Leaving Olive Hill was not exactly what I wanted to do, but spending two months there was a really great way to learn about specific practices involved with organic farming. All the peppers I planted with Burt the first week I got there were in the middle of the flood, but during the last couple days of my time in Tennessee, we propped them up with hay. That life cycle was one of the most practical farming lessons I learned during my stay. You never know what nature is going to do, and it is so powerful, but that is all a part of growing plants.
Tennessee farmin'
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Significantly Less than Dry
Leaving Olive Hill was not exactly what I wanted to do, but spending two months there was a really great way to learn about specific practices involved with organic farming. All the peppers I planted with Burt the first week I got there were in the middle of the flood, but during the last couple days of my time in Tennessee, we propped them up with hay. That life cycle was one of the most practical farming lessons I learned during my stay. You never know what nature is going to do, and it is so powerful, but that is all a part of growing plants.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
WOW. Time sure goes by quickly! I haven't had time to update this blog for a couple weeks, so I'll try to catch y'all up on some of the fantastic occurrences at the farm.
When I had just "become a farmer," I thought I would be out in the field every day and that would be the majority of the work, but that's not exactly true. Along with growing vegetables comes even more work. Processing them.
There seems to be an abundance of tomatoes two to three times a week and instead of composting ones that can't be sold, (one's that have a ding here and there) we cut off the bad spots, and chop the rest of the tomato up to be turned into sauce. The sauce can either be frozen, or we put it on pizza or eat it with
eggplant, etc. So now, I am extremely spoiled because I eat so many tomatoes every day and have the best tomato sauce in the world. Buying that many heirloom tomatoes ever day would be extremely expensive and would destroy my apple and granola budget, so I NEED to start growing tomatoes as soon as possible when I get back to Colorado!!!!
In addition to bountiful tomatoes, we've begun harvesting eggplant (I planted some of these plants the first week I was here, so it's SUPER exciting.) There are four kinds of eggplants, and my favorites are actually not the purple ones I'm used to. The best ones are very skinny and bright green. The eggplant is my favorite one on the farm because its leaves are fuzzy and beautiful and the stem is sturdy and purple!
In the past couple weeks, I've learned how to tell if a watermelon is ripe, how to pick corn properly, (did you know that every one of the silks is attached to a kernel of corn!?!). I've watched my sweat drip onto the ground from my forehead while leaning down to pick peppers, I've gone to a potluck with friends where every dish was fresh from the garden, organic, and full of loooove. I've also been swarmed by fire ants (again) on my foot. But with my steaming rage (enhanced by the humidity,) I took the garden hoe and destroyed the anthill after jumping around the garden on one foot and trying to shake those poisonous suckers off. Yesterday we went to "The Farm," (http://www.thefarmcommunity.com/) which started as a commune in 1971. Two family friends and their three kids gave us a tour of the community and showed us the house they're building. It's completely sustainable with a greenhouse in the middle that provides energy for heating and cooling. So cool!
Every day I work with the plants, I feel like I'm getting to know them better, and it's so exciting to see the farm developing and growing. The work is very hard, but it is rewarding in several ways.
One: The outcome is a beautiful and delicious crop.
Two: I feel like I've gone to two or three Bikram Yoga classes every weekday.
Three: I'm experiencing real life farming with Alex, Lori, Hattie, Henry, Fritz, and lots of dogs, and it's super-duper fun.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Making a living and living happily
In the South, parents teach their kids about meditation. At least, Lori and Alex do. One afternoon, Hattie took it upon herself to find a way of calming down after sword fighting. She realized that not all of us had as much energy after picking hundreds of bean beetle larvae off of rows of string bean plants.We had gotten two harvests out of the beans, but before the third picking, they were swarmed by this pesky bug and we had to get rid of them.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Garlic, fire ants, and pitchforks
Sunday, June 27, 2010
The road to memphis
The drive to Memphis was a long one, especially considering the fact that I had never even driven to Denver by myself... I got some good practice in, driving to Nederland, but even that was only about 45 minutes away from home. But with Dad's atlas and some familiar stops along the way, (Braum's, in Salina)