Tiny Farm Blog Organic micro-farming with two acres and some tools ~ a daily photo journal...

Back to cold and wet, with a bit of snow… Today was an interesting first in my brief tiny farming career: compost on skids! Fertility delivered! How convenient… This is about 5.5  tons (5,000kg) of fully composted, certified organic cow and sheep manure (half and half). According to the people who make it, at this point there’s no appreciable difference between manures, it’s all just high-grade compost now. Our organic certifier agrees: it’s “legal” to use any time, unlike any type of manure, which has to be spread a minimum of 90 days before veggie crops are planted. So here it is, from around 65 miles (96km) away, via flatbed truck and forklift up the drive…

This is a one-time thing, part of what we’re doing to start the market garden from a hay field plowed late last November. Unlike at the old farm, where cow manure was well-aged and plentiful, available by the ton, there are so far no animals here.

While I like the idea of animal manure, and find DELIVERY kind of odd and offputting, the current reality does force one to really think about hidden costs. The cows at the old farm ate far more hay than the farm produced, which meant buying in, so all of that free, on-farm manure wasn’t exactly free, or on-farm. Factor in the total cost and complicated logistics of raising and selling local beef, and the relatively low return, and manure on a tiny farm can seem quite unsustainable.

In any case, maintaining fertility here is a whole new game. Green manure, compost, and a small amount of on-farm manure, from chickens first, are this tiny farm’s future. And today’s delivery is the kickstart. Here we go!

Tags: composting, fertilizing, future, manure
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Hitting the books: Composting!

Checking on the beef

Like a pile of gold!

Visiting at the farmers’ market

A spot of tea…

Winters on the tiny farm have always been a time for research and a bit of book learning. My first two seasons were crazy for reading, especially the winter before Year 1, when I had four months to pick up enough, from zero knowledge, using books and the Net, to map out the initial one-acre plot, order seed, get some gear, and “pass” the initial organic certification inspection, in order to start the market garden that spring. That was fun!

Over the last six years, though, a curious thing happened. My original urge to find out how everything worked, to soak up endless technical detail, full of labels and scientific explanations, died down quite a bit—often I’d rather watch a squash decay than read about it…

It seemed more fun to find specific, practical solutions on the farm: how to fix this or improve that. At the same time, I’ve become more and more aware of the growing process as a whole (and really, how relatively little I have to do with it…), not so concerned about its parts. It’s a little hard to explain, though real easy to feel. Maybe it’s just…a phase!

MEANWHILE, this year, Year 7, is a bit of a shake-up. Compared to the old farm, the new farm is pretty bare-bones. One big change: I don’t have the tons of well-aged, almost completely composted cow manure that was available there.

Every year, I made manure-based compost in 50′ (15m) windrows, incorporating crop residue and culled veggies, turning it with the tiny tractor, checking it out, but it wasn’t CRITICAL to fertility. A fall spreading of fine, on-farm, composted manure always did the trick!

Now, with no on-farm animals yet (chickens to come first!), and no prospect of generating huge amounts of manure, compost that relies more on plant sources will be my new friend. Composting and green manure are on my mind.

New necessities require…new learning! So along with everything else over the last 2-3 months, there’s been a more intense hitting of the books, thinking over, chatting, scouring the Net. It’s not exactly like starting over, but it’s definitely…FRESH. I’m excited. More as it happens!

Tags: books, composting, fertilizing, manure, research
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Different kind of compost heap

A spot of tea…

Checking on the beef

Like a pile of gold!

Ways to spread

The deluxe outhouse—deluxe because this converted ice fishing hut houses a slick new composting toilet—has been sitting out in the field for a month now, nestled behind the drive shed, just inside the gate at the top of the market garden field. It’s all clean and shipshape, but the interior decorating plans bouncing around back in early summer haven’t come to pass. No whitewash, no Tibetan prayer flags, candles, incense, or other deluxe fittings and accessories, just single-ply toilet paper and a small bucket of peat moss, for tossing in, a handful a day. No frills! The toilet is equipped with an electric heater and fan for dealing with high traffic—up to eight people, three times a day—but I haven’t plugged it in so far, as I’m the only regular client. So far, in fact, there’ve been only TWO other takers to pass through the door. Oh well, if you haven’t experienced convenient, in-field evacuation, without plumbing…you haven’t tried it all! No odor, no flies… It’s great!

Tags: composting, composting toilet
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Outhouse deluxe

Tiny cultivation

Tiny farm moving – Part 2

Different kind of compost heap

The spreader

Sorting and packing after harvest—post-harvest processing!—is in good part a wet job, made a lot messier in rainy weather when root crops come in with a load of mud attached. Once again this season, the main work surface for sorting is a 4′x8′ sheet of plywood set on sawhorses. Actually, we added a second table, so now there are…two. Here, we’ve just finished sorting and bundling carrots, which then went for a rinse on the screen table. Sometimes, rinsing is done first, depending mostly on who’s doing what and what else is going on. In the closed blue bins, which hold a little over a bushel each, are carrots already bundled, rinsed and ready to go. This week, there are four bins of carrots, around 160 lbs (73kg). The residue is sorted out: here, damaged carrots will probably be topped and kept for house use, and the greens (there are some beet greens as well at the end of the table) are fed to the goats, some to the chickens, and the rest onto the compost pile. Then the table is hosed off. Couldn’t be simpler or wetter!

Tags: carrots, composting, post-harvest, rinsing, weather
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More post-harvest action

Early harvest day…

Harvest wet work

The Friday harvest

Yes, carrots!

The outhouse updated! This Envirolet composting toilet, the deluxe AC electric model, is possibly the most unusual farm purchase I’ve made so far, mostly because it was quite expensive and I’m not 100% sure why I got it. With a hefty $500 off on special, it was still somewhere around $1,200, which on the tiny farm budget counts as a major purchase (the used John Deere riding mower cost the same, and it does fieldwork!). And considering that you can build a composting toilet for little or no money, from scrap wood… Call it divine inspiration, like: “You must get this toilet”? Anyhow, it’s here, it’s been here since around Feb. 2007 (the special offer was expiring), it hasn’t gone unthought-of or unmentioned,…and it’s finally, slowly, getting installed for this season! The general idea is to have facilities in the field, which is a lot more convenient than heading into the house. Still… These toilets do sound quite amazing: odorless, comfortable, able to compost six months of humanure into a thin layer in a slide-out tray. Models range from no power, to AC/DC (has a fan), to regular AC plug-in (fan plus heater for the coldest days). The more power, the higher capacity, as the fan or fan/heat speed up evaporation: this one is rated for 8 people x 3 “uses” per day. I guess I had visions of LOTS of toilet traffic from the field. And this attractive little waste-handler is quite an inviting intro to personal waste recycling, compared to a hole cut in a board (and you can use these in homes to replace regular flush toilets as well!)… For installation, the original plan was to build an enclosure, but this discarded ice fishing hut came up as a ready-built alternative. Converting it is only a few hours work, but it’s being done in little bits and pieces. First, the rotting door was removed and the frame widened to let the toilet in, the various built-in ice fishing conveniences—bench, shelves—were removed, and some rotting floor replaced. Next step, fitting the toilet’s ventilation pipe through the ceiling. And then, interior decoration! A coat of whitewash for a start… Coming soon!

Tags: buildings, composting, composting toilet, recycling
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Outhouse deluxe in action

Tiny farm moving – Part 2

New lumber

Wood pile

Winter watch: the greenhouse

Bed preparation and first seeding continue. Today, Lynn’s tiny farming experience broadened to include rakes, and using them to spread compost. Moderately hard work in the heat, but it was a fairly small area. Overall, things are generally on schedule, but at least a week behind last year for the earliest stuff (and first peas were in last year on April 3rd!). Also, after the lingering snow, conditions changed practically overnight, but with the extremely hot, dry week, despite some watering in, the crops seeded so far are slower to germinate (we need rain!), and may come up a little thin when they do. So far, peas, spinach, beets, radish, all-lettuce mesclun and green onions have gone in over the last few days, and everything but the peas got one watering… I should have direct-seeded leek and parsnips in, but I’m kind of waiting for some rain. Also coming up in the next day or two, carrots and Swiss chard. And there’s a mountain of onion sets and seedlings ready to go, plus a few other transplants. And potatoes arrived today…

Tags: beet, composting, germination, Lynn, mesclun, onion, peas, radish, raking
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Slow…

Frost is pretty when…

First veg in the field: it’s peas!

How odd…

Still a lot of greens…