Week 6, Spring ‘21
By Remi Welbel
It’s our sixth week here and we are feeling ready to move and grow like the transplants from our greenhouse.
On Monday, we gathered on a picnic blanket outside for our All Hands Meeting and officially welcomed Tuomas, the newest member of our community, to our team! We began the day by activating our last batch of biochar and making our watering rounds. We are so grateful for our new 200ft hose! On the research side, we ventured to the fields to take soil cores and conduct emissions testing with our new flux chamber. We then took to the strawberry test plots to conduct pH sampling. Then we got to seeding our miracle vegetable garden, as we like to call it. We seeded carrots, radishes, and spinach.
For dinner, Jesse and I roasted brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, golden potatoes, and tofu, and made farro with mushroom tomato sauce.
On Tuesday, we came together to establish our goals for the day and set out to work! Outside, we seeded swiss chard, mustard greens, turnips, and beets. We also constructed our three-bin compost structure out of repurposed wood pallets. Currently, our worms are residing in a temporary home in the basement, but soon we will integrate them into a vermicomposting system. We also mapped out where we will plant our serviceberries in our berry patch! For our research, we took pH samples from our basalt field test plots and used our microrhizones to draw water samples from the soil samples we took yesterday. Inside, we researched grants to apply for so that we can acquire the necessary equipment we need to scale up our farming production.
For dinner, Brendan and Shachar made sautéed cabbage, red lentils, spiced brown rice, and mango lassi. After eating together, we ventured outside and sat around a campfire. We had to refrain from covering the wood as it ashed as we do when we make biochar.
On Wednesday, we sat around the kitchen table drinking coffee and planning all the planting and construction that needed to get done. First, we set out to pH test in the strawberry fields. Then, while some of us began digging out trenches to plant our asparagus crowns, the rest of us set to work sowing oats as cover crops to prepare our berry patch. Together, we got all our asparagus crowns planted and made a dent in preparing our berry patch, although we’ve got a long way to sow! Later, we worked on cleaning out and organizing the shed. Soon, it will be home to our research equipment. We’ll no longer be attempting to conduct our chemical analyses in the living room!
For dinner, Lilly and Hannah made roasted lemon and thyme potatoes, chopped veggie salad, hummus, reinvigorated leftover farro, and roasted cauliflower.
On Thursday, we kicked off our day with our team meeting and got to work inside while it rained outside. Our policy team prepared for the Midwest Rural Sunrise Visioning call in the evening, and discussed our involvement in the Illinois Stewardship Alliance’s Farm Week of Action coming up on April 19th. Then we all reconvened to have a farm management and planning meeting with JR. We established what our next couple of months of planting and transplanting will look like, what plants and equipment still need to be purchased, watering needs, and the potential of getting a couple of bee hives set up in the near future. After our meeting, we got to work testing the alkalinity of the water pulled from our soil using our microrhizones and prepared the samples to send to the lab. Then we ventured into the drizzling rain to continue sowing oats in our berry patch.
For dinner, Sophia and Tuomas made peanut noodles, fried tofu, and sautéed broccoli and carrots.
On Friday, we came together for a quick team meeting before getting to work! We got a biochar burn going in the kiln and rotated tending to the fire while the rest of us worked on weeding our spinach and strawberries, and cleaning out the shed. Inside, we planned for our summer cohort’s orientation and for our fall informational session. We are beyond excited to welcome our summer cohort to our growing ZA community! If you know someone between 18-24 who’s interested in living and learning at Zumwalt Acres, tell them to check out our fall apprenticeship application, due Monday, April 26th at 11:59 pm CST. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to us any time at our email (zumwaltacres@gmail.com)!
For Shabbat, we had a doppelganger theme and each dressed up as one another. For dinner, Gavi and I made tomato vegetable soup, roasted daikon radishes, roasted sweet potatoes, and challot in the shape of keys, known as shlissels, in celebration of the first Shabbat after Pesach.
After dinner, we opened our fill jars and sang Shabbat songs together.