acts of faith in the future

It seems that I must start every blog entry with an apology, and for that I apologize. For apologizing, and for being so sporadic in my postings. ( My last post was in July! Where did August go!?!?)

This time of year is spent mostly harvesting the bounty of the season and preserving that bounty in various ways. Spreading the onions on the floor of the greenhouse to dry and cure, hanging garlic in the dark loft of the barn to do the same, spending hours toiling over simmering tomato sauce, jarring jams of all kinds, keeping that dehydrator whirring with herbs and produce, and the list goes on! Every farmer has their favorite time of the season, and this is mine. Putting food away for the future is something I get really excited about. I barely noticed the hurricane come and go, I was so wrapped up in canning projects! There is so much to learn, so many ways to experiment and be creative. They say that gardening is an act of faith in the future, and so is each one of these tasks we devote hours to. Soon we'll be hauling winter squash out of the field, a magnificent family of vegetables that keeps for months and months without rotting. Until then, you'll find us chomping down on watermelon in the field, scrounging for the last sweet corn husks, taking down tomato stakes, dancing til the world ends in our kitchen, (Britney reference, in case you didn't catch that!) and savoring every last day of summer until the winter winds come around.

Be well!

-the stone soup crew

beheading flowers and other fun farm tasks!

Hi all! So sorry for my absence, but things get hectic in the middle of July on a farm! Lots to do! Tomatoes to harvest, weeds to stay on top of, corn to snack on in the field when you're supposed to be working... One of the projects of high summer is the preserving of your harvest for the winter months (in case you can't eat one ton of green beans before they go bad). I've taken on the task of preserving our herbs and flowers for the winter share CSA which will hopefully have a tea component if all goes well.

So on that note, there's something I must confess. I really enjoy beheading flowers. All kinds. Chamomile and purple clover at the moment, but I'm open to calendula flowers, feverfew, and whatever else I can get my paws on! Chamomile (or chammy, as I affectionately call it) is a well-known herb that is used in sleepy-time teas for its' soothing quality and sedating effect. I find that just smelling a whiff of it calms me down.

We got this handy dandy tool called a chamomile rake that allows us to go over the tops of the plants and collect all the tiny flowers that decorate each stem like a cloudburst of white and yellow. I spent a summer a few years ago harvesting tons of flowers to dry into teas and we did this all by hand, so I can truly appreciate the efficiency of this tool, that’s for sure! There’s nothing quite as peaceful as hanging out in a bed of flowers, heaping them into a bucket, and then spreading them out on trays to be dried in our (also new!) dehydrator. And the smells…. I can’t even begin to explain! They fill me with a certain sense of tranquility and happiness that is unlike any other.

Purple clover is a new one for me. Of course I've seen it on tea labels, but I hadn't looked into its' medicinal properties or harvested any of my own, before today. Apparently it is good for coughs and respiratory conditions, as well as chronic skin ailments.

There is so much to know about plants and their medicinal properties, I'm overwhelmed. Skullcap, nettle, catnip, stevia, mint, mullein, sumac - I'm learning about all of them! And as much as I enjoy beheading flowers, sometimes the plants do fight back. Stinging nettle, for instance. I'm sure you've all experienced the pain of a thousand bee stings as you brush up against a nettle plant. It's not fun, I'll tell you that much. Well, today I triumphed over the nettle (a plant with a great many uses, such as aiding in muscle and joint issues) by snipping it down first with giant loppers and then waiting about an hour for it to get wilty. When that happens, it loses it's nasty stinging effect, and I can go about my business without being harmed. Yay!

So amidst the madness of the world, scary shootings and debt ceilings that are beyond my comprehension and control, I get to mosey around the farm, plucking pretty flowers and carefully labeling bags of dark green dried herbs to flavor our food our heal our bodies in the months to come. I wish it could be this simple for everyone...

week of firsts

We've had a good amount of sunshine this week, which translates to WEEDING. All day, all week: weeding. I was thinking to myself, weeding does not make a good blog post topic. Blah! But, there is beauty in the little things, and there have been a number of tiny beautiful moments to be thankful for...

Every time I walked into the house, I noticed the sweet sturdy sunflower by our door getting a little more confident each day, peeking it's head out until it became a full circle of yellow petals, straining its' neck to see the sun. Our first sunflower has arrived! Also, I made a trip out into the farthest field to pick the first squashes and zucchinis to throw into a stir fry - mostly tiny, but delicious nonetheless! And, the news you have all been waiting for with bated breath, I'm sure, our first ripe tomato of the season has been spotted! A pretty little Juliet tomato was found in our high tunnel (greenhouse without the heating system) at approximately 10:30 AM on Friday July 1st by the one and only Emily Vail. The verdict: yummy. The others will follow suit very soon, I predict, and before we know it, we will be covered in avalanches of tomaters that just won't quit!

Have a great Independence Day weekend, friends!

Inti Raymi: a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground

Happy Summer Soltice, y'all! Today is the longest day of the year and the first day of summer. Quite the reason to celebrate, if you ask me. I hope you all were able to get outside and spend some quality time with Mother Earth on her highest day. Thankfully, the weather held up beautifully and I was able to take full advantage of almost all the hours of glorious sunshine (I didn't get up at 5:13 in the morning so I missed a few of those early morning rays...).

First thing in the morning, a few friends and I headed out to Seeds of Solidarity in Orange, MA for a solstice gathering. (As a side, SoS is an awesome educational nonprofit farm that is completely no-till, meaning they do not cultivate the soil with any sort of tillage such as plowing and the like. Instead, they use cardboard to suppress weeds and plant their seeds into holes in order to not disturb the living organisms that inhabit the soil and make healthy soil structure. Pretty awesome stuff, but hard to do on a bigger scale, such as our operation at Stone Soup.)

We had an hour of mediation; this was time set aside to listen to the world speak around us as well as to begin to remember our ancestral selves, our past lives, or simply attempt to return to the essence of who we are for a few moments. It was some much-needed silence and reflection for most of us in the circle, I think. Afterwards, a Creek Indian Shaman who was present at the ceremony blessed us each in turn in his traditional language. The smell of burning sage always brings back many wonderful memories of past ceremonies such as this one, and I am thankful to have another memory to add to that mix.

Once we had all been given blessings, we began our group effort to build a circle mandala on the land. People laid down flowers, lavender, written notes on colored paper, and other works of art. One person planted a Columbine tree in the circle and the shaman put a bone from a deer's throat in the center. A mother and her two beautiful children were in attendance and they poured some sand that the mother had from her ancestral home of Bengal in Southern India. A very moving moment, indeed.

We did a few more rituals involving the seven directions (south, west, north and east, plus sky and earth, and then the self) and my friends and I read a meditation written for the occasion. We ended with a prayer circle and potluck. All in all, it was a magical morning.

After this, I returned to the farm and spent the first part of the afternoon with my toes in the soil, hoeing our nightshades in the field. Tomatoes, eggplants and peppers - freeing them of weed pressure so they can get big and healthy!

The second part of my afternoon was spent lounging around in various rivers and waterfalls around the Amherst area. I won't even say more because words can't describe the sense of peace and beauty that pervades those woods, those waters. I am thankful.

Week in Review - whew!

Sometimes things get crazy and when you finally take a breather, you realize it's Friday afternoon and you've got streaks of dirt on your face that you're sure have been there for days. I had one of those moments a little bit ago. It's a pretty good feeling, to have survived yet another hectic and crazy work week.

Here on the farm, we're in week 3 of our CSA and we're running at full speed. Things certainly didn't slow down after the squash fiasco on Monday morning. Contrary to our poor cucurbits, our tomatoes are alive and well - so well indeed that they needed a little tending to. We spent a few hours training their delicate vines around strings hanging from the top of the greenhouse. While we do this, we also pinch off any "suckers" that might be growing off the main stem. We do this because, as their name insinuates, they will only suck nutrients away and diminish the quality of fruit that the plant produces. The main stem continues to climb upwards, producing more "suckers" as well as other offshoots bearing yellow flowers which will then yield our desired fruit! There are already clusters of light green bulbs appearing on the vine, and soon these plant will be towering way high over our heads. I should start taking bets for when the first 'mater will be ready for eatin'!

Tuesday brought bouts and bouts of rain; nothing exceptional. Wednesday brought a bit of sadness as we lost a sweet Black Star chicken. This little lady had been with the farm since it's inception four years ago, and I guess she was just too worn out to keep going. Four years is a long time for a chicken. Thanks for all of your eggs, mama!

Wednesday was also the first day of the new farmer's market at Kendrick Park in Amherst, so that was a big deal for us. We had a lot of work- getting all of the produce ready for market as well as putting the Boston CSA shares together- but we got it done, and just in the nick of time! Jackie is our market maven and she set up a most beautiful display of our best turnips, salad mix, herbs, basil plants, garlic scapes, rainbow chard, and our delectable strawberries! It was great fun to walk around the park and check out the other great farms selling alongside us. My favorite was Bart's solar-powered ice cream stand. I was even able to trade a bag of spinach for a cup of amazing ice cream (double chocolate rasberry and local peach) - isn't that glorious?!Trading is probably my favorite thing about market. After a market has ended (or during, as it was in my case), vendors walk around and trade their goods for whatever they may desire. Jackie came away with an astounding amount of goat cheese from Sangha Farm, and there's really nothing else I could want more in the world. Good life.

The rest of the week was savoring the first snap peas of the season and taking on the big task of direct seeding winter squash to make up what we lost. I love the simple act of setting a seed down in the soil and covering it with dirt. It's raining now, so the seeds will get the moisture they need to germinate and make that magical transition from dormancy to aliveness. Simply magical!

The great squash depression

After a very joyful and happy weekend off for us farmers at Stone Soup Farm (I was on a weekend retreat with college friends, Jarrett was away at a southern wedding, and Emily and Dave were out and about doing fun things in the Valley), we were ready to start our work week bright and early on Monday.
That is, until Emily declared at our morning meeting - "I have bad news. Do you want it now or in the field?"
Jarrett wanted it immediately, of course, and we all held our breath for it.
"The winter squash are gone."
Where'd they go, you ask? Well, they went under Reemay Row Cover after we transplanted them into the field, as you can see in the first picture of this post. It was a preventative measure to protect them from the atrocious cucumber beetles that had mangled our other cucurbit crops with a vengeance.
But when we lifted the row cover early Monday morning, they were nowhere to be found. You could see the few droopy remains of a butternut squash here and there, but besides that - nothing. When we examined the soil closer, we could see skinny strands of something white-ish where the plants used to be. I had no idea what they were. It seemed as if someone had removed each plant from the soil and replaced it with this stringy thing.
The unfortunate events that led to this devastation are quite simple. The days after we put down the row cover were way hotter than we expected, and the little squashes couldn't handle it. Burnt. Charred. All that was left was a scraggly remain of what was once the stem. I wasn't aware that they were so sensitive to heat, but now I have seen the proof.
It was a hard decision - to protect them from the beetles or to bet against the weather. In the end, it was the wrong decision. Those plants that were left out from the row cover were still standing, and it seems as if the cucumber beetles hadn't even found this area of our fields at all.

Jarrett took this scene in quietly, and instructed us to pull up all of the row cover to better assess the damage - a death toll of about 80%. We're not sure what we'll do from here; maybe salvage the remaining living plants and consolidate them in a different part of the field, perhaps scrap the whole thing and start again from seed. Regardless, we will have a winter squash harvest this year. It may be smaller than we had hoped, and it may come later than we wish, but it will come.

They say to be a good farmer, you gotta kill a lot of plants. Well....

The beauty of horse power

Earlier this week, the apprentices from Stone Soup joined many other farm apprentices from the region (we all belong to a program called CRAFT) at Natural Roots Farm in Conway, MA. Usually, the CRAFT apprentices are split into two groups that visit different farms, one in the east and one in the west, to make it easier for transportation and such, but not this day. We were all gathered at Natural Roots, from near and far, because no one wanted to miss out on the opportunity to visit David Fisher’s completely horse-powered operation.

I had visited his farm once before, in the fall of 2009, with my Sustainable Agriculture class at Umass. Of course, I had been impressed back then, even with my little knowledge and experience in farming. The view from the parking lot is beautiful enough to knock your socks off: gorgeous green forested hills, leading down to a beautiful flat valley of extremely neat and attractively symmetrical fields, and bordered on the opposite side by the South River. To get to the fields from the parking lot, you cross over a quaint bridge that shakes and wobbles with every step as the river rushes beneath your feet.

Not only is this farm in the most idyllic of locations, but they also seem to be doing just about everything in their power to be self-sustaining – a very inspiring endeavor in my eyes. One of David Fisher’s main reasons for employing horses to get his work done is because he does not want to support a war he doesn’t agree with by burning petroleum fuel. They grow most of the hay they need to maintain the horses each year, but they buy in a fair amount of grain as well. Still, there are amazing things happening at Natural Roots farm, as this incredible story shows: in March of 2008, around 150 community members came together to help with a barn raising on their land- a barn that was built completely out of wood harvested from their own forests, pulled by their horses and cut and milled on site. Impressive, isn’t it? It gives me goose bumps just thinking about it.

David Fisher certainly seems to have gotten “it”, that elusive thing we all keep thinking and talking so much about. Living sustainably on his land, and helping to build a healthy community in the process – a portrait of success if I’ve ever seen one. On the other hand, him and his apprentices keep busy from 6 in the morning until 7 in the evening with farm chores and the like. Winters don’t provide the much-appreciated respite from the season as they do for most other vegetable growers in the area. Wood must be harvested and chopped, stalls must still be cleaned daily, and many a sleigh ride must be had! Preparing the horses for work is a very time-consuming task, from what I gather, but also extremely rewarding. David told us about his close relationship with his animals, and he explained that learning how to communicate better with them has helped him greatly with all the other relationships in his life.

Just watching him work the land with his animals was incredibly awe-inspiring, in its’ quiet simplicity. He hitched up a team to a few different implements to show us how it worked. One of his apprentices mowed the cover crop and then he ploughed the soil, while another stale bedded another part of the field with a shallow tool that readies the soil for planting. The absence of the harsh tractor engine was the most striking to me. No noise besides the soft jangle of the horses’ reins and the comforting commands of the rider steering them. The tractor seems so abrasive in comparison, so unnatural … And yet, this morning I mounted our John Deere 1050 and got to work.