Week 8, Fall 2023
Hello all! Claire Ivey here once again to tell you about this week at the farm! I was absolutely pooped at the end of each day this week, it was action packed and we got so much done.
On Monday morning we started off the week with some more sweet potato harvesting (man were some of those suckers deep in there), garlic planting, and harvesting oyster and shitake mushrooms. After lunch Sophie gave an amazing context conversation on bugs! We got to go outside and look for bugs and identify them using local field guides, we also learned about the different kinds of bugs that you’d find over in the woods vs the ones closer to our house and garden beds. After that there was some harvesting of daikons and squash, and a whole lot of turning beds so that we get them nice and prepared for a crop to overwinter in them or just to clean them up as the weather gets colder and some crops naturally go out of season or die.
On Tuesday we had a huge push in the morning to get the high tunnel up, this has been so amazing to see progress in and to think about how happy our tomatoes are going to be next season all tucked in and warm. In the afternoon mushrooms were harvested, beds continued to be turned, tomatoes were frozen, and Amy made some mint extract. I also finally started to harvest some of the soy field behind the house to get yield data for our basalt trials. With tons of help from Johnny and JR, we harvest a section of soybeans and weigh them in what's called a ‘weigh wagon’, then I measure the exact area, after that’s all done I can divide the weight by the area to get pounds per square foot! We did this in a high application rate area as well as a control area. On Tuesday night we all tuned in to watch Gavi and Sophie at the BOOST event! It was so fun and inspiring to hear all the other finalists give their presentations, and our congratulations go out to Gardeneers who won the event.
On Wednesday there was another high tunnel push in the morning while Martina went to the food pantry and I planned for sampling on Thursday, in the afternoon people went off to do various tasks and continue with the high tunnel while I went to go harvest the corn field and get data in the same way that I did the soybeans the day before.
On Thursday in the morning can you guess what happened? Yes, yet another push on the high tunnel (she’s a LOT of work) and Martina, Frances, and I went out to the corn field to sample. It took us around 3 hours to finish a full plot of 20 points (with 12 sub-points laid out in a grid) and by the end we all really wished that we had brought headphones. In the afternoon high tunnel work continued- shout out to Margalit, Martina, Acacia, and CP for being our main builders and working so so hard every day to get that up! Amy and I went back out to sample a half plot before ending the day.
Today, we started the morning by harvesting some cabbage and working on beds and grants, and Martina, Amy and I went to sample a plot and a half plot which was so tiring, but we all brought headphones this time! Amy and Martina listened to music and later Martina switched over to an audio-book, and I listened to 3 episodes of my favorite podcast called ‘ologies’. This afternoon we plan to harvest all the remaining cherry tomatoes, arugula, and cilantro, do a mushroom tent clean, and to fit in a context conversation led by Martina and Acacia.
I think I speak for all of us when I say that this weekend will be much needed after such a busy week and in preparation for another busy week to come that will be packed full of finishing building the high tunnel and a whole lot of sampling.
-Claire Ivey
