Author Archives: Ann

Mid-March Work Parties: Planting, potting, composting, coop cleaning

By Urban Farm

And, I’d say, most of all, making sure the little ones in the greenhouse stay safe, warm enough, and watered, day and night. Here are two photos I took this morning. All of them have their covers on, and the heat maat is going, but no fire at this point.

Five of us are in communication with this ongoing task, via texts, usually. Your turn tonight? Do we need a fire? Let’s unplug the heat mat, drying them out too much — at least during the day. Wow, these little ones need to be put in their own pots! Which Marita and Adam did, during Tuesday’s work party.

On Saturday, Ning Yao and Ben stopped by late morning. Ben turned the compost . . .

. . . while Marita was in the chicken coop cleaning. You can’t see her in the dark, but she’s in there!

Ning Yao and I planted Yukon Gold seed potatoes. Hope we knew what we were doing! See the area thickly covered by fresh straw in the middle of this photo? That’s one of the hugelkultur beds, where we planted them before covering with straw.

If I’m not mistaken, I think these potatoes are the first things we’ve planted outside this season, directly into the soil.

This Thursday, we return to bi-weekly Community Dinners. (The last one was cancelled when someone took sick.) I’ll take a few pics that evening. 

It does feel like we’re on track for our spring activities in the greenhouse. This is the very first year we’ve not had a garden manager to tell us what to do and when. Instead, we rely on each other — and the internet. From top down Capricorn management style to loose, networked Aquarian style, which, interestingly enough, requires each of us to be more responsible, since we can’t just ignore the situation except for following orders from above. A very different feel to the atmosphere with this changeover. A bit dicey, chaotic; but we’re learning. And our seedlings, believe it or not, are thriving. 

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Work Party 3/4/23: we plant herb seeds and more

By Urban Farm

Yesterday, at our Saturday 10 AM to noon work party, I asked everybody present — from left: Ning Yao, Camden, Marita, Joseph, and Nicolas (Marita’s increasingly handsome near-15-year-old son with new, wire-rimmed glasses) — to stop what they were doing, just stop! — and pose for the camera. And sure enough, they did! (A rare occasion for this herding cats outfit). Joseph and I had just returned from a survey of the gardens, to decide and map out which veggies would go in which beds. The rest of the crew were planting herbs. 

So today, 3/5/23, I took pics in the greenhouse. Definitely more trays! 

A few more — and yes, we have to move that bike in and out of the greenhouse every time we work. . .

After the seed starting, we fanned out to do a few other tasks. Marita and Camden tossed grass seed where needed and put straw over that; Joseph pulled old sticks that remained from last season, leaving this garden about bare, except do you see, motherwort is already starting to grow again;

 — while NIng Yao, Nicolas and I began the process of tackled a tangled mess to break up into sticks and make a tidy pile. Meanwhile, Ning Yao (26 years old) hungered for me (80 years old) to tell her the dramatic story that changed my life at her exact age . . .  

See straw in front, tangled mass and pile in back? That soon to be shaded area is going to become a place where we’re going to try (try again, I should say) to grow edible mushrooms. The sticks will likely end up as fire starters, or else be used as deepest layers in new raised beds with aircrete sides that we plan for this year.

 

 

 

 

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Saturday work party: AND THE BEAT GOES ON

By Urban Farm, Village

Not sure what kind of “beat” we are following now, as I haven’t personally absorbed the biodynamic approach to gardening, but Joseph has (he used to live on a farm with an old woman who followed this method) and we are following its planting schedule for our 2023 season. (Joseph has promised to talk about biodynamics a bit at one of our Community Dinners. Will have to remind him. Maybe this Thursday?)

For last Tuesday’s work party, we discovered that, according to the biodynamic calendar, there was nothing to plant that day, so we watched several videos on permaculture instead. (I’m the only one who has formally educated myself through the Permaaculture Design Course. But: there are plenty of internet sources now, to at least begin to learn. And: though I took the course, and absorbed its philosophy, which basically teaches us to recognize and interact with Nature as a brilliant, interwoven system, where everything is both related to and depends upon everything else, i.e., “all waste is food,”  I had little experience with actual gardening, and I still don’t really understand “timing,” especially as to when and how to “start” various plants in spring. So much understanding of the way Nature works comes with experience and practice. 

Okay, so enter biodynamics, for us, this year, since we no longer depend on an experienced “garden manager.” After our last one, Daniel, moved to be on his own in I think it was August 2022, we’re finally getting the hang of what it means to operate as an Aquarian group of equals, depending on each others’ strengths and deficiencies as we relate to what we’re doing here “on the farm.”

Yesterday morning, according to the Moon, it was time to plant fruiting vegetables; so we decided on okra, tomatoes and peppers. Two trays total.

There wasn’t enough to do inside the green house for all of us, so Joseph and Camden stayed in there to prepare the soil mix, make soil blocks and plant, while Marita and I headed out for a bit of “terraforming,” i.e., in this case, repositioning soil along the edge which is about to get a new fence. 

If you recall, that edge used to be where we kept the compost bins. We took them to the back yard of the third house a year ago.

Meanwhile, Joseph was out in front of the house he lives in, in the forest garden whose pathways he designed, pruning the queen of this little village, our wonderful elderberry.

So that was that. Two hours went by in a heartbeat.

This morning, I checked on the greenhouse, and found Camden and his girl friend Sam, at Marita’s instruction, removing the overnite covers (besides the covers, they were on heating pads (see the blue stretching out from below the right hand tray) and a fire Marita built for overnight), plus checking to see if any of them need watering this morning. No. Those covers kept them moist.

Until Tuesday, when it looks like we plant “roots” i.e., carrots, onions, leeks, beats — and potatoes?

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How Easy for Nature; How Difficult for Humans . . .

By Uncategorized

I’m struck by the ease with which Nature moves, mysterious and majestic, through the seasons; now, already in February, she begins to burst underground seeds into roots balancing silently surging stalks upwards, seeking the sun through very thick leaf mulch . . . 

Or even, not so thick . . .

I think the above are all daffodils. Then there are the welcome little snow drops, which flowered at least a week ago.

The very first green we saw was around the trunk of this tree, about a month ago. What is it?

Okay, now switch to us humans. We are in the beginnings of planting for the the upcoming season. To get ready, we spent five or six work parties of two hours each and 5-6 people each time, preparing the greenhouse — washing walls, shelves, containers, organizing and re-organizing all sorts of stuff; plus cleaning, sharpening, oiling tools. And more! On and on! Then, mixing materials for the soil we use in starting seeds, getting that soil moist enough (but not too sodden!) to agree to be compacted into tiny soil blocks . . .

Here’s Adam, learning the ropes on how to get the pesky soil blocks to work. 

Meanwhile, Joseph is getting itsy bitsy seeds (not sure what kind) . . .

to agree to be placed into tiny soil blocks by wetting the end of a pointed stick to lure one seed at a time to stick to the stick . . .

I went to check on our progress as of this morning. The seedlings were planted Tuesday. This is five days later. Rather than being in the greenhouse, they are in the living room of the house Marita and Camden live in, for now. (That way we don’t have to start a fire in the greenhouse during cold nights.)

Here’s what’s sprouting today. Kale.

 

Some of the seedlings are beginning to poke their roots through the bottoms of their blocks, so Marita and I will put their tiny blocks inside larger blocks this evening.

Meanwhile, Nature just does what she does effortlessly. 

There’s likely a way to survive on perennial plants alone. We humans just haven’t figured it out yet. Or: we don’t remember. We don’t re-member. We haven’t put ourselves back together with Nature, yet.

Meanwhile, we toil and labor, at something we love.

I think it no accident that the words “soil” and “soul” are similar.

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Work Party Saturday: We Make an Abrupt U-Turn, and Yet Another One, Spiralling into Quiet Joy . . .

By Urban Farm

Meaning, what we had decided to do, we couldn’t: terraform in a few places, but the soil outside had frozen overnight.  So . . . okay, well we can still get soil ready for Tuesday (Valentine’s Day), when, according to our biodynamic schedule, we will begin to plant seeds.

As in the past four weeks, both Ben and Ningyao (finally got her name right!) were here, hoping to learn from us how to do permaculture. They’ve been working with us to us clean and organize the greenhouse the past few weeks — sweet of them, but that’s not what they signed up for! And we had a new person with us, too, Mathew, who also wants to learn permaculture by doing it.

So, here’s Marita, about to tell everybody what goes in our soil mixture.

We use a mini-block recipe from Eliot Coleman’s The New Organic Grower. The page obviously earmarked . . .

But . . . abrupt U-turn again. Why? Because everybody was eager to not just get the soil ready, but to get their hands in the soil, learn how to use the soil block tool, and hell, let’s plant some seeds! 

 

And since we had already-mixed soil in this container, leftover from last year, let’s just use that, and mix soil for the rest of the greens and herbs next Tuesday. 

Newcomers quickly discovered that you have to get the exact amount of water mixed into the soil so that it will both stay in the soil block tool, and yet not be too wet.

Mathew and Joseph, squatting. Much better than stooping, especially if you’re tall!

(A discussion ensued about the virtues of squatting and that it was how humans used to “sit” before we had chairs).

I’m the only one who didn’t plant, since my hand tremor makes it impossible to work with such tiny seeds as those of basil, arugula and chamomile, all of which we ended up planting in mini-blocks. This next pic makes it obvious. And BTW: the tiny seeds below are ours! From our harvest last year. FINALLY, we’re collecting our own seeds, mostly thanks to Joseph. (I know I’ve said this before in this blog; but it still excites me!)

Next, Joseph and Ningyao. Joseph was the one who decided to see if flower seeds would grow this way, and now, mid-February, Used a mid-sized block, rather than the itsy-bitsy one, to plant zinnia, nasturtium, and sunflower — the large ones, which, surprisingly, didn’t come up last year. Hmmm . . . did he use our sunflower seeds for his planting? Hope not. I know we had packs of store bought seeds left over from last year.

Ben, stooping, having trouble getting his eyes to work with the tiny seeds.

So that’s how we began using biodynamics — on the very first day of the actual gardening season — by impulsively and joyfully starting to plant seeds three days ahead of our carefully chosen (according to the Moon) start date. 

We took all the trays inside one of the houses, next to the window, so they won’t get cold and we won’t have to start a fire in the greenhouse at night. We will keep them moist by spraying them regularly. The tiny seedling blocks get transferred into mid-size blocks when the second set of leaves sprout.

 

 

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