Let's All Do A Rain Dance!

As I see it now, the theme of the summer is easily summed up in two words: HOT and DRY.  It literally feels like the dust bowl out there and I can't really remember the last time we had a soaking rain.  The sun felt strong this week and although it's physically challenging work, I feel more connected to our Earth and our food through this challenging weather.  We as farmers spend most of our waking hours absorbed in the same environment as the food we grow and eat.  It feels similar to when you share a meal with someone and you are all eating the same thing.  Knowing that we as a crew and as a community share the same sun rays as the plants, the same temperature, and live on the same soil, keeps me going on those long, hot days.  There is a freedom in simply being in our environment in all weather and letting go of our comfort zones.  This is when I see the most growth and change in my life.      

Our morning routine this week has been to head straight for the water and in every direction possible.  We are using all the tricks we can.  Our aluminum pipe system has taken up residence in our newly planted west field, taking care of our fall brassicas, chard, lettuce, and beets.  This system which delivers the most water through overhead sprinklers requires us to move about 7 long aluminum pipes across the fields.  It feels as though you could pole vault with these - they are much lighter than one would think.  It's quite empowering to carry them on your shoulder and I must say that Erinn and Dan both do it with such grace, each able to carry two pipes at once. 

Second, we have the water reel (not to be confused with the water wheel which is used when transplanting).  This is just a couple years old now and let me tell you, it's a work out setting it up.  It is a retractable hose with a sprinkler attached that covers about 7 beds in either direction depending on the wind.  When Janelle and I pull it out at 7am, we debate over who will get the full body workout and who gets just intense arm strengthening.  It's a great way to wake up in the morning if you ever get a chance to try it.
Yet another way is our drip lines that remain under our biodegradable plastic used with our tomato, eggplant, and onion crops to name a few.  Although this takes more time and possibly more money upfront to lay down on the beds, it is ultimately a more efficient system and requires us only to turn the faucet or pump on for a few hours assuming the pump is working...  It does require time for setup and repairing of holes, but the water goes directly to the roots avoiding the pathways and foliage of the plants.  It also does not compact the soil as much as an overhead sprinkler system. 
Lastly, we are even using your run-of-the-mill home oscillating sprinkler which works great for directly seeded crops like our carrots, but also has saved the flowers which I will

add are STUNNING! Erinn has done an amazing job! With all of these methods of watering we must think strategically in order to be most efficient with our time and energy as well as conserving water where possible - which is what farming is all about.  We need to think about how long the water reel will take to run, which pipes have more pressure, what crops are in dire need, what covers the most amount of space, what will need transplanting next, etc.   

Last week marks the end of an era and the beginning of many others.  Summer education programs started last week and it's refreshing to have so many young people on the farm.  There is so much discovery and exploration happening and it puts a smile on my face.  A couple weeks ago a little girl asked me as I was in the wash station, "Are you a farmer?" and I replied "Yes I am, who are you?" and she proceeded to tell me her name.  It's such a delight to have so many levels of education happening in one place. 


We finished harvesting the garlic which had been in the ground since November, so it felt like a big deal.  This particular garlic really went through the ringer.  It sprouted in December and then we quickly mulched it with leaves.  It definitely experienced some deep frosts and did not receive much water or fertilization.  We didn't even need to weed it all season!  But to both Erinn's and my surprise it is some of the most beautiful garlic we have had in a few years.  The garlic will now cure in our greenhouse for a couple of weeks so that it will be able to store for the winter months.   

As for the summer vegetables, such as tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and carrots, they are moving along and should be ready very soon.  Luckily for these crops the heat and sunshine is perfect - we just need to keep watering.  The routine continues of seed, transplant, water, weed, water, harvest, and repeat.  And did I say water?      

I will leave you with a quote Amanda shared a few years back at this midsummer time. "The beat of time is like the throb of a healthy heart, strong, steady and reassuring...it is the richness and the ripeness of the earth again made manifest. And man participates, if he will, not as proprietor but as a participant in life itself." -Hal Borland.

Enjoy the summer, the harvest, and the world around us,

Anna Kelchlin

Assistant Farm Manager

for the Farm

Notes from the Field: Summer Solstice

The sun stood still last week at the northernmost point in its travels up the sky. The weekend full moon was huge, the closest to the earth it will come this year. A double rainbow graced the sky after a brutal thunderstorm pounded the fields with yet more rain. We plowed under the spring's cover crop, driving the tractors through fields of purple and white vetch and pea flowers under a perfect blue sky to prepare the way for the fall's broccoli and cauliflower. Must be summer.

The beautiful weather at week's end was a balm to farmers to whom the spiritual exercise of waiting and acceptance does not come easily in the rain. Dan, Sutton and Zannah jumped on the tractors to cultivate everything in sight, and the weed crew followed behind to clean up what was left. We were grateful once again for our well-drained sandy loam soils as the sun and light breeze quickly dried them out and left them perfect for planting and cultivating. The field crew, who had their first few days with us last week, proved that they are up to the task, picking beautiful bunches of greens and radishes and transplanting chard, rutabaga and beets for harvest later in the season. We ferried a thousand tomato stakes to the fields at the Lyman Estate, ready to tie up the robust, stout tomato plants that escaped their brush with the pythium soil fungus during the wet weather and now stand as tall as our knees. We released our first batch of beneficial parasitic wasps, to try again to cut down on the fuzzy yellow bean beetle larvae that can decimate a bean planting. We seeded a summer buckwheat cover crop on a fallow field even as we turned in our spring cover crops. Fava beans grew. Carrots and squashes lengthened and fattened. Pigs seemed hungrier than usual once the rain stopped and they could forage outside again. The sun stands still, but farmers and vegetables don't.

Still, there is a subtle shift in the tasks of the season at the solstice, despite the fact that weeding, planting, harvest and field preparation continue. The twin hurdles of the summer -- staking and tying tomatoes and planting the big block of fall brassicas -- are still before us. As those finish, we'll turn our thoughts and bodies to the summer's heavy harvests: summer squash and cucumbers in July, eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes in August. The fruiting crops remind us that the energy of summer is in ripening, maturing - the work of completion and fulfillment that tends towards the autumn seed. The quick growth of the crops (and weeds!) on sunny summer days is almost visible to the naked eye. Vegetable plants are building their framework, adding on daily, growing above and below the soil during these longest days, resting at night to prepare for more growth, more stretching, more expansion during the day. And although we farmers sometimes barely notice it in the full business of the season, the solstice is an immovable marker on the wheel of the year. It comes, and passes, whether we observe it or not. The crops tell us. The sun tells us. Our tired bodies remind us. Summer's work is upon us.

Enjoy the harvest,

Amanda, for the farm crew

Photos courtesy of Saul Blumenthal.

Notes from the Field: Too Much of a Good Thing

Plants need water. This is one of those basic lessons you learn in elementary school (or, in the case of my personal houseplants, you keep on learning -- sorry, plants). When it's raining, we don't have to irrigate. When it's raining, we can get other work done.

These are the things we kept telling ourselves last week when it just kept raining. We got six inches of rain between Friday the 7th and Thursday the 13th -- more than in the entire month of May. It rained while we were doing our first harvests, re-learning all the things we knew last season about picking and packing and washing and storing. We got a few beds of okra and lettuce planted in between the showers. We seeded lots of fall broccoli and cauliflower in the greenhouse. All of the other tasks that farmers need to do in June -- cultivating, turning in cover crop, seeding, making beds for crops that need to go in, fertilizing plants that need a little extra after the rain washes it all out, scouting for all the pests and diseases that can pop up in cool, wet weather -- had to wait. Even the weed crew, who just started June 4, had two days when they helped harvest instead of weeding last week as the rain made it too wet to pull weeds in the field.

The trick with the wet weather is the mind games it plays. We know we shouldn't be in the fields when they're that wet. Even the pigs know; they stayed inside their Pig Palace for most of last week. But farmers sitting on their hands in June, when we should be our busiest, makes for some cranky farmers. We should be out killing weeds. We should be out seeding carrots. We should be out plowing in rye and vetch to make room for fall crops. But we can't. And so we wait. And worry. We pace, and complain, and put on the rain gear again, and get used to the ache in the feet from the rain boots that -- let's face it -- just aren't that comfortable, and try to remember all the things that we had on our rainy-day list back when it was sunny and warm.

The wise farmer Dan Kaplan, of Brookfield Farm in Amherst, said of last week "at times like these we try to remember that what is required is a spiritual practice. We can only change what we can change. And for all else, we have to learn acceptance."

By Friday, acceptance came a little easier. We remembered how to deal with wet weather. You put all your plans on the shelf and seed in the greenhouse. You eat a little rhubarb snacking cake (thank you, Lizzie!) and catch up on your paperwork. You settle in to the sound of the drops on the barn roof and greet all the shareholders who don't mind picking herbs in the rain, and enjoy the sight of all the brightly colored rain gear in the fields. You wait for the rain to stop and the sun to come out so that you can check out all the crops, see how things fared, and catch up on everything else.

Enjoy the harvest,

Amanda, for the farm crew