Planting

It is that planting time of year! Although today I did not go out to the farm due to rain yesterday and more today.  Duluth is reminding me a lot of the Oregon coast today....50 degrees, foggy, and windy!
But a lot has already been planted at the farm.  I am in the midst of planting 8,000 pepper plants....Halfway there!  They are Ace Peppers, which are a sweet green/red bell pepper.

Ace Pepper Planting:
Planted in double rows, a foot apart and about six inches between rows, about three feet between double rows.  The rows are raised and covered in black plastic to keep the soil warm, moisture in, and weeds down.  To plant the transplants, I poke a hole in the plastic and then open it up a little more with my hands, gently place the roots in, making sure there is good contact with the soil, and the loosely fill in the hole.  The roots of the pepper transplants are delicate, so you want to disturb them as little as possible.  I also cover the space between the plastic and the ground with dirt, creating a little seal.  The farmers say this help keep the soil that much warmer.  I was a little surprised that I was planting peppers already, because I thought that they needed consistently warm soil.  But the farmers said that they used to wait to plant peppers till it was too hot, and then a lot of them would die.  Excited to see them grow!

Other things I have planted:

Onions
Leeks
Broccoli
Strawberries
Tomatoes
Snaps (Flowers)

The strawberries and tomatoes are planted in the high tunnels, along with cucumbers.  Onions and leeks out in the back field along with beans. That back field is farthest away from the house, closest to the woods, and therefor most vulnerable to deer, but the hope is the will leave the onions, beans, and leeks alone.

Four rows of onions, rows are three feet apart and each onion is about three inches apart.

Done!

Something I have learned from planting:  Properly tilled soil makes planting A LOT easier.  If it is too wet or too dry, it will be a sloppy mess or hard as a rock.  I don't know what kind of soil the farm has (I should ask!), but I think it is part clay, because it is hard when dry, and a clumpy mess when too wet.  I do know that it is REALLY ROCKY.  Remind me never to farm soil that is rocky.  It wears down your equipment and your hands. Speaking of equipment, a older Howard Rotavator is what the farm uses to till the larger fields. The cultivate 12 acres, so some heavier machinery is a must for efficiency.  They suggested the older models from the 60's and 70's opposed to the newer ones because they are not built as well today and a older model will be cheaper, but harder to find!

What have you been planting?  How many acres does your farm cultivate? Do you use any machinery? Do you have any special planting tips?

Beginnings

hello and hi!

I wanted to start this blog at the beginning of the season (but I didn't), so I am about a month behind, but better late than never they say!

A little introduction first:
I'm a twenty-three year old graduate from a liberal arts college, with a degree in sociology and anthropology, but I want to be a farmer (I think).  For my senior thesis, I studied young, new farmers in Portland, Oregon and I simultaneously got hooked on farming.  All the farmers loved their lives as farmers, and I had already had a fabulous farming experience; I WWOOFed in Italy for five weeks in 2009 (For those of you who don't know what WWOOF is, look it up!).  I think I want to be a farmer because all the hard work gives me a reason to eat copious amount of eggs and bacon.....er, I mean I want to be a farmer because I love being outside, working my body, being my own boss, growing food, and learning a variety of different tasks!  Truly, all the aforementioned aspects about farming make me want to farm (the bacon and eggs are an added perk).

It is trendy these days, wanting to become a farmer, it seems like all my super trendy friends and acquaintances want to break ground, myself included.  I really do think I want to be a farmer, so instead of dreaming about farm fresh eggs and bacon (which I do often) I spent the entirety of January and February, and even some of March, trying to find a job on a farm for this season, to test it out.

I finally did!  And seeing as there are a lot of folk like myself out there, young, well-educated, hard-working, and maybe even a little starry-eyed, I thought it would be beneficial to us all to document what I learn this season, my first step to becoming a real farmer.

I've been working on a small farm outside of Proctor, Minnesota (outside of Duluth) for a little over a month now, and I have already learned a lot.  To avoid cramming it all in to one post, I think I will start with the most essential things that I have learned thus far!

1) Farming is HARD WORK
No really, it's really hard work.  I've always been a flexible person, but after a day of bending over and planting thousands of onions, I couldn't touch my toes for the first time in my life, SERIOUS NEWS! After a week of pruning an acre of raspberries single-handedly, I could barely make a fist and in the morning, barely spread out my fingers.  Farming is seriously hard on your body.  So take 'er easy!  Stretching seems all the more important to me now, as well as taking walks or bike rides to stretch out my limbs.  To me this is probably one of the most important things I've learned so far, if I am sore after a week, I better take care of my body so I can keep it up for the next 30+ years! And so should you!  This leads me to my next important lesson:

2) Farm with Friends
The aforementioned thousands of onions and acre of raspberries done ALONE, was, well, lonely.  The farmers I work with have hired me as a farm hand, not an intern, so even though I get paid (MUCH) better than an intern, they are not there holding my hand the whole day.  They show me what needs to be done and get on with other tasks.  This doesn't mean I am not learning anything, absolutely not! It just means that I am by my lonesome most of the day.  I don't get bored or really even that lonely (no tears are shed), mostly just overwhelmed by the HUGE task I have to do with only my two hands and maybe a Rototiller if I'm lucky.  And you can only listen to so many episodes of Radiolab before your brain is over saturated.  So when I have a farm, I will definitely not being doing it alone.  Many hands make light work!

I think I will stop there and move on to what I did today:

Got super dirty! Notice my finger hairs, I think they look like little fungi growing.

My hands looked awesome, but felt not so awesome.

The culprit of my filthy mitts

I said I like to get dirty, and today I got real dirty (my hands at least).  I started the day out planting Christmas trees, another venture of the farm I work for, which was fun because it was something I have never done before and because I didn't have to BEND OVER, something I have quickly come to appreciate.  Rain canceled that task before it was done, so I moved into the high tunnel to prune tomatoes.  The rain on the plastic roof sounds great, also accompanied with the best radio show I've heard thus far, KUMD's Blues Alley.  Pruning tomatoes is relatively simple and also fast, which makes it a nice task for a rainy afternoon. But you do have to bend over/squat/kneel/occasionally plot your bum on the ground.  I was able to sit on a bucket for most of this, which was a nice relief for my back (jeez, I already sound like I'm an old geezer!).

Sometimes I think (I know) I am still a five year old, because I always want to know WHY.  Why do the tomato plants turn my fingers black?!?  I am assuming it is some sort of resin from the tomato plant.  Whatever it is, I CANNOT get this resin off!  Also, when I washed my hands for the fourth time, my suds were NEON GREEN, COOL!!  Anyone know what this resin is and/or why it is so sticky?

Have you pruned tomatoes?  How do you do it? What kinds of tomatoes do you or the farm you work on grow? What is your favorite thing to eat with tomatoes? Mine is bruschetta with fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, olive oil, on crispy bread! Mmmmm!