Potatoes & mortality

A farmer may farm for much of their life, but only get so many tries at many things.

Take potatoes. They go in the ground in spring, and won’t come out till fall. A farmer can read about potatoes and BS about them all they want, but still only get one crack at them a year.

This rather jarring reality was put in number form for Jason in a farm documentary when a spud grower noted that a farmer may have 30 years to grow potatoes, but that’s only 30 tries.

If you’ve gardened on any scale, even pots on your porch, you know that the trial and error nature of growing makes that number seem small.

Accepting that the number of tries we’ll get at farming is finite brings both a feeling of peace and a sense of urgency. Mortality can be a real motivator.

While we’d love to have more than 30 years to farm, and, well, roam the planet, there will come a final season someday. A yearly reminder of this comes in the form of the frost.

On the farm, early spring to late fall passes in a blur. One minute, you’re standing in the gardens, with new buds all around, hopeful and excited, then suddenly you’re walking through your own frozen breath, awash in a sense of relief that the season is over, a melancholy you can’t quite put your finger on, and a hot desire to start all over again.

When our last season comes, we hope we’re long into our years, wrinkled and gray-haired. We hope it’s still the two of us, and we can even pass the farm on. We know we can’t count on any of this, but we are here now. There’s the two of us to work the land, and engage fully in this life we have with our son. There are no seasons to waste.

~ Stella

Alright, enough of that. Here’s some potato pics:

Jason, Silas, and Grandpa Gary recently planted spuds. Grandpa stopped by, saw what we were doing, and offered to help. At age 73, he hikes his property regularly, doing a mile loop. About a quarter-mile of it is uphill.

We planted two red varieties this season: Red Maria and Chieftain. We also did two yellow potatoes: Belmonda and Keuka Gold.

We have two potato patches this season. We did four rows on the north side of the Big Tunnel, and four rows to the south of the tunnel.

Here’s Patch No. 2.

P.S. The farm documentary was “To Make a Farm.”

Landscape fabric & a single fistful of weeds

Last night, as we walked through the Big Tunnel, checking out the tomato blossoms and talking about whether to start the CSA in the first week of June, or wait a week, I absentmindedly plucked weeds from the lettuce.

Exiting the tunnel, I looked down at the weeds clenched in my fist. A single fistful of weeds. That’s it. A full row of lettuce, and thanks to the landscape fabric, only a measly clump of very determined grass and Lady’s Thumb managed to squeeze around some of the lettuces.

We’ve learned lessons about being careful with when and where we put fabric down (early spring in a tunnel is risky because of voles). But when fabric is successfully put to use, it’s life changing when it comes to weeds.

This is my third season dealing with a chest problem that’s most definitely irritated by vigorous weeding by hand or with a hoe. (I’ll write a post about this eventually.) To casually pluck a few weeds in less than a minute feels like a miracle.

In this next photo, you can just see another lettuce row - with no landscape fabric - on the far right side of the tunnel. This lettuce was weeded at least three times, and is still on the verge of going out of control. Tending the lettuce by hand on this farm requires hand weeding and hoeing. The hand weeding is necessary to pluck out stubborn grasses by their roots. While the best rule to follow is to hoe before you even see baby weeds, this gets very difficult with two people (especially when one of us has a full-time job off farm).

Today, I’ll likely hand weed that lettuce row on the far right again. But knowing that I only have two lettuce rows right now to hand weed with no landscape fabric is a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.

As you can see, we’re also putting grass clippings and straw to use this year around long-haul crops like tomatoes and peppers. The very fact that we now have time and energy to rake up grass clippings says a lot about how things are always improving around here. (Hopefully getting a sweeper for the clippings soon.)

As for the life of the landscape fabric, it isn’t like single-season plastic. Fabric can last for decades if used properly.

The grass clippings, straw, and fabric all take a little more time and effort when you transplant, but escaping the physical, mental - and financial - toll of weeds is beyond worth it.

~ Stella

Saturday night broccoli planting

We planted Broccoli Round 2 over the weekend. The first round was transplanted in a high tunnel, under landscape fabric in early spring, and annihilated by very precise voles in a timely fashion. It’s getting too warm to put broccoli under a tunnel now, so it’s in outdoor beds, with no landscape fabric. We didn’t want to risk it. We’ll experiment with when and where to use fabric all season, and let you know what worked and what was a critter salad bar. Early spring in a tunnel is a definite no-no.

For this planting, we did two 125-foot beds of broccoli, each with two rows. So 500 feet total. While the fabric and voles led to strings of curse words and deeply-hurt feelings, the straw has been fantastic for weed control. It’s so worth the time it takes to spread around each plant.

This is our first season growing broccoli with the deer fence, and that’s very exciting. It feels tucked in safe from rabbits and chuckies with the straw, and we’ve kept the water on it. If it can just get a few inches taller it should be in the clear. Grow, broccoli, grow!

~ Stella

The birds and the butterflies

The new deer fence, with its tall, wood posts and sturdy wire, is doing a right proper job of keeping deer out, but it’s welcomed a new creature in: birds.

Jason noticed their arrival first. Working in the gardens, he realized he wasn’t alone anymore. Birds used the fence posts as landing pads to dip down to the beds. And just as Jason was growing more accustomed to seeing them, they seemed to be getting more comfortable around him.

After hearing his observations, I noticed it, too. Closing up a Cat tunnel for the night, there were a half-dozen robins searching for worms in the freshly-buried potato patch behind me.

Birds aren’t the only creatures using farm airspace.

As I rolled up the sides of the Big Tunnel, this eastern tiger swallowtail fluttered in the corner. It must have mistaken my yellow glove for a flower because it wouldn’t give up trying to poke its black straw through the fabric. Safely set upon a dandelion, it got straight to work.

While the fence appears to be drawing birds in from the woodline, the farm shed has always been a prime spot for nesting. We have robins now. Mother and father robin both bring food to the babies. I watched the mother drop a worm in a baby’s beak, and as soon as that worm was down the hatch, the baby opened its mouth again. I, also having a child who is a bottomless pit, imagined that mama bird sighing as she alighted from the nest to fetch another snack.

~ Stella

Edinboro Market in the news!

You might see a few familiar faces in this news segment about Edinboro Market! Thanks, Marti and Curtis, for encouraging us farmers to poke our heads up from the gardens for a bit.

Click here to watch the clip.

You’ll see and hear from Strawberry Lane, Fat Hawk, and No Dirt farms, and you’ll catch a glimpse of a few shy Plot Twist farmers.

Thanks again, Edinboro Market! Check out their wonderful all-local grocery store at 109 Erie St., in Edinboro.

~ Stella

Rethinking fresh herbs

Oregano grows in one of the high tunnels. If you chew a fresh leaf, it tastes entirely different than dried or cooked oregano. It's spicy, with a clean, fresh, minty aftertaste.

The soil in the Big Tunnel is dark brown and fluffy. This comes after several hard-fought years of being worked and amended. In the back corner of the tunnel, there’s a patch of oregano. Swirling my fingers around the plants to smote weeds before they even have a chance to sprout has a hypnotic effect. Sifting the earth, brushing the leaves, and releasing that soothing, oregano aroma almost sinks me in a trance.

Herbs are one of the best things about the farm, or any garden, from backyard havens to windowsill setups. Not only are they food and medicine, they’re an experience wholly removed from the speed of daily life. The aroma of a fresh herb tethers you to the moment, whether standing at the kitchen counter with sprigs of rosemary, or steeping a cup of mint tea.

Catching a whiff of fresh basil returns me to early mornings in a high tunnel, the sun pale yellow through the plastic. Shifting through the bright green plants and pinching the tender stems has a heady effect. It’s beautiful, but powerful, filling the air in the tunnel and testifying to the strength of plants, to help heal, to alter, or even to harm. My time on the farm, and filling my body with fresh herbs and produce, gives me a respect for plants, and an appreciation of their role on the planet and in a human’s daily health.

In an essay, cookbook author Olia Hercules wrote that herbs have a way of “freshening you up from within.” Hercules wrote about how certain cultures eat herbs as if they were vegetables, not just treating them as garnishes.

This idea was new and intriguing. It led me to put big handfuls of fresh herbs in soups and other foods. Yesterday, making a creamy soup, I blended in a heap of fresh oregano. It was the star of the bowl, the flavor smoothly pulling all the other vegetables together. And it created a small, warm pocket of a moment. A gift from the soil to us.

~ Stella

Today's achievements

Got a lot of work done on Day 2 of Jason’s vacation. But the BEST part of today was when Silas said OK to taking his training wheels off! Jason supported him with a light touch for just a few steps before he zoomed off on his own! He even rode down the big hill at the farm! What a day.

We learned a lesson with the landscape fabric in the high tunnels. Putting the fabric down in early spring might not be the best idea. We had a ridiculously annoying and costly vole problem in April. They offed about $400 worth of broccoli plants, and chomped almost a bed and a half of kale and parsley in the tunnel shown above.

With the broccoli wiped out, we seeded four rows of beans in that space as damage control.

To deal with the voles, we set traps and enlisted the help of two terriers. The remaining kale had a chance to get some size, and the parsley is recovering. This week, we’re replacing the eaten kale transplants.

The first two beds of landscape fabric are full of lettuce. The beds on the right are kale transplants.

There he goes!!!

~ Stella

Kale in bloom

Technically, this end of the Caterpillar tunnel is a mess, but isn’t it a pretty mess?

This kale was planted last spring, and to celebrate its full trip around the sun, it’s going to seed with sweet-scented blossoms. We’ll clear this spot soon to make room for eggplant and hot peppers, but for now the bees are enjoying the blooms.

~ Stella

Daddy's home

Jason took a few vacation days this week from his off-farm job. Somebody’s been glued to him.

~ Stella

Morning after the May snow

Sun on my shoulders was a welcome feeling. However, the ice-cold droplets falling on me as the breeze shook condensation from the high tunnel roof was some form of farm torture! So goes spring.

Here’s a look around the farm this morning after yesterday’s heavy, slushy snow.

Snow’s mostly gone. The farm sits on a hill, so the sun touches it early.

Spinach doesn’t mind the cold, and didn’t miss a beat with the inch of slush-snow yesterday.

Tomatoes and peppers in the high tunnels are doing just fine. The snow clumps outside slid off the plastic.

Lettuce in the Big Tunnel.

~ Stella