Plowing and Planting

Hi all! Farmer Ruth here, with a guest blog post.  This is my first year working at Mud Creek, and I'm   helping Erin run and manage the farm.  Lots has happened around the farm in the past couple of weeks.  Spring has sprung with a vengeance.  The leaves are on the trees, and there are babies everywhere!  A robin has built a nest on top of the cooler and is sitting on it faithfully, despite all the noisy farm workers bustling around her, including tractor traffic and loud speakers right next to her head.  In a rare moment when she was off eating worms, we were able to climb up there and count the eggs.

In the tractor shed, a mourning dove built a nest on old row cover hanging from the ceiling and successfully reared a baby dove, who was awkwardly perched on the fence a couple of days ago.

 Farm worker Anna has lots of pregnant ewes and 2 baby goats at home, and one more baby goat was adopted by farm worker Betsy.  He is still tiny enough that she has to bottle feed him 6 or 7 times a day, so while she's farming, he hangs out at Mud Creek in a pen behind the compost pile, being cute.  His name is Petey (short for Peter Pan.)

And finally, last week, we found an abandoned baby web footed little guy in the cherry field.  We parked him in an unused bathtub for the day, and frantically tried to figure out what he was (a Canada goose), and what to feed him (chick starter and greens).  His name is Charlie.  Or hers.  We're not sure.

Meanwhile we've all been busy getting hundreds of baby transplants in the ground,

running irrigation lines to water them in,

and in some cases, tucking them in with row cover.

As we get early plants in, we are also preparing ground for the later crops.  Most of those fields have been in a cover crop of rye, which is almost ready to head out.  Some of it we plowed under.

This will be our sweet corn field!

In other fields, its gotten a little tall to plow, so it has to be mowed first.  Johnny is braving the storms today to mow everything he can.

And of course, there's plenty of weeding to do.  Here's Josh cultivating the garlic.

We’ve had a nice long spell of sunny, dry weather, which is great for getting things done, but a little rain is essential too, especially for crops we can’t irrigate.  When we saw rain forecast for this week, we decided the potatoes had to go in.  Despite equipment problems and a field 10 miles away, we rallied forces and with a borrowed tractor and a walking plow, we got the furrows prepped, fertilized, and planted before lunch.  

It was perfect timing.  As we worked that afternoon, the ominous clouds rolled in, and we got a small little pour on the commute home.  Right now, they’re getting rained on, and we’re all hoping we have a fantastic potato harvest this year!

Things have been going well on the farm so far, and we have a fantastic crew.  Everyone is working hard, learning fast, feeling enthusiastic, and laughing a lot.  I have a feeling its going to be a great year.  

Photos from a crazy April...

Deep breath...

Some people say that I asked for it, by choosing the name I did:  Mud Creek Farm.  Ruth says we should just call it "Mud Farm" -- after the storms we had a week and a half ago, that's literally what it is! 

Luckily, we gained access to a really dry field down the road, which we'll be planting potatoes in this year.  A gorgeous sandy loam.  Our strategy, besides gaining some much-needed early ground, is to be as far away as possible from the dreaded Colorado Potato Beetle.  Last year this pest was so heavy on our potatoes that it threatened to completely defoliate the plants.  After squishing them on our hands and knees 2 or 3 times, I finally broke down and sprayed something on them-- an organically certified spray of course.  But what a hassle!  I had to spray after dark, so we wouldn't harm the honeybees, and believe me, after a 13 hour day of farmwork in 90 degree heat, you don't take kindly to strapping on a 3 gallon backpack sprayer, donning gloves, safety glasses, and a respirator.  It was something that made me conclude that we should grow our potatoes THIS year as FAR away from these beasts as possible.

So Betsy (one of the farm crew) and I drove around the neighborhood, scouting out fields.  She grew up here, and her family knows just about everyone who owns land on this side of town.



We narrowed it down to five options, looked up the soil maps online, and determined this one would be the best.  We also really liked Pam and looked forward to working with her to help make her hayfield yield a more edible (for humans) bounty.  (Currently the hay is going to feed Pam's horses as well as Betsy's very large draft horse!)  Pam graciously agreed to let us plow some of it up.  First we took soil samples.  It looks awesome.

 You might say it sometimes takes a village to raise a potato patch...

We enlisted the help of young Nick (also a neighbor) who got a chance to plow his biggest field yet, and he did a great job!  This soil is SANDY -- we might not even be able to slap the word "Mud" on these spuds.  Well, while its raining maybe.  Hopefully it will rain decently this year, since we have no irrigation options here.  But I've never irrigated potatoes before.  And two drought years in a row...?  The chances we take as farmers.

 After plowing, we decided to just go in and till, to break up that grass sod as well as we could, so we can plant as soon as possible. 





Ruth pulled her first 12-hr day of the season, driving the Kubota back to Mud Creek with the headlights on.

 

 It looks splendid.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the greenhouse is nearly overflowing! Tomorrow we get onions in the ground, then soon the broccoli, lettuce, kale, cabbage, swiss chard, kohlrabi, and more, go in.

Lots going on.

More seeding, more planting.

Garlic is up and growing strong.

 

Deep breath, it's "go time".

Jack frost and bluebirds

Winter sure is putting up a fight!

Spring has decided to come s-l-o-w-l-y this year.

 Farming teaches us to roll with the seasons, for we really don't have much of a choice.

 Best we can do is stay warm and cozy inside, and keep ourselves well rested and well nourished, because when the green-growing season finally does get here, we'll need to hit the ground running.

It is quite beautiful though.

Finally the ground thawed enough to dig up our overwintered parsnips.  Boy, are they sweet.  We got lots of volunteer helpers, big hands and small hands, eager to get their hands in the dirt.  It wasn't nearly as muddy as we thought it would be.

 

We washed some of them up, and had an open farm stand last weekend.  Many folks came out to get these early spring goodies.  Parsnips are really a truly nourishing food, they are one of my "comfort foods".  They have been eaten since Roman times, and are particularly high in potassium, and antioxidants too!  My favorite way to cook them is to cut them up into bite-sized pieces, roll them in olive oil and salt, and roast them until slightly browned in an oven.  Yum.  Also, anything that has been in the ground for that long (almost a year!) has to be nutritious, since it has had a long time to soak up minerals and nutrients from the soil, it's a proven fact.  And the freezing temperatures all winter amplify their sweetness hugely.  Ironic, huh?  But you can almost see their "wintery" nature... I can imagine maybe Jack Frost's fingers...  perhaps winter has its sweet aspects.

 We had a nice warm week to get started on things out in the fields-- Here Ruth and Anna are putting new blades on our tiller, so we can start planting.

My dad put his bluebird boxes back up --  he said that after putting up four of them, he walked over to the first one again, and a bluebird was already sitting on the roof, staking his claim.  It's a fast real estate market for birds this spring I suppose.

And, finally, we get some seeds in the ground!  Sugar snap peas, carrots, beets, and spinach!

 

Now it seems we might have prayed too hard for rain... we'll see how the recent deluge has affected these seeds.  Did someone hear me say I didn't want to irrigate this year?  Well, I don't want a flood either!  You can never really win when you're betting against nature.  We just take our small victories when we can, count our losses, and move on.  Til next time the soil dries out...