July 8, 2009 - Farmstand and Garden

We had originally hoped to take the summer off to build things on our land, but were offered a sweet deal by a local organic farm to sell their produce for them at farm markets in the region. We took the jobs, but after two markets, found that we had misinterpreted how much money we thought they'd said we'd make, and mutually decided to stop the business partnership so that they could find someone willing to work for less than us and so that we could focus on getting things in place so that we could really start growing our own food. We may regret the decision this winter when jobs are hard to find locally, but really want to get a greenhouse built this summer. Small local farms aren't necessarily a huge money maker in today's world when they are up against Walmart Superstores and huge commercial organic farms that can grow food cheaply and export it all over the world using still relatively cheap fossil fuels. But, small farms support local economies (by employing us locals) and by keeping money circulating locally, and in my opinion, offer higher quality food (both riper and fresher than big out-of-state or out-of-country farms). Working briefly for these farmers started to give us a much better appreciation for what is involved in running a successful small farm, and since we're still friends, they'll still sell us their surplus produce for canning and drying to tide us over until our gardens are producing (next year?)

The second two photos are of our garden as of early July. In the foreground are the three sisters, corn, squash and beans. Then peas growing up a trellis, tomatoes hidden behind the peas, then a couple beds of parsnips and carrots, many of which didn't germinate, and then tomatoes in pots, plus a couple of pecan trees in a pot. The corn, peas and tomatoes are actually growing pretty well, squash and pumpkins are growing but late and a little slow, and the few beans that germinated are not growing very fast.

The second photo shows the other half of the garden, somewhat shaded by, and exposed to drippings from, two Ponderosa Pines and a few Gambel Oaks trees. In the foreground are potato plants coming up fast through a wheat and pine straw mulch, then a bed of onions, doing pretty well in the pine mulch, along with turnips and rutabegas, up and showing good color but growing really slowly, then a bed of beets growing even slower than the turnips, then a bed of swiss chard, mustards, radishes, mustard greens, kale and lettuces, all growing pretty slowly.

We talked to the agricultural extension office about the slow growth, and they think it is caused by our use of pine straw for mulch, which they say contains tannins and turpines, both growth inhibitors. We've grown in pine mulch before though in Maine, more successfully than this, and have read studies that indicate that once pine needles have turned brown, they lose the growth inhibitors and make a great, beneficial fungus attracting mulch. We suspect it might be that either there were fresher turpines and tannins in the soil when we planted (since we cleared an oak grove, sheet mulched it, and immediately planted seeds in it), or these compounds are dripping off of the trees overhead. We're getting slow growth in the carrots and parsnips and brussels sprouts in the other half of the garden that isn't shaded by pines or oaks, but was likewise planted in freshly cleared ground and mulched with old pine needles.

We're clearing a garden expansion soon, and will sheet mulch, add lots of manure, some rock phosphate and wood ashes, plant a cover crop of oats and clover, and then let it winter over and see how things grow in it next spring. It will be interesting to see what happens.