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:

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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:

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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.

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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.