Tiny Farm Blog Organic micro-farming with two acres and some tools ~ a daily photo journal...

Zinnias bloom! At least, a few varieties are starting, along with many of the other cut flowers in this year’s trial bed. Much of last year’s first trial bed wound up worse for the wear after drought and infrequent weeding. This year, I tripled the amount of the same flower selection, about a dozen direct-seeded annuals, divided into two sections.

With all of the rain and and more attention, they’re doing a lot better…

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been experimenting again with rinsing versus…not rinsing. This comes up a couple of times every year, where I think (or someone suggests) that rinsing various veggies is not necessary: to save time, to improve storage, to preserve nutrients,…the reasons vary. (For me, the time-saving is always a big attraction!) Sometimes, crops just have to be rinsed to cool them down quickly if harvested in the heat, or because they’re really mucky from heavy, mud-splashing rain. In any case, this week, we didn’t rinse the carrots, beets and beet greens, so sorting at the market was a bit messy. That’s Lynn and Maria, happily dirty-handed… The conclusion is usually the same: when the harvest is really kinda muddy, which is often the case this year with all the rain and wet ground, a quick rinse is better all around, for handling and for presentation. Still, the experimentation continues!

A fair number of kids have dropped by the farm, parents in tow, but today was the first time since I’ve been doing the tiny farm blog WITH PEOPLE INCLUDED, that smaller children figured directly into the fieldwork picture. Michelle, whom I’ve known for 4-5 years from the farmers’ market, and who now comes by to help harvest on Fridays, dropped in today with her three…kids. There’s the impossibly cute and BUSY Violet, age two (above), who was into a bit of everything, like collecting carrots and eating every veggie she got her hands on. Allie (6) was really helpful, harvesting carrots with Lynn and Maria, harvesting beets and cauliflower with me, totally pulling her weight. Big brother Michael (8) kept Violet out of trouble here and there, but mainly chatted with me in some depth about his rugby and hockey teams, his parents views towards his sports performance, the video game he’s currently playing,…and other stuff. While Michelle cut a huge amount of all-lettuce mesclun, the kids hung out, did some useful fieldwork, and overall contributed in a surprisingly great way to the harvest afternoon vibe… Another happy side of the Tiny Farm Experience!

Fun with carrots…

Lynn conducts an impromptu field seminar, featuring…carrots.

Allie eats and inspects carrots at the same time…

Strike a pose… Kids in the TFE!

Working with the tiny tractor always looks like fun: after three seasons, it’s still fun for me, and just about everyone else seems to enjoy it, too! This Kubota compact tractor is dead simple to operate, rugged and reliable, easy on diesel, and nonthreateningly…tiny. And it’s as close as we’ve gotten to the other world of big, mechanized agriculture. Tilling with the 48″ rototiller is the Kubota’s main in-the-garden-beds field duty (and that’s something I try to keep to a minimum). I’ve come to rely on it for this one critical task, and to a lesser degree, for moving earth, manure, compost and other things with the front-end loader. Particularly, when time gets short and weeds on open sections start to go crazy, it’s great to have around. Here, Libby tries rotilling for the very first time, working up two sections for planting out fall brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage,…). And, yep, looks like she’s having fun!

A month after transplanting the slips, the sweet potatoes are thriving! I’m still entirely unsure of the eventual harvest, but these plants are a low-maintenance pleasure so far. Almost every slip, even most of the ones that turned into tiny, leafless stubs for a while, managed to establish without any care at all, not even watering in after transplanting. Cool!

Less than 24 hours after arriving from Barcelona, Spain, WWOOFer Maria is in the weeds! Here, she hand weeds parsley with Lynn. Maria is our first longer-term WWOOFer, staying for about six weeks. I found it a bit tricky, committing to an extended stay without meeting first, but it all seemed good after an exchange of emails, and here she is! She just finished her second year of university in…food engineering. This is her first farm experience, and from what I can gather so far, it’s really at the other end of the scale from the scope of her studies. Her English is quite good, and her vibe seems right. And there’s never been this much steady help in the field. Overall, it should be an interesting exchange!

The Friday harvest is still greens-heavy, with beet greens in several varieties leading the way. Here, as teh afternoon winds down and the temperature cools, Michelle and Lynn thin the second beets planting of Scarlet Supreme, with Chioggia and Bull’s Blood off to the right. There’s also the fourth planting of all-lettuce mesclun, just cut on the far left, and in the center, Panther romaine, miraculously spared by the earwigs and in excellent shape and taste, to be cut next… Elsewhere, cauliflower, parsley, the last of the spring spinach and peas,…

If you’re not on top of weeds by mid-June, things are gonna get ugly. Here, I’ve yet to come close to not having…problem spots, like this year’s onion section, where a perfect combination of heat and rain made relatively tiny pigweed JUMP in just a couple of days. At this size, and with the weeds growing right close to the onions, careful hand-weeding is the only option, other than tilling under the crop. Today. Lynn, Libby and I tackled the job…

Hours of weeding and a complete weather change later, the deed was done. As much as you think about the intense amount of labor, what that adds to the true cost of one of these onions, how things could’ve been done more efficiently, and so forth, you can’t help but be satisfied by such a complete…makeover. I asked Libby, after her very first crazy weeding spree, how she felt. With a big grin, she said: “I love intense!” You can’t help but love that attitude! :)

And there was still time for other fieldwork, an unhurried lunch break, and time out to play with the goats… Is this an economically viable way to farm? Well, it’s kinda working out so far, things are slowly, steadily improving, and we seem to be having ever more fun as it goes along!

“I am excited”—Farmer Lynn on her official first day as a full-timer on this tiny farm! This is so great! Lynn started out volunteering mid-last season, for a few hours after work on harvest Fridays, returned more or less in the dead of winter (early March) to help with seed starting, left her chosen career path of several years at the end of June, and decided to work for the rest of this season…right here! I am excited! :)