By Evan Rees, For the Weed Crew
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| 2014 Weed Crew from left to right: Zack Pockrose, Alice Fristrom, Evan Rees, and Laura Stone |
There are four of us proud to hold
the position of "weed crew" this summer but in truth, we are many.
Virtually everyone on the farm has jumped in with us at one time or another. We
had been joined by two interns from the Forest Foundation until their tenures
each ended last week (they will be missed). We have also had several regular
volunteers contributing multiple days of their free time each week for no
incentive other than to further the mission of the farm. Fridays and
Saturdays are drop-in days, and we often host larger volunteer groups
as well, including on more than one occasion students from an urban agriculture
class at Boston University. Graced with their own (arguably cooler) moniker,
these "crop mobs" have nonetheless contributed enormously to the weed
crew. As we squat over beds of cabbage and kale swapping stories and debating
movies, each one of these people has helped to make weeding a wonderfully engaging
and enriching experience, exemplifying the very definition of community.
This is not to say that the task
of weeding is in itself unenjoyable or tedious. It is, in fact, a hugely
variable and surprisingly nuanced job, the nature of which is subject to a
number of factors. Soil conditions, and size of the weeds as well as that of
the crop we aim to bolster are all to be considered. Carrots are a great
example of this, and upon tackling our sixth generation this week, one might
consider us somewhat to be experts at carrot-weeding. The first few generations
were tough to tackle. Chickweed had surged ahead of the sprouting carrots,
knotting itself around them, and wet conditions made the process of untangling
them slow and dirty, occupying us for the better part of a week. This latest
generation was relatively easy. With dry conditions and it being too late in
the season for chickweed, we tore through the beds in a day despite having
fewer hands to help. This time, the carrots also benefited from a thorough
flame weeding-which is every bit as cool as it sounds. There's a very small
window, about a week after carrots have been seeded, when flame-weeding can be
effective. Just before the seeds germinate, a propane-fueled flamethrower is
run over the bed, torching any eager weeds and giving the carrots a jump
on the weeds without disturbing the soil to expose new weed seeds. So far
this task has been left to farm manager Zannah, but we're holding out hope for
our turn!
For the first time all summer this
Wednesday, the weed crew each received a 7am phone call telling us to stay
home. The day's forecast, a vital utility for those spending all day outdoors,
had waxed ominous. With a one-hundred percent chance of rain and thunderstorms
for the morning, we all got the day off while the land got a much needed
soaking. Coming back to the farm the next day it was amazing to see the verdant
growth that follows such a storm. Unfortunately, nature is indiscriminate in
its watering; the weeds too received this boost. Some might find it
discouraging to weed a field one day and return two days later to find it once
again inundated, but one must accept that the process is endless, and the cycle
perpetual. This is the beauty of a farm: Plants grow, their fruits, seeds and
leaves are harvested, they die and are turned back into the soil to rot and
feed the next generation. We are not masters of the cycle but gardeners tending
it so that both of our needs are met. It would be easier to liberally apply
some awful chemical to keep the weeds at bay, but instead we kneel in the dirt,
hunched over, scuffling our fingers between the rows, sorting good sprout from
bad, relying on each other to pass the time. By doing so, we nurture our food,
our farm, our community and our world. This is what Waltham Fields does best.
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