Final Field Update for 2012 Season
Week 35, October 29- November 4, 2012, Week 45 of the Year
We end every season by planting garlic and shallots, as well as tending carrots for the next class and CSA. Here is a good link to a thorough article in Mother Earth News which covers planting, harvesting, and cooking. Likewise, here is a link to shallot planting. I was unable to find a good link describing planting carrots for overwintering so I am describing it to my best ability below. We plant our last carrots in the 2-3rd week of September. Carrots, like most roots grow best in a deep, loose, bed or raised bed. Carrots can take 3 weeks to come up, so be patient and keep the seedbed moist. Flame weeding is helpful during the period you are waiting for germination, since sprouted weeds will be killed, but the germinating ones are protected. Remember, the first leaves, “cotyledons”, look like two blades of grass and the first true leaf will look ferny. You can thin carrots to 1′ apart for harvesting smaller individual baby carrots, an edible thinning, or thin to 2-3″ right away. It is suggested that you mulch the carrots in to protect them from severe cold. The foliage may die back during the coldest part of the winter but it will regrow as the weather warms. Harvest carrots before the end of April or they will begin to flower. Carrots are biennial and after they experience a vernalization (cold period/winter) they will flower. If you do not have Queen Anne’s Lace (flowers later) or other wild carrots flowering at the same time, the seed is good to keep. I have done this with great success before. Collect brown dried old flower heads in a paper bag. Seeds will shake loose and collect in the bag. Store seeds in a cool, dark place.
Farmers Formal was a huge success! Thanks to everyone who participated by volunteering, running errands, harvesting, baking, and dancing. This huge success was made up of many small and large efforts by many big-hearted people.
Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants are all out of the ground. Tomatoes, which showed a little disease called Septoria will be burned when they dry out. The rest were composted. We plan to add compost to this area and the remaining vetch seed which will sprout in the spring. Over half the fields are growing successful winter cover crop- mostly vetch and oats with some in vetch and rye. Kale, leeks, spinach, and carrots will stay over the winter. A farmer and friend, Whitney Sewell, reassured me by saying her cauliflower doesn’t produce in fall either, but it will in the spring. It is likely the chard will make it through the winter depending on how severe our winter is. The cabbage and brussel sprouts will still continue to produce and many varieties of cabbage are suitable for overwintering. Crops still in the field: choi, raab, arugula, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, daikon, watermelon radish, herbs, kale, spinach, turnips, scallions, leeks, carrots, and some saved butternut squash and sweet potatoes will go to winter markets, some to chef orders, and thanksgiving shares.
“The day is coming when a single carrot freshly observed will set off a revolution.”- Paul Cezanne, French Artist and Post-Impressionist painter (1839-1906). We began and ended the year with carrots. In spring we we harvesting 200-400 lb of carrots at a time, all planted from a little seed by the worn hands of 2011 apprentices the previous September. 2011 apprentices weeded, re-weeded, thinned and re-thinned, mulched and watered 1,700′ of carrots they knew they wouldn’t even taste, but they knew the class of 2012 would. Full of gusto and excitement this spring the 2012 apprentices dug carrots by the cart-full, pretty ones, pale ones, purple ones and they seemed to love the next freakily formed root even more than the last. Carrots fresh from the ground have a flavor that cannot be re-created and is gone within hours of harvest, slightly pungent, tingling, it tastes alive and medicinal. I remember how excited I was to have the new 2012 apprentices experience that garden treat, a special gift. Like those carrots, EarthDance has seen the class of 2012 grow this season. We have seen them dig deep in their person, plant seeds that are ideas and knowledge, conceptions take root and deepen into guiding constitutions, and they have grown as people and we have grown as a community. I feel so blessed to have been given the opportunity to work with each and every one of the 2012 apprentices. They have taught me so much. We have accomplished so much together. Our farm is better for them having been there and now they are always a part of it. The farmer I rented from in Colorado still tells me he can feel me there in the soil, 9 years later. Do not doubt that the impact is lasting. Remember soil is alive, it is a community surrounded by minerals, decomposition and composition, molecular energy and now the apprentice’s energy flows there too. This last nine months was a huge personal and physical commitment, they deserve congratulations. Class of 2012: Thank you for taking a chance and growing with us, we are sure glad you did! You are all invited to come out to the Farmy Graduation THIS SUNDAY at St. Stephen’s from 4-7pm. View the evite and details and RSVP. We will have some Schlafy beer at graduation and possibly some wine. It is a potluck, so please bring an item with labeled ingredients (we have vegan and gluten-free friends) – but we will not be offended if your dish doesn’t looks like hippified rabbit fodder.
My personal hero, Aldo Leopold wrote about the Land Ethic, an idea that guides organic farmer to act as steward of the land. Leopold said, “Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. By land is meant all of the things on, over, or in the earth. Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators; you cannot conserve the waters and waste the ranges; you cannot build the forest and mine the farm. The land is one organism. Its parts, like our own parts, compete with each other and co-operate with each other. The competitions are as much a part of the inner workings as the co-operations. You can regulate them—cautiously—but not abolish them.
The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only those who know the most about it can appreciate how little we know about it. The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: “What good is it?” If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.” This idea guides me on the farm and I wanted to share it with you.
Wildlife of the Week- Chickweed, Stellaria media
Cool season weeds are back. Instead of Foxtail and Purslane we are back to Henbit and Chickweed. We actually sold Chickweed to Cheryl’s herbs this spring. Michelle enjoys this tender weed in a salad. This annual, common garden weed is high in vitamin C, vitamin A, niacin, riboflavin, thiamin, magnesium, iron, calcium, potassium, zinc, phosphorus, manganese, sodium, selenium, and silicon. It can be used in soups and stir-fries but most enjoy it raw. This plant originated in Eurasia but is found almost worldwide. Please remember that many weeds have the same common name and you should use the Latin name or get a positive identification before eating it. General information and recipes are in the link at the top of this section “Chickweed” and here is a link with more medicinal information.
Needs
• Leaves! Please bring yard leaves to the farm, if it is convenient.
• A volunteer to sharpen mower blades for the end of the season.