Week 9, Spring 2023
Hi Friends, it’s Claire!
A late farm journal update from last week, which was a doozy! We kicked off the week with a dreary beltane, which was cold and rainy, yet somehow this group sees the beauty in any weather mother nature can dish out. Acacia and I went out, after bundling up of course, into the field to do some soil sampling for a new research control plot. We tried to get our sampling done as quickly as possible, but halfway through we needed to get into my car for a little warm-up break.
On Tuesday, we started a new straw soak, which is when we put chopped straw into big sacks and then submerge them in water that has been mixed with lime for 12+ hours. This is to pasteurize the straw that we use to grow mushrooms on (called the substrate), so that we can kill most of the bacteria and fungi to prevent these microbes from inhibiting the mushroom spawn from growing. After that, we started taking the pH of our soil samples. Here’s a peek into our process: we take a dry soil sample, grind it with a mortar and pestle, weigh out 10 grams in a test tube, add 10 mL of water to the test tube and shake. Then, we wait an hour, take the pH, then we add 10 mL of calcium chloride and shake, then wait 15 minutes, and take the pH again. We repeat this process for every single sample! That same day we got another truckload of basalt to lay out on a new sample plot, weighing in at a whopping 22.23 tons.
On Wednesday, we embarked on our day with weeding in one of our gardens while watching Gavi’s thesis presentation, which was stellar! Shoutout Gavi! Then, we did even more pH work while some of us started building our new high tunnel greenhouse. That afternoon, twelve new bags of mushroom spawn came in the mail! The package weighed a TON (not literally) and I had to carry it to my car, then to someone else’s house, then up some stairs, until I could finally put them in a fridge that would fit them all. On Wednesday, we also seeded fennel, okra, and parsley!
Thursday was exciting! We got to plant five chokecherry trees and four American plum trees, both of which are native to the midwest. We tucked our little baby trees into a nice mix of soil and biochar, then put wood chips on top of them to keep weeds out of the area. Remi had to take a special test for medical school (an ethics exam called Casper), so everyone else left the house to give them some peace and quiet (and so that we didn’t slow the wifi). To keep the peace, a group of us went on a little adventure to Steak and Shake, and then went to a park where Acacia and Allison played on an amazing playground and Felix and I had an intense tennis match on the courts. Felix won 4-3 :(
On Friday, if you can even believe it, we did MORE pH work. We also took one of our beloved cats, Phoebe, to the vet to get a wound on her neck checked out. She did absolutely wonderful, even the vet was impressed with her behavior. After that we worked more on the greenhouse and getting ready for the real part of setting it up. On Friday evening, we had Phoebe themed Shabbat in honor of our cat and in honor of Phoebe Bridgers. We all dressed for the event and listened to Phoebe Bridgers.
It was a week for the books, and one that we loved! We’ll see you next week in the Farm Journal (actually more like this week because this edition is a tad late, though who is to say it won’t be late again!)
