Notes from the Field: the Gratitude of Nothing Lacking

This one was a tough week.  It was hot, hot, hot, and dry, dry, dry.  The lettuce, in an unirrigated field, turned bitter and went to flower.  Our storage onions, in the same field, don't seem to be amounting to anything but big scallions.  The beets, kale, and napa cabbage just sat there, seemingly getting smaller.  It was difficult for the weed crew to weed, since the crops wilted as they pulled the weeds out from among the plants.  It was difficult to transplant, since even our robust Brussels sprout and cauliflower transplants wilted as soon as they touched the powdery-dry, 100+ degree soil. 

We sweated all day, every day, in the rain boots we were wearing so that we wouldn't get our feet soaked by the irrigation.  The disease we found in the pick-your-own tomato plants was confirmed to be late blight, so overhead watering the tomato and tomatillo patches was out of the question, as water spreads the disease.  We watched tomatilloes and beans, planted between rows of tomatoes, shrivel up as the week went on.  The field crew moved pipe, flushed pipe, irrigated, moved pipe again, up and down the fields, all day long.  We had to irrigate empty fields in order to help the previous crop residue decompose so that we could plant a second crop there.  We drip irrigated sweet potatoes and field tomatoes, eggplant and cucumbers and peppers, for literally days at a time.  I spent most of one day on the tractor, spraying copper on the tomatoes to try to protect them from late blight, racing the thunderstorms that finally delivered an inch of rain to us on Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, we picked thousands of pounds of squash and cucumbers from our new field at Gateways Farm in Weston.  Our outreach market, which provides organic produce to low-income community members for free with a voucher or for $5 a bag, opened on Tuesday evening.  It was very well attended despite its move to a shady new location; Dan, Sutton, Katie and Martha distributed over 70 bags of produce in one two-hour session.  Our garlic dried down beautifully in the greenhouse, with no sign of mold or disease.  The tomatoes kept growing, kept flowering, and began, slowly, to set fruit and ripen.  We fertilized, irrigated, and hoed the kale and Swiss chard, and they began to slowly rebound.  By Friday morning, after a week of work and an inch of rain, the color and texture of the plants was completely different.  The field crew planted thousands of scallions, broccoli, cabbage, beets, lettuce, fennel and kohlrabi for fall harvest.  We seeded more cilantro, dill, and a round of edamame for harvest around Labor Day.  There was no sign of the Spotted Wing Drosophila (yet) as our raspberries began the run up to their autumn harvest.

Most of the time, when things are going well on the farm, we don't mind working hard.  We are grateful for the chance to do work we love, work with a purpose and a result that can be measured in pounds, row feet, the beauty of a working landscape that we know like the backs of our dirty hands.  When things are not going well, on the other hand, this work can feel like that classic definition of insanity -- doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.  Irrigating again, despite the crops that keep wilting.  Spraying the tomatoes again, knowing that the best tools in our organic belt really only give us about two weeks of additional harvest time once late blight takes hold.  Praying for rain for the crops.  Praying for no rain for the tomatoes.  Trying to remember that there are other crops on the farm besides tomatoes.  Trying to remember that there are other tasks on the farm besides weeding.  Continuing to do hard physical work in uncomfortable conditions, wondering why we didn't get a real job in a climate-controlled environment. 

Using our brains and our bodies as hard as we know how, doing our best to work with nature instead of opposing it, even as the rules that we once counted on seem to be changing, can feel a little crazy when the rewards are so uncertain.  After all this -- planting and fertilizing and staking and tying and tying again and watering and fertilizing and spraying and spraying and spraying -- we still might not get any tomatoes.  We might lose a crop -- or more than one -- in the field that desperately needs some irrigation next season.  We might not quite be able to keep up with the weeds despite all of our efforts.  These losses, like our successes, can be counted in pounds, row feet, sleepless nights, empty hands.  They can gnaw at you if you let them.  They can whittle away at your endurance until you are numb, unmotivated, uninspired, thinking about that real job.  That job job.  

After the rain last Wednesday night and a long day of harvesting and distributing food on Thursday, I had a moment of remembering how to feel the gratitude that, most days, keeps me going.  It was a perfect summer evening, with a few shareholders still wandering through the beans and basil.  There was plenty of food in the fields.  There was a little moisture in the soil, a bouquet of flowers on the table, a chance to stop and take a breath and drink it in before I raced home to my waiting children.  There it was -- nothing lacking.  Nothing wanting.  Not everything in its place, the way I would want it -- nature is too wild and unpredictable for that.  But everything in its place, the way it is.  And us -- us in our place too.  

Enjoy the harvest,

Amanda, for the farm crew


Images by Rebekah Carter (2012).

Notes from the Field: Cover Crops

As much as we love the edible fruits of our labors, some of the most satisfying crops we grow are ones that we don't harvest. A key part of organic farming, at least in our non-governmentally-approved definition, is the building of soil. In our minds, this means creating a resilient and healthy ecosystem filled with micro-organisms from insects and worms to bacteria and fungi, with a physical structure and chemical balance that supports crops as they take root quickly, grow vigorously, and become a robust plant that tastes delicious and yields well. In the rest of our bodies - well, you can just tell when the soil is good. Digging sweet potatoes last week, we were overjoyed by the dark, crumbly, rich texture, easy to sink a fork into and filled with earthworms. In the broccoli field near the CSA shed, the dark blue color of the plants is an indicator of their vitality. In the very dry days of midsummer, though, the soil seems to lose structure, and plants don't take off the same way; we have significant disease issues in several of our crop families; and there are 'trouble spots' in some of the fields where plants act different, remaining small and spindly despite getting the same treatment as their companions in other rows. We have a ways to go before our soil is exactly the way we want it.

One of the ways that we work to leave our soil better than we found it - a tall order, since it is inherently prime agricultural land -- is by planting cover crops, sometimes also called 'green manures'. These are crops that grow in the fields when we don't have cash crops there, and while all are key soil builders, keeping the soil in place and adding organic matter when they are turned back in, some have specific jobs to do. In the early spring for the past few years, we have planted field peas on land that doesn't need to get planted into vegetables until late May or June. Peas are great nitrogen fixers, capturing nitrogen from the atmosphere and converting it to a form that is useable for crop plants that follow them; this means we can reduce the amount of fertilizer we apply to those crops when they do go into the ground. Peas also disappear quickly when we turn them into warm late-spring soil, so they are great early season green manures.

This year, on the recommendation of the wise farmers at Roxbury Farm, we tried an early season mix of peas, oats, and bell beans -- a kind of small fava bean -- before some of our fall broccoli and cauliflower. The beans and peas are both nitrogen fixers, and the oats, which come up quickly, are a 'nurse crop' grain, adding organic matter and bringing up minerals from the soil. We seeded this cover crop in April, turned it in with the tractor in mid-June, and planted the brassica crops in July. The result, with a little help from some alfalfa meal and kelp meal, is the beautiful blue-green field beyond the CSA shed -- the plants there are big and strong and healthy, despite being planted in the midst of the dry weather back in the middle of the summer. They are maturing quickly, each variety in its own time, the way we like them to, and are not succumbing to any of the many diseases or pests that can sometimes plague their family at this time of year. It's interesting to compare that field with the one behind the plum tomatoes, which also has broccoli and cauliflower in it, but following a cash crop of snap and snow peas rather than the cover crop mix. These were also planted about two weeks later, so they are smaller for a reason; we'll see what the final harvest and disease picture looks like, but the initial results of our highly unscientific experiment in cover crop management are positive.

At this time of year, we start seeding cover crop combinations on all the land where the vegetable crops are finishing up for the season. We generally try to plant pairs of crops, including a legume to fix nitrogen (which is otherwise a very mobile nutrient that is easily lost to the atmosphere or groundwater) and a grain to hold the soil in place over the winter, collect minerals, and add organic matter when they are incorporated. From the beginning of August through the beginning of September, if we have any space that we're not immediately re-planting with fall greens, we like to seed oats and field peas. These two crops grow through the fall and then 'winter kill' in our climate, forming a beautiful golden mat that is very easy to turn in in the spring, perfect for early crops like beets and carrots. After about the second week of September, oats and peas probably don't have enough time to put on good growth in the fall, so we seed a second cover crop pair, rye and hairy vetch. In this pair, vetch is the legume and rye the grain. Vetch, rumored to be a more efficient nitrogen fixer than peas, is also a good weed suppressor and soil conditioner -- but it is slow to establish and needs the 'nursing' of the rye to help bring it along. Both of these crops will survive the winter in Massachusetts and resume growing in the spring -- sometimes too vigorously, if we don't keep an eye on them! We sometimes mow them right when the vetch begins to flower (usually in May) and then turn them in with a moldboard plow or disk harrow before making beds for our crops.

If you walk around the farm at this time of year, you'll see it all: crops right at the peak of their growth, like the broccoli; crops that are finished, like the tomatoes; crops that have already been turned in, like the crops in our around-the-corner field just beyond the treeline. If you look carefully, you can see the delicate spears of the oats and the curly tops of the peas just coming up in the furrows where the disk harrow scratches them in. They are especially beautiful in the early morning when they carry a heavy blanket of dew. To me, the sight of these crops feels deeply right -- it means that we were able to get our crop out, get the weeds turned under (weeds, by the way, should not be underestimated as cover crops in their own right, although sometimes they can host pests or diseases that can have a negative effect on the following crop), and get the cover crop planted -- a 'thank-you' to the soil, and a way to help prepare the fields for the season to come.

Enjoy the harvest!

- Amanda, Andy, Erinn, Dan, Larisa and Lauren

Don't forget: Soil Habitat Library Program

Waltham Fields Community Farm

invites children ages 6-11 and their caregivers to our

Soil Habitat Library Program

Tuesday, March 22nd
from 3:30-4:30PM at the
Waltham Public Library

Come in for an activity and story hour to learn about the different critters living in the earth.

Sign up is required, so please visit the library's website to register.

Image by Rebekah Carter (2011).

Snow: Winter's Gift to the Garden

January 30, 2011: the Learning Garden under cover

With a handful of major snow falls already under its belt, New England is expecting yet another storm this week, possibly dropping as much as one to two feet of powder in some regions! While these snowy conditions have some people wishing they were living on the Equator, this classic New England winter wonderland provides several benefits to the garden, including insulation from extreme cold and wind, additional soil moisture, and the deposition of atmospheric nitrogen in crop beds.

Get your boots and shovels ready for another day in the snow globe that is Massachusetts!

Rebekah

Your Trash is My Treasure

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, up to 26% of solid waste (about 68 million tons!) dumped into American landfills each year is made up of food scraps and yard trimmings that could otherwise be used towards soil building and improved food production. Lucky for the home gardener on a budget, compost is one of the best and least expensive ways to help your garden thrive during the growing season while also reducing your solid waste contribution to municipal landfills.

Compost is a combination of carbon and nitrogen-rich plant matter that has decomposed into a dark, earthy-smelling, soil-like result known as humus, Latin for "earth" and "ground". Humus provides garden beds with plant-loving nutrients while it also improves soil structure, providing better air-circulation and moisture-retention. Decomposition of plant material into humus relies on elements such as air and water in addition to the work of many tiny creatures like insects, worms, and microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi; as these creatures chow down on our food and yard scraps, they produce the necessary heat and castings that turn our waste into humus. Humans can also help the process by providing the proper environment for pile decomposition, as discussed below. Gardeners can buy a composting bin, build their own using materials such as wood and wire, or simply make a big, free-standing heap! Getting started is as easy as adding the following waste items to your pile:

Carbon or "Brown" Matter:

• Fruit peels and pieces
• Newspaper and cardboard
• Fireplace ashes
• Wood chips and shavings (untreated!)
• Leaves and pine needles
• Twigs and sticks
  
• Straw
• Nut shells and corn stalks
  

Nitrogen or "Green" Matter:

• Vegetable peels and pieces
• Food waste
  
• Grass and hay
• Eggs shells
  
• Coffee grounds and tea bags
  
• Seaweed
• Weeds (decrease risk of spreading weeds by completely drying out all weeds prior to composting and leaving out particularly invasive varieties)
• Leguminous crops (alfalfa, clover)
• Manure
  

Home gardeners should NOT compost the following:

• Meat and dairy foods (get too stinky and attract larger animals)
  
• Coal ashes
• Color-printed paper and cardboard
• Diseased plants
• Invasive weeds
• Pet waste
• Synthetic chemicals
  

The saying goes "compost happens," but for those with less patience and nutrient-depleted soil, it doesn't seem to happen soon enough! However, there are several composting techniques available to gardeners and farmers alike, including:

Cold or slow composting, a maintenance-free way to compost; as simple as adding organic matter to your pile and waiting for nature to run its course,
Hot composting, a more intensive technique relying on a higher pile temperature for quicker decomposition, and
Vermicomposting, a form of composting utilizing the decomposition powers of worms

Looks like too much carbon and too little moisture!
Fall 2010

While it can take several months to a year for adequate decomposition to have taken place, you will be more than happy to see the effect this natural fertilizer has on your harvest once applied to your garden beds. Use the following suggestions to help quicken the decomposition process:

• Cut up matter into smaller pieces that microorganisms can decompose more quickly
• Try to maintain a good carbon:nitrogen balance (the EPA suggests 1 part "brown" matter to 1 part "green" matter, though other sources recommend a larger amount of carbon-rich matter); add extra "green" matter to increase pile heat or extra "brown" matter if the pile starts to stink
  
• Turn (mix) your pile to aerate it
• Try to maintain a good moisture balance; too little water can kill bacteria and stop decomposition while too much water can make a pile slimy and stinky and halt the action of aerobic (requiring oxygen) microorganisms
  
• For faster compost, try to maintain a pile temperature between 120-160 degrees F during warm seasons; positioning your pile in a sunny area and adding matter in large bunches (as opposed to small amounts) helps maintain high temperatures

Composting during the Winter

During our cold and snowy New England winter, most if not all outdoor decomposition comes to a halt unless the pile is kept warm enough for microorganisms to continue their work. Unless you already have a large, established pile or a well-insulated bin, you should start your own compost after winter conditions have passed. However, many local farms and composting facilities are happy and willing to let you dump your compost-approved waste onto their mammoth piles during the winter months. Be sure to first discuss your desire to provide food and yard waste with farm and facility staff PRIOR to dumping anything, as every organization has its own set of rules and stipulations that should be respected!

We will further explore these different forms of composting this spring and summer in the Learning Garden and on our blog, but for now, save your scraps and stay toasty!

Rebekah

Composting suggestions based on data provided by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, the University of Missouri Extension, and the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Images by Rebekah Carter (2011).