You can help!

My goodness!  What a wonderful yet overwhelming time of year to be a farmer.  Everything is growing marvelously, and the farm is wealthy in colors and textures and is generally bursting with abundance.   Just today, Olivia, Abigail and I savored the spring breeze by strolling along the zinnia bed right after we stopped for a snack in the strawberry patch.  Abigail, incidentally, seems to really enjoy the unripe ones, but when a girl is that cute and happy, why rock the boat?

However (so often a dreadful word, eh?), amidst all that beauty and plenitude, a number of uninvited guests are trying to crash our farm party.  From  the trillions of fungi that revel in our Florida humidity to the multiple generations of caterpillars and stink bugs, there are myriad reasons to feel that even the slightest bit of control that I think that I have is precarious.   The hard part, ironically, is that we are partly slowed by our own success:  There is so much to harvest!   Beans, zucchini, and cucumbers are particularly time consuming because they’re green.  (I abhor genetic modification, but, ” hey Monsanto! A neon orange bean would be much easier to pick!”)  Anyways, by the time we finally finish picking each day there is little time for frivolous pursuits like trying to fend off the impending onslaught of bugs and disease.  The most recent dream of mine is to make time in the day for smashing stink bug eggs.    These little golden egg clusters are everywhere, and if they escape my wrath and make it to adulthood they will use their piercing and sucking mouth parts to do untoward things to my precious ripening tomatoes.    But why am I telling you all of this, you may wonder?  Well, you can make a difference. Really!  Just come to market right as it opens and help us sell out in an hour so I can get back and defend my plants :)

Rain on my plain

As I am typing this, a glorious rain storm is pelting our farm.  We have been almost entirely rain free for the month of April, which puts the expression “April showers bring May flowers” at serious risk in these parts.  I absolutely love rain, and have fond memories (as most of us do, I’m sure) or running about in my skivvies during warm summer rain showers.  The tradition has continued with our three-year old.   Olivia has some really rockin’ pink gardening boots and has used them to perfect the art of puddle splashing after a good rain.  (The perfect splash, if you were unsure, is one that soaks an unsuspecting or unwilling bystander).

As a farmer I have noticed that there is just nothing quite like a good rain.  At Down to Earth Farm we use drip irrigation, which is a highly efficient system that only delivers water where the plants need it.  It’s a great  system and we are happy that it conserves that most precious of resources as we grow our food.  But we can run the irrigation for eons (which we don’t) and our plants will not respond nearly as well as they do after a nice rain.  I assumed that it was because we got much deeper and broader coverage with a heavy rain, but it turns out that rain is actually giving a little shot of fertilizer to crops.  According to the internet (more specifically, the Alabama agricultural extension service), rain actually absorbs a small percentage of nitrogen as it falls to the earth, in the form of ammonia.  And if there is lightening, as there is tonight, then another nitrogen compound, nitrate, is formed.  These same compounds are filtered out by soil so that by the time the rain seeps down to become ground water it no longer has the nitrogen present (which is a good thing for the ecosystem!).  So apparently all water is not the same………

Cookin’

What is the best part about organic farming?  Is it walking out into the field early on a spring morning and being enveloped by the fragrance of jasmine and honeysuckle?  Or maybe it is the feel of the cool moist soil on your fingers as you gently press a new transplant into the earth?  Or just maybe it is the unparalleled satisfaction of pulling up a carrot from the ground, revealing a flash of bright color out of its muddy brown home?  Those are all wonderful, but brother, I like to EAT those veggies!  And to prepare fantastic meals from our own garden creates more than enough job satisfaction to make up for any shortfalls in income :-)

Squatting

Our farm is relatively small and a bit oddly shaped.  The cultivated area of the field is long and narrow and we are surrounded by a ring of shrubs and trees like red maple, pine, chinese tallow, and camphor (the latter two being quite invasive, unfortunately).  Each season we have to do some work to keep this circle of trees, bushes and vines at bay as they are apparently unconcerned with the importance of my farming endeavor.  This week I was weeding between cucumber plants and a number of the weeds were little red-stemmed spindles sporting a tiny pair of  trident leaves:  a baby maple tree!  Just a few weeks ago we had a wonderful time as a family gathering the little rose-colored “helicopters” and then letting Olivia stand on the car and shower us with the flying seed pods.  I paused in the field and looked about and was strangely happy to know that if I stopped farming right then it would not take but a few months and the “wild” plants would move in and reclaim our little plot of land.

A Raccoon

It is an interesting gift to raise children on a small farm.  There are obviously innumerable joys in wandering the rows and snacking as we go.  To see Abigail, our one-year old, stretch and plead in my arms to snap off a broccoli shoot to munch on tickles my soul.  And to have Olivia lead tours of the chicken coop, expertly demonstrating to visitors how to feed the hens a  kale leaf through the fence, makes this farmer nearly burst with pride.   Some of the little ‘realities’ of farming often cause me to pause ever so slightly to think about how things look through their young eyes.  Namely, our control of bugs.  It didn’t phase me at all to squish a destructive (and quite probably mean spirited) caterpillar in my hand. but after you have read the Eric Carle classic ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ to your daughter forty-seven times you develop a little sensitivity.  Luckily Olivia has not shown too much sensitivity as she has helped me feed a few of the little rascals to the chickens. I have also walked  an ethical tight rope by explaining that most of the caterpillars on our farm don’t become butterflies at all, just drab dusty little moths (I know, I  know that’s a terrible line of reasoning!).   However this week we sought to turn around the negative reputation of caterpillars when we found an ‘infestation’ of swallowtail caterpillars in our carrot patch.  Instead of (ahem) murdering  them, we have given them all the carrot tops they can eat inside of a two-liter bottle.  And to check that Olivia was paying attention to the Eric Carle classic, Kristin asked her what the caterpillar is going to become soon.  “A butterfly” she responded. “Yes, but what about before it becomes a butterfly?”  Olivia paused a moment and said, “a raccoon!”

BUZZZZZZ

This week I was out cutting lettuce when my cell phone started to vibrate.  I wiped the dirt off my fingers, whipped out my phone and fought the sun’s glare to see who was calling (and to see  if they were important enough to further interrupt the lettuce harvest).  Strangely, it didn’t seem that anyone had called.   I stuck the phone back in my pocket and scanned the local flora for possible hallucinogenic plants that might be manipulating my senses.   A moment later I heard and felt the vibration again.  This time, however, I felt myself grinning broadly as I watched the yellow and black cell phone impersonator buzz from one broccoli flower to the next:  a mighty bumblebee!  I took a moment to watch madame bee improbably maneuver her oversized body from bloom to bloom.  It is a glorious spring!

Where did the spinach go?

Weeds, weeds, weeds.  You have heard of eating in season but how about weeding in season?  Up until the past couple weeks weeds have grown slowly enough to just be a nuisance but a couple of our plantings have disappeared in a dense weed jungle canopy.  But just like veggies have their favored time of year, our weed friends wait until conditions are right to pop up– and so the gently low growing winter weeds are giving way to the vigorous and aggressive spring weeds.  Tall spikes of sourgrass, medieval spires of thistle and dense patches of pigweed remind me of weeds that I missed last year and let go to seed.  One pigweed plant alone (a thorny variety of amaranth) can shower our farm with 400,000 seeds that seem to be all coming up in our cucumber bed at the moment.  It’s a battle that I have ignored amongst the dozens of daily farm chores, but I got a wake up call when I was giving a  young woman a tour and she commented on the beauty of our bed of little purple flowers.  She was right, it was lovely but I would rather have had my bed of spinach than the hedge of geranium weed.

We love UVM

How many people are so privileged in their life’s work that folks routinely offer to help??  Not a whole lot, I’m pretty sure.  On Monday we had ten students from the University of Vermont show up to lend a hand at the farm.  Now if your reaction is “they came all the way from Vermont just to work at your farm?”  that would be a legitimate reaction.  They originally were committed to help get a new amazing organic farm off the ground called the Veterans Farm.  According to their website, “The Veterans Farm will be a place that veterans can work and enjoy being in the outdoors. The farm will provide a place of sanctuary as well as help them regain that sense of purpose in their life while working on the farm.”  If you have a moment check out their site. 

Unfortunately there is still a lot of land grading and tractor work needed to be done at the Veterans Farm so they weren’t able to put the ten eager and able students to work.  But I could!  In the span of about six hours we cleared piles and piles of brush, weeded a couple hundred feet of beds, planted about three hundred plants and even painted a mural of a strawberry.  It was totally awesome!  If you happen to come across any other roaming bands of college kids feel free to send them our way….

Back to RAM

It has been an action packed week on the farm as we have planted hundreds upon hundreds of little seedlings, turned compost, thinned and weeded carrots and jump started our tractor at least half a dozen times.  It is unfortunate how much productivity and time  gets eaten up fixing and dealing with equipment, but until we enact my master plan of getting six backup tractors, four backup market vans and a herd of oxen, then we’ll just deal with our slight misfortunes as they come……..

Market this Week

Well after a few very calm weeks of FRAM, the hustle and bustle of RAM is upon us again.  The market runs from 10am until 4 pm but we are usually done by about 1pm so please find us early!  We will be on Farmer’s market row (the row closest to the Red Cross building). Please look for our Down to Earth sign amidst all the glitz and glamor of opening week!

My girls and I spent a wonderful afternoon playing at one of Jax’s lovely parks.  The three of us climbed to the top of the jungle gym and were greeted by a young girl a little older than Olivia, our three and a half year old.  The girl was sporting a tiara and quickly asked us if we knew why she was wearing it.  Without a pause she said she was wearing her “crown” because she is a “principal” and that this was her office.  Olivia, unfazed by her high stature, risked insubordination by observing the gigantic 20 oz. Pepsi in her hand, “Our family, the Lapinski’s, doesn’t drink those kinds of drinks. They’re not good for you.” I would have hoped that we  taught her a little more tact, but by golly, she pays attention to ol’ Mom and Dad!  The most fascinating part was that the girl was first defensive pointing out that soda tastes really good.  A few moments later she hurled her half-full (half-empty?) bottle off the two-story jungle gym where we had just slid down the twisty slide.  We asked the Principal if she wanted it back and she called down saying, “No, but you can use it for a project if you want.”  We passed up on this intriguing suggestion.   Believe it or not, this is a segue to talk about our fresh squeezed grapefruit juice and grapefruit spritzers we will have at the market.  Come enjoy a glass o Florida sunshine free of high fructose corn syrup!

As for our veggies, we will have many beautiful and scrumptious heads of heirloom romaine and classic green romaine as well.  We will also have a few bags of our colorful salad mix and bunches of those improbably good brussels sprout greens.  We will have plenty of bunches of scallions, dill and cilantro for those who are feeling herbacious.  We will have lots of broccoli heads from our friends at KYV organic farm.  In addition we will have those peppery daikon radishes, sweet cabbage and dino kale for your culinary enjoyment!

Finally we will have some healthy heirloom tomato plants:  Brandywine and cherokee purple varieties this week.  We will have a few more including black prince, green zebra and  moskvich next week.  We also have a few of our “Never Ending” salad bowls which are both delicious and beautiful.

Thanks so much for your support!

The Funky Egg

Hi Folks!

There are so many things that I didn’t learn about farming until I started farming.   To say that I am training on the  job is all well and good, until I realize that when I ask my boss about about how to farm properly he just laughs and points out that I’m talking to myself again. Hmmmm.   Anyways, one of the things that I knew very little about was chickens.   I was ignorant on everything from the role of the rooster to the whole egg laying production.  I am much more well-versed now that we are two years into chicken husbandry.  One surprising fact was that hens don’t lay eggs all year long, even though my desire for an omelette for breakfast does span the whole calender.  It turns out that hens (most varieties, anyhow) decrease their egg laying as the daylight shortens and then increase it again when days begin to grow longer.   So now that the day length is increasing our hens are obeying their genetic commands and have begun pumping out a higher volume of eggs each day, which is super cool for us.  I bring up our chickens and their lovely eggs mostly as a segue to talk about a funny thing that happened when I went to collect the eggs a while back.   The routine of collecting eggs is typically that,  a routine, as I merely have to lift up the lid of the nesting box and then collect the eggs off the straw bedding and then I’m on my way.  Well on this occasion after collecting the eggs, I happened to notice something strange of the floor of the coop.   At first I thought it was a balled up piece of paper which seemed quite out of place.  But as I got closer to it and then picked it up I realized that it was a super funky egg.  It was like an egg with an extra shell but the extra shell was twice too big and was just balled around the actual egg exactly like a piece of paper. Its quite an oddity. *a photo of it is below). I scanned the hens in the run to see if anyone was showing any signs of distress or limping or anything as it seemed that this would have been at least slightly uncomfortable to pass this out of their body.   I have googled this but not seen anything like it.  If anyone knows about this phenomenon please share your story!…….