Freshman Farmers and Peaceful Valley Staff share some basic growing tips throughout the season. From starting seeds to using row covers, we hope to provide future farmers with the necessary resources!

We’ve been working on Orchard 2, the second of our two existing orchards, the past couple of weekends.  The soil is right for digging and our gypsum amendment has had some time to work into the soil, so although we trampled our still-infant cover crop a bit, the time was right to put in this year’s new baby trees.

Here’s a picture of Orchard 2, its fledging cover crop, and the new trees.

We had a lot of fun with this planting, because we waited for the right time to dig, plus the weather was fantastic, and we are right on the cusp of that magical time when everything is emerald green.  Not there yet, but almost - I find myself holding my breath, waiting for it.

This is our second year of planting trees, and we learned from our efforts last year.  We put the trees into Orchard 2, which is slightly higher than Orchard 1 and on a slight slope.  Our hope is to avoid the problems we ran into with Orchard 1, where we ended up with fungus and cold weather damage, due to Orchard 1’s location in a spot of lowest relative elevation where the damp and cold settled.  Also, we amended with gypsum and cover crop to improve the soil’s texture - making digging easier but also hopefully helping the new trees get a better start.  Lastly, we used gopher baskets, taking advice we heard after planting our trees last year.

Gopher baskets are a bit costly, so I hope they are effective.  We definitely have a lot of gophers in the meadow between Orchard 1 and Orchard 2.

I thought it would be fun to include a series of tree planting pictures, a kind of “how to” to document our process.  I felt pretty clever with my use of the trenching shovel to define the sides of the holes, and the spade to do the actual earth moving.  These are much better dug holes than last year, that’s for sure!

Happy spring,

Dan

Phew…been extremely busy.  I’ve worked a desk job for about 6 years, and getting back into construction worker shape has been a little creaky, but not too bad.  I joke a lot about the fact that all I’ve been doing in preparation for the growing season has been carpentry and fabrication, which is mostly true.  However, that’s finally come to pass, and I’m now able to feel like I can sink into doing the more dirt-related aspects of farming that I’ve been looking forward to…...like… Read the rest of this article »

I find it extremely helpful to make a plan for all of the sowings and plantings for the coming season, and then to rigorously stick to that plan.  With most vegetable farms, having an extended harvest of various crops is important, but with CSA this need is amplified.  For CSA, you’ll likely be growing more types of crops and you’ll be needing a very regular supply of harvests. I start out by deciding what crops I want to grow over the course of the year (not yet getting down to varieties). … Read the rest of this article »

My favorite part of winter farm work is the part that happens indoors… planning for the year to come.  For me, this involves the following steps: 1. A crop by crop review to determine what changes should be made in the year to come. 2. Updating the harvest plan - when and how often to I want to harvest X crop for X market? 3. Updating the planting plan - to achieve the above harvest, when do I need to plant each crop, and how much should I plant each time? 4. Taking a seed inventory - How… Read the rest of this article »

Getting an early harvest is often a real plus for farmers.  The prices for the produce are higher, and boosting the diversity of your early farmer’s market table can attract customers and draw sales.  For my CSA, getting an extra-early start on some of the longer-maturing crops means that I can begin sooner in the year with a good spread by matching them with later-planted short season crops. Getting that early harvest usually also means putting in some extra work.  One of the techniques… Read the rest of this article »

We just finished the last major project of ‘09!  Though we’re still busy harvesting and we still have a myriad of small tasks to accomplish, it feels really good to have next year’s strawberries planted.  Strawberries are (of course) super popular.  Some of our CSA members and farmer’s market customers had never eaten berries picked at full ripeness, and they’ve been floored.  Multiple folks mentioned they could never go back to supermarket berries, even organic… Read the rest of this article »

It’s been one full year now since I began preparing ground for fruit trees, blueberries, and raspberries.  In time these perennials will really help to round out my CSA offering, and I have close to an acre to devote to these crops.  I’ll probably write about the varieties I’m planting in another post, but I wanted first to talk about the ground preparation that has gone into it. When you’re starting out with thick sod, it takes a lot to get to the point where those grasses… Read the rest of this article »

There is a lot to say about choosing crop varieties.  Varietal selection can make the difference between a good crop and a great crop, or even any crop at all.  The choice of what seeds to plant also includes choices about genetic diversity, seed growing practices, seed saving, etc.  Too much to delve into in this entry, but here’s a few thoughts: I never use G.E. seeds, I choose organic seed whenever available… but most of all I strive to find varieties that perform in my climate. … Read the rest of this article »

What a great time of year!  There’s so much to harvest in the garden right now, I’m having to decide what not to put in the weekly CSA shares!  This season has already offered so many lessons for the future, and some of these lessons involve how much of what to plant when. This past winter when I made my planting plan, I really didn’t have anything concrete to base it on.  I estimated the number of CSA members I was hoping to sign up, added some more crops for farmer’s… Read the rest of this article »