Posts filed under 'spring'
Spring love matures (and so do the weeds)
As much as I knew it would come, being here at the end of the giddy stage of spring, when our farm (where landscaping has taken a second seat to things growing for the business) abruptly turns green after that splash of color, is still something like walking on uneven ground, that bumpy step a little jolting. Everywhere I look it is green, the green of grasses, mostly, and other weeds loving the warming up of the weather just as much as the rest of us. The fruit trees are done blooming, the spring bulbs and flowering trees too, even the early weeds have already blossomed and set seed (shudder). Thankfully we are able to leave the beautiful white and pink blooms of our winter arugula and black spanish radsishes along with the unmistakable yellow flowers of the mustards and turnips for a bit longer…the bees and my eyes need something colorful to feast on. But these blossoms too, begin to feel like weeds as they get in the way of working around new growing things.
As ambitious as early spring is with its newfound energy, the rising from winter’s slumber and slow going, the inevitable next step comes and its reality is not as flippant and full on as the sowing of a new year’s seeds. The season gets warmer, and the watering and weeding begin. That is what we did this weekend,; recovered beets and kohlrabi and carrots from the mat of other growth thinking it had found a nice place to grow too, freed some broccoli from the start of a dangerous relationship with the nasty bindweed, gave our bunching onions access to more light, and started on getting the grass out of the fava beans although their growth is vigorous enough to withstand sharing–we just don’t want the slugs having ladders to the pods which are now setting.
And this kind of work is more sobering than planting even when the sense of accomplishment is almost more fulfilling when you finish. Now our early spring love affair with a new season is tempered by what time brings. Just like any love affair, your vision at first is beautifully rose colored. Now that the first flush of petals have fallen, some of those irksome growing challenges are up for evaluation. There are still spots in the field where the difference in soil quality is fairly dramatic. There are still some broccolis buttoning (producing a small head before the plant matures because of stress from soil or heat?), still poor germination on our first planting of carrots, still flea beetles on the pac chois, and spotted cucumber beetles on the chard. Things are not picture perfect, for sure.
Still, the upshot is that we are seeing all of these things on a much smaller scale than ever before, and we can see that at least from the pest perspective, the plants are stronger than the damage they can do this year. Soon they will have outgrown the worst of it. Carrots are in the queue for succession plantings into July, and in truth the germination percentage on that first planting is close to 50% where we had 0% on our first planting last year (I suppose we are just pushing the envelope for carrots with that first planting anyways). We way, way, way overplanted broccolis because they are so fickle anyways. And at least after the main growing season comes to a close, we can clear this space and really work with it for soil improvement since we have a separate space for fall/winter plantings. That will make a world of difference.
So the season matures, we settle into its routines. We have the bulk of our spring planting done (which is why we took the last few days to weed, weed, weed). Most of the tomatoes, the eggplant, some more corn, and more basil…that is what is left besides things that are continually planted in succession. We won’t have another big planting push until July, so weeding and watering do become our main occupations, along with the all important harvesting! And even though all the early spring colors have turned to blankets of green over here, when we weeded the raspberries yesterday, our first year’s planting was vibrating with a steady bzzzzz! Many of those early flowers are working there way towards summer fruit, a feast of colors for the plate. And we planted all those annual flowers, a quick fix for more lavish blooms for us and cut flowers for all of you. And even the humble vegetable blooms that proceed the harvest are beautiful in their own right. It may be green right now, but just around the corner will be summer’s color show, one that holds steady and true into winter even though it doesn’t take our breath away quite like the first of spring.
Add comment May 20, 2009
First CSA Harvest of 2009!
Photos by Olorin Jaillet!
Although we find ourselves 7 or 8 weeks past our hoped for starting date for the 2009 season, we are pleased to be starting 6 weeks earlier this season than last, making for 35 weeks of veggie harvests this year. Providing our farm members with fresh and healthy food for 2/3 of this year is exciting, and another step closer to our final goals for the farm. And at the start of this year we can’t help but being excited with where we are now.
The soil on this poor old farmstead had seen years of abuse…nothing chemical, thankfully, but the topsoil from two fields had been scraped and sold to the old Riverbend dump and almost every other space had been cut for hay or overgrazed. Although the animals that were grazed here gave something back to the land as they grazed, never as much as was taken; and when a field is cut and the green matter is removed, all of the energy the land put into the growing of that grass is taken, something needs to go back and this was never intentionally done. The pastures our first two years here showed signs of this. They were filled with thistles and grew grass poorly. The vegetable field was heavy clay, and was also weedy with thistles and queen anne’s lace. For those of you who have been members since our first season, you well remember the troubles we had in such a growing space.
But things have improved each year as more and more organic matter has been added to the soil. When we started working the beds this year, we found the soil in most spots is great, loose and rich and beautiful! And the thistles, which thrive in subsoil and poor soil have been replaced by lush clovers in the pastures and a whole host of really beautiful herbacious weeds that we have yet to identify. These are great signs of soil improvement, which is really our overarching purpose on the farm anyways. The rewards of healthy animals grazing good pasture and healthy fruits and vegetables from healthy and alive fields does ultimately benefit all of us in the form of delicious flavor and nutrient dense food; still, we believe that human survival depends on healthy soil, on the smallest of living creatures like healthy micro-organisms in the soil and the buzzing bees in the clover. It is hard for us to imagine that the farmer whose home this was and who at one time owned a hundred of these acres of farmland around us left behind a homestead with soil in disrepair, nor a single bit of fruit or shade/wind trees anywhere. The latter is a bit trivial, but it seems it is a farmer’s duty to protect the land, to build it, to nourish it, because as with anything in life, the take, take, take mantra will never really yield any true return. So we are thrilled with these signs, and we anticipate a great year of growing!
We are also working more space this year moving from growing on a little less than 1 acre up to 2 acres, which is exciting. Some of the new space is planted in fall/winter crops like leeks, Brussel sprouts, and potatoes,which we are determined to let grow to maturity, foregoing so many new potato harvests (our favorite!) in order to have them for winter when we will appreciate them even more. Most of it will be sown in cover crops for our mid-summer plantings for fall, winter, and next spring. This provides us with enough space to really have 45 weeks of veggie harvests, our ultimate goal, as well as allowing each field a resting period. We would have needed a lot of inputs to keep our smaller plot producing year round and healthy.
We are also hoping to experiment with growing on our lower field. Another source of frustration we have with the previous land owner is that this whole field is planted in reed canary grass. This grass was once encouraged as a good forage/hay grass for wetlands, but it is truly invasive and persistent and follows water, filling streams, choking out diversity. There is a small portion of our lower fields which the horse on our property favors grazing. We have begun to see a bit more diversity in this patch as well as less canary grass growth to this point. Aside from that, the soil under this grass is beautiful from river floods. So after we get soil test results, we hope to try a large pumpkin planting on this section, hoping that the sprawling vines of the pumpkins will help smother the grass. After Halloween, we will let this year’s pigs down to eat the rest of the pumpkin crop. Our hope is that they may be able to root out the canary grass rhizomes. This will most likely be a lengthy process, but one we are excited to try.
And although it is always hard for a parent to reconcile the fact that babies grow just as fast as weeds, as we tackle the heavy to do list of spring on the farm, our children, all another year older, are just that, another year older. The boys are so helpful, but our youngest, who is just a few weeks shy of 3, is (for the most part) now past just working on distinguising path versus growing space and we have another great garden helper! As she helped put transplants and potatoes in the ground this year, after each one she raised her arms to the air and exclaimed to the plant and the universe, “Grow, Plant (Potato), Grow!” It is hard to imagine that with these blessings we won’t have a great year!
2 comments April 22, 2009
Nice night gives way to bad day…it must be spring!
As Scott’s comment on Andre’s picture post on Saturday of last Friday’s beautiful weather warned, the day to come was terrible on more than one level. Sure, the sun gave way to grey clouds and rain…in a way that was welcome. We had been able to get a bunch of tilling done while the ground was dry and the days were warm, and with some of that work done, we didn’t mind the drier than normal Willamette Valley getting some much needed rain. But more than the grey and the rain replacing that wonderful sun and warmth, it was the incredible wind, so very windy on our own very unprotected piece of the pie. I came back from town and spotted the crushed, broken, ripped, and ruined greenhouse as I rounded the last bend towards our home. I don’t curse and didn’t this time, but the word did sound in my mind. I was sure I would find Andre upset, but he wasn’t. The seedlings were fine…they just didn’t have a home anymore. Now we have them in our small tunnel hoophouses and back in the front room by the south windows were we started all of our seeds our first year around. This is all less than ideal, though not terrible. The brassicas we put in the tunnel hoophouses are now going to be much warmer as the smaller space will heat up quicker, we just can’t walk in and water/thin/fertilize in an easy, efficient manner.
And it is in the midst of seeming contradictions that we can be assured we have made our way to spring. The ever changing weather, the new season’s steps forward and back, the beginning of something new albeit old….March, the ambivalent month. Still, it is a forward moving month, and although we are trying to stay in the moment, in the very beginning of it all, the first buds and new growth, rather than jumping ahead to the thick of it all, soon we will have rounded the corner and come more squarely into more predictable times on the farm. Hopefully we can move forward ourselves to more predictable farming. We can start with a well anchored, durable greenhouse come next spring’s winds!
2 comments March 18, 2009
