Week 8, Summer ‘21
We had an abundance of love and potatoes finishing our second to last full week here at the farm.
On Monday, we did a lot of mini tasks after talking about a lot of big goals. We started off our Monday with a meeting about our goals for the future, what we want to get done before the Fall, and things that are ongoing that we want to set up for the Fall cohort to do. That meeting, as you can probably guess, took a while, and afterwards it really sunk in for us that this was our last two weeks together and we have a lot to get done! Hannah, Sophie, and Stephanie then immediately got to harvesting and packing cucumbers, radishes, green beans, and squash for Marty’s Down at the Farm food order. Simultaneously, Joey went out with the Flux backpack, Tuomas split wood for our upcoming biochar burn, and Zaria weeded and mulched strawberries.
In the afternoon we planned the community event spearheaded by Grace, and Tuomas pulled up peas and planted squash in the Bayit Beds.
That night, we ate homemade bread rolls for sloppy Tuo’s (vegan sloppy Joe’s), coleslaw, and rice [Patricia + Tuo].
On Tuesday, our Marty’s order went out! Steph started the day off bright and early at 5am to start a biochar burn, and subsequently drove our produce to be sent to Marty’s. Once Steph left, most of the cohort took shifts watching the biochar, and recording temperatures every 5 minutes. In addition to biochar, two other research projects were going on. It was that time of the month when soil cores and pH values were taken in all 45 plots of our strawberry patch, and we finally had the supplies we needed to complete water rhizon pulls from the soil cores taken out of the corn and hay field. Zaria, Hannah, and Patricia headed up strawberry research, and Patricia, Sophie, and Joey began pulling rhizons. Joey was then quickly pulled to do more upkeep with the fridge, and made it a priority to have the fridge fully functioning by the end of the week. And we could always use more mulch, so Grace, Jesse, and Hannah laid down straw in plots of strawberries that were looking a little bare.
The whole day was captured by a wonderful photographer sent by Projects for Peace and Middlebury. The photographer, Alyssa, took pictures of us all day, and it was nice to have some visual documentation of the work we were doing for the two days she was here! In addition to Alyssa, we also had an in-person presentation about the history of Iroquois county by public historian, Rolfe Jaremus. One last special guest of the week was our beloved co-founder, Remi. We were grateful to have her presence in-person for the week!
That night, we ate cucumber tomato salad, quinoa, roasted chickpeas, and TVP chili [Jesse + Steph].
On Wednesday, everyone was a little split up in terms of work on the farm. We needed to finish trubing our last row of the West Shelterbelt that we forgot about, titrate the water that the rhizons pulled the previous night, finish the fridge, do maintenance harvests, and spray neem oil on plants that were getting pest pressure. That night, the photographer finished up with photos for the day, and headed out.
That night, we ate summer salad, and spaghetti with 3 sauces: vegan bechamel, fresh marinara, and mushroom sauce [Zaria + Jesse].
On Thursday, updating and organizing for Fall was high priority. Everyone spent a little time outlining their roles and responsibilities on the farm to be passed down for the next cohort. In addition to that, Patricia and Sophie sat down and wrote out full methodologies for our field research practices, including pulling rhizons, alkalinity titrations, soil coring and pH/temperature measurements, and more. On that note, Gavi gathered corn leaf samples and vegetable fruit/leaf samples to measure silica and heavy metal uptake to be analyzed at Yale. Steph was busy writing out more food safety guidelines, all while Zaria, Grace, and Eric were outside doing farm maintenance and upkeep
These past few days have looked a little different, because we want to ensure we’re passing down the farm as organized and thoughtful as we can for future cohorts. To achieve this, everyone has been putting in more time, effort, and energy to make ZA run as smoothly as it can, and lay out clear expectations for the Fall. Much appreciation to all the Summer apprentices for this, as well as the Spring and Fall cohorts before us who spent so much of their time laying the foundation for what’s to come with Zumwalt Acres.
That night, we ate cucumber, corn, radish, tomato, and mint salad, and a lentil, kale, tomato soup [Eric + Gavi].
On Friday, a party was in order. We had a huge party at the potato patch to harvest what came out to be over 200 lbs of red potatoes, both for ourselves and to sell. Joey and Tuomas were the only ones not out harvesting potatoes, but for good reason-- they fixed and finished the fridge so it had a working AC/coolbot unit! We then loaded up the fridge with all the potatoes we harvested that morning, and left the week feeling extremely accomplished.
That night, our shabbat dinner had a red theme due to a previous mishap with Joey and a Red Winged Black Bird. We had red potatoes, red lentils, red tomatoes (cherry and beefsteak), red pepper hummus, and challah of course (with turkey red flour) [Steph + Patricia].
