New Year, New Farm

Last year we shared that we were approved for the S.O.I.L. Project and that we’d be moving to a 3.75 acre farm this year. After getting all our paperwork in, and prepping the land, etc. we are FINALLY beginning to plant our our seeds on the new farm. So on Saturday (Jan. 11) we had our first community volunteer day. We get a lot of folks asking us to tell us when they can come and support, and we want to make sure to allow those that want to help out, an opportunity to help out. We’re transitioning from a 400sq ft space, so even though it’s only a few acres, it’s a much larger piece of land. So community support is always welcomed.

We’re starting a bit earlier than usual, because 1. this winter was warmer than usual, 2. we have seeds that can be started before the final frost, and 3. it’s going to take us longer to get the seeds started this year. This week we began by creating milpas that had some natural composting happening underneath.

We created our rows and are filling ever other row with debris and plant matter (mostly from the old plot, what was in the plot before we started, and trees). Then we cover the plant matter with soil to make a wide flat planting row. When we do our irrigation (and we’ve already tested this) the water spreads from the rows that weren’t filled in, to saturate the milpas from underneath. On this farm we will be doing flood irrigation. This is when you flood your field, in our case the rows, with water every couple/ few weeks (depending on the season). With the milpas the we’re hoping that with the extra ground coverage the rows will hold water longer. Like, when you put down mulch or whatever to keep the ground covered to hold the water longer.

As our farm is a wide open space we are planning multiple barriers and protections to deter animals from pillaging. One of those barriers is undesireable plants around the perimeter. We didn’t get far, but we started with castor and a variety of chives on one side. There will be other herbs around the other sides and mixed with the castor and chives (garlic and regular). The regular chives were purchased, and the garlic chives are from seeds we saved last year. We will also have a fence, but we will put that in later. We may also include spraying wolf urine around.

Last year we had 8 caster beans to start. They loved the heat and now we have a ton of seeds to put around the new farm. Castor is not edible for humans or animals, but we hope to have enough to extract the oil from it.

We also started fennel and dahlias. The fennel was started from seeds we saved, and the dahlias were started from saved tubers from last year, and purchased seeds. Because of the new size of the farm we are going to be supplementing seeds buy utilizing purchased seeds from our favorite seed vendors. In the future we will use 100% saved seeds whenever possible.

Dahlia tubers are edible. And we’re hoping with the ability to grow much more than the past that we’ll be able to do a workshop on how to cook and eat them in the future. We didn’t get far, because we didn’t have many volunteers. It was cold so honestly, we didn’t expect anyone to come, so we were super grateful. Also, we would’ve gotten further but we were still building the milpas. In a couple weeks we’ll be having another planting day with a volunteer opportunity, and we imagine it’ll go much faster. In fact we’ll likely have a few days in February and March, as that’s when many of our summer crops can get started.

We’re so excited to finally start sowing seeds. This has been a dream of ours for a very long time, and seeing it come to fruition is such an amazing feeling. With this new land we’ll be able to grow so much more and offer so many more learning opportunities for the community, as well as fresh, organic produce.