delivery continuing to be a big part of our future at the farm.

Other methods of sale? Not as much. We are starting the Greenfield Farmer's Market (or "trial market", this year..) which has not been very profitable yet, but seems to be growing! For the past two weeks, it has been just Dan and I, our small vegetable stand, and a couple posters, but this coming Tuesday holds promises of two more vendors -- one who sells goat milk soap and lotion, and one who sells gluten free baked goods!! I am so excited to see who shows up this week.

And our very last, teeny-tiny idea? We are hoping to get a farm stand. We've called a business with a currently unused farm stand set-up and asked for permission to use it and do maintenance on it. We're still waiting on a reply, with crossed fingers!

AND NOW.... Photos!! Just like I promised!

Here's our very first stand at our trial market!

This is how our veggies stay when they are not being delivered or in any other use. It makes our porch quite lovely!

Here's a dish my mom made from multicolored veggies AND pasta! It was so beautiful, and just as delicious!

Another shot of the stand, with a signage-close up. Dan looks so chill. :)

Our little helpers, displaying our veggies! They are so helpful.

So, I know it's not pictures of the garden itself yet... But those are coming soon! VERY soon, now that I have a useable camera! Promise!

-Terra

How we're doing... What we're thinking...

Cherry tomatoes ......................................... $2.00/pint
Green Beans/Yellow Wax Beans .................. $1.50/bag
Onions ........................................................ $0.75
Radishes (are back!) .................................... $1.00/bundle (~5)
Beets .......................................................... $1.00/bundle (~4)
Zucchini ...................................................... $0.75/ea
Summer Squash (Crookneck or Patty Pan) ... $0.75/ea
Cucumbers ................................................. $0.50/ea
Carrots ....................................................... $1.50/bundle (~6)
Soft-neck Garlic ......................................... $1/bulb
Kale ............................................................ $1.50/bundle
Eggs (From the Fletchers) ............................ $2/dozen

This is our current list! (not bad!)

Still battling with hornworms and other pests (Potato beetles attacked one of the groups of potatoes and completely demolished it! Agh!)

The other day I worked on building "squash towers", which was basically a desperate attempt to get the butternut squash away from the other plants, composed of 6 big saplings trussed together in a teepee shape with branches woven in between. I then wound the vines up and around the structure. Who knew that winter squash sent out such ridiculous vines?? I guess I should have known, but I wasn't ready! Next year I will be though. We're planning a whole separate field for winter squash - the way it should be!

Speaking of next year, we've been having a lot of conversations on that subject. As of now, we are planning on continuing, but it's going to rely heavily on the support of our friends and the community. We don't want our work and learning experiences to go to waste! If we do continue, here's (approximately) what it will (probably) look like:

A field for squash and a field for corn (perhaps manifesting itself into a "3 sister's garden", which we considered doing this year but determined it was not feasible with the time we had left.) So where our big garden is now, there may be a giant garden of corn, beans, and squash.

Perhaps something new and exciting!! We have lately been considering the prospects of honey, perhaps with a lovely field of berries to support it. We also have come back around to the idea of planting some christmas trees, as an investment in the future (they take about 5 years to mature from the size that we would buy them).

A weekly appearance at a farmer's market (or two or three!) We plan on re-applying to the Peterborough farmer's market and the Hancock Farmer's market, and we are still working on establishing a trendy new co-op sort of market in Greenfield for farmers, gardeners, home gardeners, bakers, and anyone who produced food and wants to share it with their community. I see no reason why Greenfield shouldn't be able to entirely support its community's food needs, given the amount of land we have and the number of people who have picked up gardening and farming and want to learn more!!

And altogether, hopefully the farm will be more established, a blooming business that is perhaps beginning to stand on its feet, or even just a comfortably large home garden that shares itself with the community. Whatever it ends up as next year, we hope that we continue to be supported in the endeavor and that we can keep working toward a positive change in our community! A garden is never a bad thing to have.

-Terra

PS. Pictures soon, I promise. Just gotta keep bugging Dan. :)

Where have we been???

It's hard to believe how long it's been since our last post. Things have been flying around here!

The squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes have exploded. It's been difficult just keeping track of them.

We're currently selling carrots, beets, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, purple broccoli, and kale. Because there are SO many vegetables, we've begun to sell more often. I usually bring a cooler of veggies into town every week day.

The tomatoes constantly need to be staked and re-staked, as they grow at an alarming rate, and there are so many of them! (4 rows!) Also, we've gotten a small infestation of tobacco hornworms, which we've managed to keep under control (they can devour an entire tomato plant in a matter of days!) but those need constant supervision.

The onions look like they're ready to be prepped for storage, which involves breaking the stem while they are in the ground and letting them sit for a while.

New crops need to be planted for fall. Spinach, lettuce, and whatever else.

And on top of all of this, Dan and I have begun to work toward starting a farmer's market in Greenfield. So far, we've attended a planning board meeting, and we were met with a lot of support! But there are a lot of obstacles to overcome. On Thursday, we will be attending the Selectman board meeting to share our idea. The plan is still a bit half-baked, but hopefully with enough community support, we can pull together a well functioning market that will help Greenfield to become a better town.

Now, I'd better go out and get to work! But hopefully there will be another post soon. :)

-Terra

Foes

I figured this topic would be a logical follow up to Terra's post last week on friends. Although we've been relatively fortunate thus far, there are a lot of forces that are working against us, and overcoming those negative factors takes up a large percentage of our time and energy. This is the case for all farmers, though in our case we tweak the balance in favor of time, where more mechanized or industrialized practices substitute energy. Here are some of the baddies we're up against, as well as what we've been doing to combat them.

Large Mammals

Nothing has quite the same potential to cause damage to a garden as a creature that can walk around, has an appetite at least as big as a human's and possesses at least some basic higher cognitive ability. Dogs, cows, deer and moose therefore are all very major concerns. Though we haven't suffered any losses from produce being eaten as of yet, Jackie and Granite manage to trample at least a few small plants just about every time they visit our garden, so we've taken to keeping them out as much as we are able to. For keeping the wild critters out, we've spent the last few days putting up an electric fence around the perimeter, which will stop the tramplers at least, and hopefully be enough to discourage anything from exploring our vegetables and discovering how tasty they are.

Insects

We've been pretty fortunate not to have too many major insects pests, because they are much harder to control than big animals. So far, the only one we've had any trouble with is the cabbage worm, a small green caterpillar that likes to gnaw holes in our broccoli and cauliflower. We're taking a pretty straightforward approach: when we see them, we pick them off. It should be noted however, that there are plenty of insects that are a much bigger problem for us, the farmers, then for our crops, such as black flies, horse flies and mosquitos.

Weeds

On a farm our size, weed control is actually fairly simple. We've been pulling weeds out by hand when they become big enough to be a problem and letting them compost. I'm actually hesitant to label the weeds a foe, because they can do a lot of good. The small, immature weeds that grow on the sides of our rows help to stabilize the soil, and the composted weeds will be good for the soil once they break down and release the nutrients they've stored. There are a few exceptions however. Along the stone wall on the west side of our field is a lush crop of poison ivy that doesn't help us in any way, and the lingering grass roots in the soil that keep shooting up new blades despite all of our best efforts are really kind of uncalled for at this point.

Environmental Factors

In addition to living foes, we have a number of inanimate ones as well. Weather is the main one. The hot stretch we had a couple weeks ago made working outside at times impossible, so it cut into our work time in a pretty critical period. Many of the cold weather plants also suffered from heat canker, a condition where the stem is constricted at the base due to the soil being too hot, during this period. Since we farm in New England, variable weather is simply a fact we have to accept, as is having an endless supply of glacial debris in our field. We have pulled perhaps a quarter ton of small to mid sized rocks out of the ground in the process of tilling and cultivating the soil. We've been using these to fill our drainage ditch.

I hope this current post doesn't sound too pessimistic. While listing together all the negative forces we're dealing with might make it seem like we're up against a lot, none of these by themselves has been to hard on us. We continue farming and dealing with the challenges as they come up, and so far it's working pretty well.

-Dan

Friends!

Today's post is about friends - both of the human variety and not.

Let's start with humans. We made our FIRST SALE yesterday!! We sold two 5 oz. bags of spinach to a couple friends of ours (and had some donations, besides!). Plus, there's even more people who are waiting to taste our delicious spinach. It's great to see that there are actually people who want to support us, and will choose our produce over the supermarket's! Even at $4.80 per pound, this is quite encouraging.

Secondly, we have a bunch of animal friends! (I know, usually animals are foes, but keep reading!) First, we have this killdeer who hangs around, often in the early morning. Here's what a killdeer looks like:

http://dckaleidoscope.files.wordpress.com/

He does this funny thing where he likes to run to each bed and stand on top of each one for a moment. It's so cute. And why is he a friend? Killdeer eat bugs that can be damaging to plants! Hooray for natural bug repellents! No silent spring necessary.

Next, there's this little milk snake:

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/

Just kidding! (About the 'little' part) He's about two feet long and Dan almost stepped on him! But he's definitely a friend, because milk snakes are not poisonous or otherwise dangerous to humans, and they love to eat rodents that might otherwise terrorize our veggies. No need for rodent poison either! I love natural solutions.

But I promised photos of the farm, didn't I? Unfortunately, I don't have my camera at the moment, and I was so eager to write this post, but let's see what Dan has on his camera:

Oh yeah... the day the cows ran down the road. We are fielding some cows for another farm, and one day I stepped out of my house and there were cows all over the place!

Okay, any pictures of the field?...

Here we go! There's the cauliflower on the left, kale in front, spinach two rows to the right, and then broccoli all the way on the right side. Even since this picture was taken, the field has gotten bigger and better. But where are the onions? The many MASSES of onions??

There they are! Sooo many onions. I just hope they all survive! And there's me, planting... more onions... and more onions... Man, I am glad that is over. Lets put it this way: In general, we have two rows of each crop. We have EIGHT rows of onions! That's a LOT of onions...

Other photos from Dan's camera? Here we go:

Jackie patrolling timidly...

The field...

Me on the bike that Dan fixed up, biking to the market to get dinner!

And a mother cow and calf straggling behind the rest of the herd...

And I promise... Photos galore are soon to come (from my camera this time! No offense Dan, your photos are lovely). Next time, on Clover Post... The spinach that sold, the raised bed crops, and more!

~Terra

Schedules...

I find it VERY helpful to have a schedule when I need to get things done. So, just to get a better idea of what goes on around here, this is my schedule in-the-making:

5:00 am - Wake up, get breakfast

5:30 am - Go outside, do heavy work (raking beds, rototilling, mowing) before it gets warm.

8:00 am - Do transplanting, sowing, weeding, or other less strenuous work as the day gets hotter.

9:00 am - Water the seedlings and the hoop house plants as the sun has probably dried them out by now. Take a water break!

9:30 am - Continue with the lighter work.

11:30 am - Come inside. Make lunch, wash dishes, and do other indoor things as necessary. Perhaps write a blog post.

Sometime between 12:30 and 1:00 pm - Back outside! More lighter work. Nowadays its generally a lot of transplanting... later in the season it will probably be more weeding and pruning, and then harvesting and cleaning!

My afternoon is flexible. I might have other jobs to do or things to get done (you know... with my other life). But if I am on the farm, I will generally just be doing whatever needs to get done. Today it was transplanting more onions. (SO many onions!!)

Around 5:00 pm - As the day starts to cool, I can resume doing heavier work.

6:00 pm - The sun is no longer directly hitting the garden, so I give everything a good soak of water for the night.

8:00 pm - Time to bring in all the tools and equipment from the field and put them away for the night.

8:30 pm - It's probably dark, so it's time to head in for the night!

Obviously, these times are going to change as the days get shorted and longer, but thats the gist. More photos coming soon, I promise! Things are crazy right now, and it takes three days just to finish a post. But I'm serious, I HAVE pictures, I just need to get them up!

~Terra

Rain? Frost? Sun? Wind?

The weather in New Hampshire is weird. Fact. These past few nights have gone below freezing, and yet I've been consistently working in the fields in a T-shirt (and also constantly taking on and off a sweater). Tonight its supposed to be 20 degrees F! I'm pretty worried about my little onions, spinach, and broccoli that are sitting out there. I spent a few hours today gathering old hay from the barn loft and spreading it around and over the young plants. I hope it will be enough. They have survived below-freezing nights already, this is just another test.

By the way, I found a friend in a rotting hay pile outside today! Here he is:

He's so cute!

I took a couple pictures and then put the hay right back. He looked sleepy. Apparently they are rare nowadays... whereas my mom says that she used to see them around the farm all the time when they moved in.

I also had some help today. These two little ones helped to pluck stones out of the field and chuck them in the drainage ditch. There are sooo many stones, it's great to have help!

Also, my friend Julia dropped by and helped me cover up the plants with hay. I can't stress enough how helpful it is to have friends drop by.

As for the plants: Here's what the plants in the field look like right now, all bundled up:

Nice and cozy!

(Those are onions by the way)

And here are some of the guys inside:

Violet cauliflower and young broccoli in the first, and older snow crown cauliflower in the second.

These photos feature LOTS of onions, kale in the first photo, and older violet queen cauliflower in the second.

I totally forgot to snap the broccoli and spinach until they were all covered in hay, and that really made for a boring shot.

Looking forward (sort of!!) to seeing if my little seedlings survive the frost!

Love from the farm!

~Terra

Schoooool's Out! for! Summer!

I am very, very happy to announce that I have successfully finished this school year! Granted, I am running on 4 hours of sleep and 1 1/2 meals a day, and I still need to pack. But the worst is over.

So, I will be returning to the farm (for the whole summer!) tomorrow morning. And then, I suppose, the real work begins! Here is my starters list:

• Write CSA invitations and mail them to our prospective members. This is a good first thing to do, since my body is recovering from a number of things right now, and immediate heavy lifting will be difficult. Although I might procrastinate from this a bit in order to get out and walk around in the sunshine (you can imagine how tired of writing papers I am right now).
• Let Dan catch me up on how the field is coming along, what plants are doing well (and which are not) and which are ready to transplant.

------

Okay, update. It's taken me a long time to get this posted... it's Monday night now. Things really took off after I wrote the above. Dan and I began to rake beds, and we've now transplanted broccoli, spinach, and some onions. We also did some direct-sow spinach, and we're planning to do the same with broccoli. Our new seedlings all look great! (That's tomatoes, violet cauliflower, and romanesco broccoli.) Also, we transplanted our biggest cauliflower seedlings into bigger pots, since we wont be able to plant them outside for a while longer. They look great too! Seems like our little seedlings are making great recoveries (pictures coming soon!)

I have the rest of the week to transplant onions, spread manure and hay mulch, rototill, direct-sow some more plants, and water, water, water. I also might be doing some emergency operations on frosted plants, by the look of it. Low twenties tonight! I'm crossing my fingers for the new transplantees.

So, things are beginning to chug right along. Old problems are out of our minds and new ones arise. Luckily, I feel ready to take it on! I'll start with those CSA letters right now...

~ Terra

Water

My weekday job at Peet's Coffee and Tea is generally pretty routine compared to the varied and unpredictable nature of farming. For today, tomorrow, and possibly Wednesday however, we can't serve coffee, tea, espresso, or just about anything else that normally sustains our business, so my coworkers and I have had little or nothing to do. The reason for this unusual situation, for those of you who live outside of the Metro Boston area, is that there is currently a water restriction imposed on Lexington, and a number of other communities in the MWDC water district, due to a recent failure in one of the aqueducts that brings water from Western Massachusetts to Boston. Drinking water has to be boiled before it is considered safe, and at the scale that Peets uses water it's simply no feasible to make beverages. So business has ground to a halt.

What does this have to do with Farming? Quite a lot actually, because having a source of clean water is important to growing food as well as making coffee. And as it happens, we are still trying to figure out how we are going to irrigate our fields this season. Our original plan was to use a catchment system and rain barrels, but installing the gutters and hoses need to make this happen may be beyond our meager budget. That leaves us either carting water by hand, or coming up with an entirely new solution. We'll see.

A lot of people in modern society take having a supply of clean water as a given thing. As recent events have shown, this is a mistake, and the current situation in Massachusetts serves to highlight how much depends on the largely invisible but vital services our utilities provide us with. One of our goals with Cloverly Farm is to be as self sufficient as possible, but it's rarely straightforward; our path to self sufficiency is going to be a long and winding one. Still, water seems like a logical place to start, since it is essential for everything we do.

Learning to Cope

Hey there y'all...

So as you know I am currently bogged down with end-of-year school work. I've found that I begin to get a bit loopy if I sit in my room doing homework for too long, so I decided to take a break and write a post.

I'm rather bummed right now, because a frost hit our dear seedlings, and a number of them (including most of our tray of chard) have permanently passed away.

This is the most difficult part of the year for me. I grow so attached to my little seedlings... even when I'm not there most of the time, apparently. When someone calls me from home, telling me that more seedlings have died, I get panicky. I go on wild searches on the internet for diagnoses and organic cures. Then I get depressed. I fall into a state of hopelessness, because what can I do, when I'm 2 hours away?

And if there's one thing that I hate doing, it's thinning. I know its going to happen, I plant 2 or 3 seeds in each plug, I don't do anything to avoid it, and then the day comes.... and I just can't. I can't pull up those little babies, who are working so hard to survive! Last year, for our little garden, I got my mom to do it for me. This year, Dan is taking on most of the dirty work. (It is interesting to note that "dirty work" in my mind means plucking little plants, but shoveling manure is perfectly clean).

It's a fact... I am just too attached to plants. As soon as a seed goes in the ground, I become its "mommy". I am crushed when one little guy plops over. Last year, I spent whole lot of energy on a couple of tomato plants that had been deemed the 'runts'. But I couldn't throw them away... so I made them their own little container. I was so proud when they bore fruit! (But it probably wasn't worth it!)

So how do I get over this? I've shoved aside the problem thus far, unrealistically reassuring myself that one day I will be such a good farmer, I will NEVER have to thin, and plants will NEVER die.

...Of course I know this is not possible. Its just a subconscious thing, spawning from my inability to cope with a regular part of nature and of farming. So how DO I cope?

I'm still trying to figure this out.

-Terra

PS. Meanwhile, here's a picture of my little babies!!

PPS. And NH, seriously, please don't snow again... not after we've all (including the plants) gotten used to the nice weather.

Dan Learns Time Management

I consider myself to be an organized person. I keep my living spaces neat, I arrange my possessions into categories, I wash my clothes with like colors. However all of these are spacial organizations; when it comes to organizing and managing my time I'm a mess, and as luck would have it I'm rapidly learning that farming draws heavily upon that very skill. So I'm presented with a choice: give up on being a farmer and take on a job where my time is organized for me or learn better time management. So far, I've opted for the latter.

This weekend presents an interesting time management challenge. If all goes well, I'll be up at the farm for two days, working on all the various things that need to get done, by myself. Terra, who has enough on her plate with school work, won't be around to help this time. Compounding the challenge is the fact that several things need to happen in a specific order. If all goes well, the end result will be our first round of plants in the ground, but between now and then is a juggling act of testing, improving and conditioning the soil. In order to make sense of this process, and accomplish everything in the time that I have, I did something I rarely do; I made a schedule.

It's a little strange to me: all throughout my years in school, I never made schedules. For large assignments I'd let deadlines be my motivator, and had I been inclined I could have plotted a very nice logarithmic function relating the closeness of the due date to the amount of work I did. I'm not proud of this method, and I've handed in some truly dreadful work because of it, but It served me well enough to earn a college degree. So trying to suddenly develop better time management skills is exercising a part of my brain that hasn't gotten nearly enough attention in the past. And it's actually a pretty good feeling.

-Dan

What I'm Looking For

I figured, since this is the beginning of the whole blog scene for us, that it would be appropriate to commence with a statement about what I am looking to gain from the farming experience -what my dream is, in other words.

1. Good Food

This means I know where it came from. I know it was grown with dedication and love. It was grown organically. It was grown sustainably. I know I can give it to my friends and family, and even to strangers, and feel good about it. I don't know what exactly makes home-grown vegetables taste better (is it because of the actual growing process, or just the accomplishment of having grown it yourself?) but it's no secret that they are simply better than what you can get in the supermarket.

2. Community

If there is one thing that I would like to bring my community together, it would be the food they eat. I think that we sometimes forget that food is essential for life. Why should we have to struggle so hard to get it? I would love to see my small town working together to produce all the food we need. (Goodness knows we have enough land...) So, one of my dreams will be accomplished when I see our community losing its dependence on the oversized supermarket, and spending more time in the sun, in the rain, together, smiling and growing and talking to each other.

3. Sustainability

The environment is of course a ever-growing concern on the minds of the public. There are a lot of issues that are out of my control, although I can do my part in reversing them. What we can do is to learn to live within the balance of nature (instead of fighting it, like humans tend to do). I am certainly lucky to have the opportunity given to me - especially the land and the time - to make a sustainable living situation for myself. I plan to take full advantage of the opportunity! As far as I'm concerned, I've lost enough time already! By the time I graduate college (probably just 3 more years) I want to be able to come back to a well-established, and always improving, sustainable homestead.

4. Experience

Lastly, of course, I just want the experience. This means a lot of things. Physically, I want to see myself at the end of the summer, or in a few years, tanned, hardened, calloused, ready to take on the challenges that I'm sure to encounter. I want to come back to school in the fall with stories as well as vegetables. I want to acquire the know-how to deal with practical situations, the mindset to be able to deal with business-related issues, and the knowledge of the workings of nature, plants, and animals. I'm sure that this path I have chosen will provide me with all of this. I see it as a wholesome career, filled with positive experiences. It's those experiences that I am looking for.

I believe that this covers most of what I am looking for... Love is difficult to define, you know. Even if you find it, you are always searching for it. So I'll just leave it with these four for now. And hopefully you can understand from these what makes me love farming so much!

Terra

Inputs and Outputs

I make the trip down to Lexington for a few days every week to work my other job at Peet's Coffee and Tea. Most of the time, my farming life and my barista life don't have a lot to do with each other, besides the occasional discussion about the farm with a curious customer, or my habit of recycling coffee shipping boxes for ground covers. But because of Earth Day, my shift last Thursday was a bit different.

On Thursday afternoon, a number of customers came into the shop looking for environmentally friendly coffee beans. I was thrilled to discuss with them the value of direct relationships with farmers, and in one case, the discussion turned away from coffee towards sustainable living in general. Later, after we closed for the evening, I talked for a little while with one of my coworkers about the farm and what makes for a sustainable lifestyle. When I left that night, I was reflecting on how nice it was to have discussions like that in order to make sense of the choices I've made for the sake of sustainability, as well as to help others find sustainable options for their own lives.

It turns out that both in broad discussions of sustainable lifestyle choices as well as trying to pick a coffee bean with good eco-cred, the guiding principle is the same: be aware of all inputs and outputs. This sounds so simple but it's not: you might know you are bringing coffee into your house, but where did that coffee come from, and where is the money you spent on it going? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you to avoid buying a product that was grown in a manner harmful to the well being of the land and the farmer who produced it.

In the case of our farm, being aware of the inputs and outputs is essential, and also deceptively difficult. I'm discovering that there are several currencies a farmer trades in on a day to day basis: Dollars, calories, nutrients, and karma to name a few. Managing inputs and outputs in all of these currencies, as well as conversion between them promises to be a path to a high level of sustainability, but only if done carefully and correctly. If we're careless, a lot of wealth could be squandered.

With that risk in mind, we're going to do our best to make good, informed choices about our inputs and outputs, with the understanding that there might be mistakes here and there. And hopefully some of our outputs come harvest time will make for good (and tasty) inputs somewhere else.

-Dan

Earth Day

Today is Earth Day. I am of the belief that Earth Day should be everyday. But then people wouldn't pay much attention, would they?

Ever since I was little, I loved Earth Day. I loved that it was in spring, when the flowers were starting to pop up, spreading scents across our old farm. The sun was gently getting warmer and brighter, and lasting longer. The grass felt soft, and the ponies shed their winter coats, leaving behind pillows of fur wherever they went. It is the time when I am - and most people are, with their own reasons - most aware of the Earth, because it tends to take us by surprise. One day you may wake up and hear birds, and look out the window and realize that it is green outside, and that the sun on your face is what woke you up. And suddenly, it feels like spring!

This year, my sense of spring, and of Earth Day, is different. It's not just the last frantic days of school, but also the frantic beginning of a summer. It's not just looking forward to long, lounging days, but also to a fulfilling and exciting adventure. Earth Day has a different meaning for me. It literally means Earth - uncovering it, digging it, tending it, and planting in it. I am so much closer to the Earth this year, as I focus all of my attention on it. It's health and vitality means everything to me. I am not just closer to the soil, but also I am more in tune with the weather. I feel the temperature closely. I watch the clouds move. I analyze the precipitation. By necessity, I am simply more aware of the Earth.

So this year, Earth Day is a reminder. I have to step back and remind myself of the simplicity of nature, and how everything works together. I have been stressing a lot about tiny little flaws in nature... every time a seedling wilts, or the ground is soggy... But this Earth Day, I am going to remember what I always knew before: Things grow. They want to grow. And even if I tried to stop them, I probably couldn't. I am just here to help them grow the best that they can. That is my new job as a farmer.

Here's to the Earth, who gets so much less credit than she deserves. With some effort from us, she would gladly help us back. (And she has.)

-Terra

Taking an Inventory

Terra and I have several times had a friendly debate over who's idea it was to start a farm. Her recollection is that I suggested the idea as an outgrowth of a more modest proposal to fix up the aging buildings. As I recall it, she suggested to me the idea of practicing organic farming in New Hampshire as "yet another option for your life," at a point when I was still very uncertain how to best spend my recently post graduate existence. In either case, it's strange to think that now, five months later, we've suddenly flung ourselves headlong into this project, without a whole lot of practical experience or know-how behind us. But that's where we are, and we're determined to make the best of it.
In order to keep myself from becoming overwhelmed at all the various things that aren't working out as planned, could potentially go wrong, or problems we haven't even anticipated yet, I've gotten into the habit of occasionally taking a mental inventory of our assets and accomplishments so far. And if it does good in my mind, doing it in writing and sharing it with the world can only do more good I suspect. So here goes:

• We've resolved to have a farm, whatever it takes. This is central to everything, because if Terra or I were willing to back down on this project, there would be plenty of opportunities to do so and it would happen eventually. But both of us are committed to seeing this season through, from planning to harvest.
• We've picked out what we want to grow and bought the seeds. This represents a monetary investment, getting us beyond the planning stages and into solid action.
• We've built a hoop-house. This was a major accomplishment, since it involved many steps, a lot of hard work, and a clear sense of purpose to see it through. We enlisted the help of my father for the actual design and construction, built the thing in Lexington in my garage, and then transported it up to Greenfield where we assembled it on a site we'd spent many hours clearing trash and brush from. Seeing it fully assembled made me feel like we were a lot further along the road to becoming farmers then we were when we started.
• We've started Onions, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Spinach and Kale in our hoop-house. So far, we have a number of healthy seedlings for all of these.
• We've cleared a 5000 square foot plot for vegetables. This isn't actually finished yet, because we still need to till and apply manure to the field, but the hard part, clearing sod and rocks, is done.
• We've cleared brushy weeds from the grounds around the barn to make it easier to move people and equipment.
• We've purchased a few new tools, and cleaned and sharpened a lot of old ones.
• We've helped Terra's father clean and organize the garage, so it's easier to find things.
• We've begun to talk to friends and family about supporting our efforts, both by helping us out and by investing in a farm share for this season.

So there is a lot to be positive about, but there is also still a great deal to be done. We are heading into a very busy part of the season, and we're going to have to stay positive as new challenges come up. Terra and I will make every effort to document our adventures in farming as they happen, so stay tuned!

-Dan