Farm Blog

Thank you again for braving the blizzard to celebrate, connect with great food, and 'planting an orchard'! Just imagine all those future cherry trees (don't forget to squat:-).
I am so uplifted from all the good vibes, intentions, laughter and seeds shared and planted.

We were able to raise $850.00 in funds! This will go a long way, thank you! Additionally, with all the seeds donated today and from what I've gleaned from others, The women growers in the Sine-Saloum region will be able to plant out a couple hundred row feet/farm. In the past we've planted shared 'demonstration beds' ie since many of the farmers share space/land to grow on we've constructed seeds beds to trial different varieties, plant insectory herbs and flowers and share techniques. From there seeds are harvested and shared forward amongst the individual farmers. So in essence your generosity helped plant teaching/learning/eating/

sharing beds of veggie, herb, and flower goodness!
 

I will honor my commitment and extend the immense gratitude, generosity that was shared during the workshop with the women farmers in the following ways:

Work with NCBA CLUSA Farmer to Farmer Program to transfer funds and mail seeds.
I'll also email and share highlights, photos forward later this week in celebration of our workshop success.

I am tentatively set to travel there Nov/Dec. or January in 2016.

I also finally remembered the name of third grower group, JUBO (means widespread). If you're interested in learning more about how they got started, here's a link to an interview I did as part of my last Farmer to Farmer adventure in Senegal.

I Will keep you in the loop as the project evolves and thanks again for sharing your generous spirit!

For the chocolate lovers:
Becky Otte, who made the amazing truffles, has more of her chocolate goodness to share and is selling some of her creations just in time for Valentines. if you're interested send her an email: raonine@gmail.com

Also Here is a link to Roots Chocolate website.

For the Fruit Lovers:

I've enclosed a handout of some of the different fruits we grow at our farm as well as a flyer highlighting this season's events at the farm! We'd love to have you venture out and tour the orchard, come visit us (though not nearly as cool as the orchard poses we did during the workshop).

Thank you again for helping me transition from being a butterfly weed seed (ie wind pollinated, not knowing where or how my intentions, projects might stick) to more of an oak or cashew seeds - wherein I can deepen my awareness, provide support in the same place(s) in Senegal for the growers and in my backyard in Wisconsin:-). Here's to planting the seeds of the as yet to be imagined on and off the yoga mat! Wishing you all much abundance.

Happy Mid-winter!

Yours in hardy kiwi,
Erin


PS If you are into exploring the planting side as well as enjoying more local fruit creations, we'll be hosting a Local Fruit Tasting May 16, details on our website.

 

Summer Solstice Re-cap, Sizing up the Season

With the solstice now past and the deep of summer ahead of the prow, it seemed like a good point to assess the year so far.

The start to the 2021 growing season was auspiciously benign by comparison with a number of recent years. Green-up was long but steady -- a pleasant contrast to the extremely cold late-Springs we’ve seen in the past half-decade when tree-buds only broke in the third or fourth week of May.

The slow warm-up made for good results from the early-season vegetables, with the single exception of peas. Having been planted into delightfully dry and workable soil in mid-April, they sat for nearly two and a half weeks before receiving any appreciable moisture, and their germination reflected it. So, unfortunately, there will be no peas in the vegetable share this year. Otherwise though, planting was – by contrast to Springs in the late Teens -- blessedly uneventful, with warm soils allowing good tilth, and enough moisture during May to germinate carrots, beets, scallions, corn, beans and vining crops.

June’s early, dry heat was a challenge for the lettuce and radishes, both of which were inclined to bolt earlier than usual. Steady irrigation from our water catchments countered some of that. On them up-side, the drought in June seems to have so far kept insect populations – barring the ubiquitous potato beetle, of course -- in check. We’ll see how this plays out now that a significant change for the rainier has commandeered the month’s final week.

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The Food by the Numbers

We are paying more attention to numbers these days than we usually do, between Covid infection rates and the vote totals that will determine the direction of public policy over the next four years. And so, I will take the opportunity to slip in these for your review, so long as we are paying attention to sums of far greater moment. My figures are rather disappointing – perhaps, in that way, like some of the others.

Despite a meteorological year that was far more conducive to both vegetables and fruit than ones recently past, overall production on the farm was underwhelming this past season. This runs broadside against my perception of the year, which is that it was like those prior to 2016 when we had much more normal amounts of precipitation, decent heat and relatively abundant sunshine than we’ve seen recently.

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What's Ahead

Once past the cross-quarter point in early February, the small return of evening light -- stolen so prematurely and frustratingly back at Lammas -- is just enough to rekindle the enthusiasm to go forward into a new growing season; although frankly, at this point, sitting with my feet up and a book on my lap has not lost much of its appeal.  Lengthening days do make me itchy to get back on the land and, as they say, hope does spring eternal each year. But climate change is increasingly putting a strain on that. 
            The three wettest years on record in south-central Wisconsin have all occurred since 2016.  The next three wettest occurred during the previous seven years.  So that's the six wettest years occurring in the past twelve; the odds of having another “wettest year on record” are therefore effectively one in two at this point, rather than the 1 in 80 that would otherwise be expected (the climate database I'm looking at goes back to 1940).

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Counting on my Fingers: The Year in Numbers

  Sometime in July, my left thumb began hurting. It wasn't due to any injury so far as I could tell – I'd simply slept on it badly, cocked-up under my neck to support my head.  I didn't think much about it until I slowly realized that it wasn't getting any better as August turned to September. Thumbs get quite a lot of use around our farm, and Erin quite reasonably chided me for putting-off having it looked at.   We were busy of course, and I suppose that was my excuse. By the time we were drawing-in the last of the harvest in October, my thumb's continuing sensitivity finally prompted me to set an appointment at the clinic, worried that twenty-six years of farm work might have taken its toll and that now, perhaps, I had left it too late.

As if to put as fine a point on that sentiment as possible, the soonest available time with a doctor turned out to be at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.  I suppose the diagnosis would have been the same whenever I'd been seen, but I found Fate's additional fillip in this regard slightly amusing. Arthritis is an occupational hazard of farming, and the sort of hand-agriculture that we engage in -- with its endless hours of repetitive motion and straining of the limbs against the forces of nature -- hardly makes it less-so.  Arthritis has already crept into my back and shoulder, but I've found these joints amenable to stretching and exercise as succor for their occasional creakiness and pain.  Not so my thumb, which has thus far remained recalcitrant and is generally unhappy wrapped around a hoe or hammer handle.  I have a bit of occupational therapy scheduled for the winter months ahead, but I admit mild concern if I can't manage to get a grip on this new challenge. On the other hand, I'm unlikely to give up farming very easily because I'm addicted to it.

From Digits to Numbers

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Avoiding the Hazards: 2018 Retrospective

I've often likened vegetable farming to golf -- each year a completely different course, unknown in its layout and length, with novel demands on one's skill-set, exhilarating to engage (inevitably) no matter how draining and demoralizing the final tee. If this comparison is apt, I can say the back nine were especially hard on us in 2018.

Farming is famous for its yearly gauntlet of perils, primarily involving the vicissitudes of weather and markets. At Hilltop, we can at least be thankful to avoid the latter since we sell primarily retail.

But Nature swings a large bat.

As growers, we hedge against calamity in whatever ways are possible – row-cover in the Spring, seven-foot deer fencing, water-catchments to bridge the droughts, obsessive mulching to hold soil-moisture and protect against pounding rains. Much of our preparation is geared toward managing the hydrologic cycle.

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Reckoning

Better late than never.

With squirrely and uncooperative weather from almost start to finish this growing season, analysis of 2017's production – like all the rest the year's work – got pushed back by several weeks. But I've finally had a chance to compile the numbers. They are rather uninspiring.

While this growing season's rains (33.05” in total) were not quite as miserable as 2016 (37.88”), they were still 40% over the historical average for the April through October period. And, as usual, the specific timing of the rains was what was most significant. While last year's deluges came almost exclusively after the middle of August, 2017's were heavily loaded toward planting season – we were already 10 inches ahead of 2016 in the short period from the start of April to the end of June.

Cold weather accompanying the rains in the critical third week of May slowed drying and made soil preparation for popcorn and peppers an ungodly slog, especially since both crops were slated for a section of the garden with heavier, more clay-ish soils.

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Keeping Mechanics at Bay

Like my back, our pickup truck creaks a lot more than it used to, but still functions. I take this as an augury that another season of vegetable growing is possible; indeed, with an April share already behind us, it seems to have leapt underway.

Both back and truck are indispensable to the enterprise of farming, though I got along without the second for a number of years simply by using my Geo Metro as a truck instead. I hauled uncountable tons of compost to my farm in it, which eventually led to blowing two of the three cylinders, as you would expect from a vehicle rated at 550 lbs live load. (Incidentally, the car operated fine, if wimpily, on one cylinder). After having the valves replaced I was able to keep hauling compost for several additional years. The setup was fuel efficient and cheap, minus the valve-job.

The '97 Nissan pickup is also often overloaded since this is the most efficient way to move things, though perhaps not cheapest in the long run. Road gravel is the usual cargo which I find myself schlepping a dozen times or more each year from the local materials yard to throw, by shovelfuls, into the ruts which climate change + gravity conspire to carve down the slopes of our driveway.

Farming involves an awful lot of moving things against gravity, so I'm glad my back has lasted. Like the truck, it has slowed down but still moves, so I am thankful.

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