Tag: Tara

Packing shares: done!

6 Dec 201820 Jul 2009 by Mike (tfb)

CSA shares are packed for another Monday of on-farm pick-up! It’s one of those great hits of momentary satisfaction to see them all, 100% absolutely and finally done, waiting to be collected. Mel, Jordan (above), Michelle, and Tara were all in the field, and the whole harvest went by kinda quickly, maybe three hours. I’m also figuring out the easiest ways to use different spots around the new farm. Today, as a temporary improvement, we moved the long screen table into a tree-shaded part of the drive, allowing us to line up the bags in one row, instead of grouping them on two smaller tables indoors in a shed (it’s all in the details! :). Keeping the packing space uncluttered is kinda critical if you don’t want to spend half your time rechecking shares to make sure that they’ve got everything. When the set-up works, filling shares is really suprisingly satisfying. On the tiny farm, assembly lines can be fun!

In the share: baby leaf lettuce salad mix, baby zucchini, cauliflower, garlic scapes, young carrots, beets, new potatoes, curly& flat-leaf parsley.

Hand-tended

19 Apr 202214 Jun 2009 by Mike (tfb)

“Hand-tended” is one of the phrases that usually gets popped into the occasional bit of promotional writing about this market garden. Sounds good! If asked (hasn’t happened so far), I’d explain that we don’t use many machines, most of the garden work is done with hand tools, or just hands, as in, hand-weeding, or plucking off bugs…by hand. And lots of time is spent through the season, crouching and crawling around, checking out what’s going on with particular plantings of this or that. Which all seems pretty cool. :)

Today, Tara and I hand-transplanted two beds of early-maturing Neon pumpkins (above), along with a few more Snack Jack (tiny pumpkins bred for producing lots of tasty seed). The Neons are 70-80-day hybrid, kinda freakishly quick to mature (pumpkins are mostly 100+ days).

At this point in the season here, it’s getting kinda late for winter squash and pumpkins, but there are a few beds still to fill in, so a bunch of 70-85-day varieties, coming up in pots in the greenhouse, will be heading out to the field over the next week. With anything but the worst in cold and cloudy weather over the next three months, they should size up just fine!

Ways to spread

23 Mar 20164 May 2009 by Mike (tfb)

This has gotta be the most painstaking way to plant out two acres of veggies! To recap: different sections of the two fields are at different stages of tillage (Peter down the road has had to come back a couple of times to disc, and there’s STILL a small section to go), and of course there was no time to spread manure in the fall. It’s even a little more complicated, with a fair amount of chopped up sod getting in the way. Sooo, we’re working a few beds at a time, with different treatments depending on the crop.

Here, Tara and Lynn prepare a 50′ x 3′ (15.2m x 0.9m) bed for baby lettuce for mesclun. Because it’s seeded densely and grows quickly, we decided to apply a fair amount of that expensive certified organic compost, and then reuse this bed for at least one or two more mesclun plantings later in the season.

Spreading from Bags Method 1: We brought over a stack of 40lb (18kg) bags in the bucket of the Kubota compact tractor, emptied 8 bags one by one, and lightly raked them in. Thinking about it afterwards, it seemed easier to empty the bags into the bucket, use a shovel to spread, then rake it in. An extra step, but overall quicker to incorporate.

Definitely hand-work, especially compared to loading up an 8-ton manure spreader and driving it around with a big tractor, like we mostly used to do! Good thing we’re only giving this special treatment to a few beds for salad greens. And it is all getting done…

Tiny machine action

20 Apr 200916 Apr 2009 by Mike (tfb)

Beautiful weather, around 60°F (15°C) in the full-on sun, with a crisp undercurrent of a breeze… What could be nicer for the first full day of fieldwork?! Lynn, Mel and Jordan came by at 8:30 am, and Tara joined in a little later on. We’re still working on preparing the beds, so the main action was raking and ROTOTILLING…busting up that sod. And everyone’s gearing up for the season, learning where things are and how to do…stuff. Like…rototilling! Mel tries her hand at it for the first time (above)—the Kubota compact tractor is as reliable, steady, and undaunting as ever…

Tara also rototills for the first time. Here, she executes what looks like a nimble little turn…

Mel inspects the results of a pass with the rototiller, checking out the effect of tilling at different speeds. And the tiny farming goes on… (Photos 2 and 3 by Mel)

Managing seedlings

14 Apr 200911 Apr 2009 by Mike (tfb)

It will soon be time to move many of the seedlings to roomier quarters—there’s only so much space under the lights, so the greenhouse has to go up soon! Timing is getting trickier by the day, but we’re still doing fine. Here, Tara, at the very start of her tiny farming career, manages her first tray of cauliflower, splitting cells with two seedlings, and filling any empty spots. There’s not always time for this sort of micro-gardening, but there is right now…!