This blog is meant to serve a few purposes. I do not currently keep a diary and I know I should and have in the past; I want an easy tool to remember and search the knowledge I have gathered in my quest even though a Dutch never forgets I do not keep all my knowledge on instant recall; I would love to help any young person like myself who understands the food crisis we find ourselves in and refuse to stand idle as humanity continues down the path of extinction. I have found multiple resources online but another perspective could not hurt, grassroots needs all the help we can get.
I have applied for a few internships this summer but did not hear word back from any except Growing Power of Milwaukee so I decided not let a perfectly good season go to waste and try my hand at WWOOFing (World Wide Opportunities in Organic Farming) which is a great tool for getting hands on experience in non-factory farming. For those who do not know it is basically indentured servitude, work in exchange for delicious food and board. Since I have started I must say my research was not in depth enough and I could have potentially found a paying internship but I am happy with my choice. I have been on my first farm for three days and have learned a lot so far. I meant to start this blog the first day but I found myself exhausted beyond comprehension, struggling to maintain any clarity of thought. I am a firm believer in better late than never in any case.
The farm I am currently volunteering for is Goodness Grows in Bedford, PA not to be confused with the farm in Georgia. It is a 97 acre plot with a vegetable garden of about 3 acres and fields of wheat, barley, rye , soon possibly millet, sunflower+clover and a pasture of hay as well as some property leased out to a conventional farmer. Rob and Dawn run the place as a married couple and have restored the integrity of the land from all conventional farmland to the certified organic, all non-GMO wonder it is today. They are very pleasent farmers, a bit on the hippie side--just my people. They have two sons, Silas and Levi, together and Dawn has another son, Caleb, from another marriage whom I have yet to meet. They are rambuctious, curly haired 'day-walkers' who have the most exciting imagination of any children I have ever met. They are all a great time I am glad to be able to share their home and food.
Day 1 I arrived about 930 after driving from my buddy Veesh's house where we were supposed to build a greenhouse but a few wrenches were in the mix so we just got drunk instead which is always a good time. After a tour, I settled in and got right to work planting peppers. There was a row of sweet peppers, hobinaros and a few other varieties. It was a good introduction then I helped pick some strawberries that were half covered in straw to prevent a previous frost. The straw worked well but patches were missing from dead loss. They have a greenhouse with hanging strawberry plants with fruit and some older plants meant to send out runners for repropagation. The boys were running wild but we ended up picking over 5 pounds, about a big salad bowl. I learned that strawberries are not only biannuals but cannot produce fruit the first year for if flowers are not picked from a plant just germinated then it will die from lack of stored energy. The plants also produce fruit multiple years before dying of old age but berries are sparse on older plants. Also there are two main varieties of strawberry, june berring and season berring (10 months) plants that produce fruit in the specified time period however the plants produce on average the same amount of berries for the season, all quite interesting facts I would likely forget. We broke for lunch then started to plant tomatoes. The tomatoes are in a different plot-they have three main vegetable plots each of about an acre-which were planted next to snap peas along a fence for vertical support. We planted, weeded and mulched with straw to reduce further weeds, trap moisture, protect soil structure and the straw will add carbon to the soil after being tilled into the bed at the end of the season. This process took us till about 3 o'clock when we broke for the day and I was definitely spent. The rest of the day I read some books about the basics of cheese and some other trivial things.
Day 2 was even more fun. Goodness Grows has a CSA (community supported agriculture) of about 45 families. The pick-up of CSA bags is split into two days so we had to pick for about half. This week there was not too much ready to be picked but Dawn and I cut a salad-my first time do not worry she was gentle-consisting of green and red romaine lettuce, kale, mustard greens, a little oxalis which looks alot like clover but is edible and a bit citrusy or sour lol. That was pretty fun but honestly I think lettuce should only be grown aquaponically because the weeds are a huge detriment to harvesting and cost time=money. Well after the salad I helped Rob 'weed' lamb's quarter or gooseweed which is apparently a very healthy calcium, vitamin K and full of antioxidant plant that grows like a weed-two birds with one stone a farmer's dream. We finished out bundles then I went and put salad in bags after Dawn had finished washing the lettuce in their repurposed washing maching to salad spinner. That was about all she wrote before lunch then it was back to planting cucumber this time on the opposite side of the fence as last season they found the cucumbers that were planted near tomatoes had much better yields-symbiosis of plants is a field that needs more research it is key to feeding the world. This time I was a pro with a hoe and my method was nearing perfection; first hoe the weeds closest to the fence then dig holes for the plants and refill some dirt with compost then plant the cucumbers then mulch the straw. The day flew by I got a bit of a sun burn but the efficiency paid off as my mind could handle some information. I began reading Soils Science and Management by Edward Plaster an old edition from Rob's studies at Penn State; I have been learning loads and I am only half done. Soil ecology and health is the most important factor in growing organic crops. Like tilling the soil destroys soil structure which is important for drainage and moisture so basically yields of crops. I will summarize the book later. For dinner I will say I had almost a spiritual experience with my food. I had just slaved away in the hot sun and before me was pork shoulder and salad I had just picked. After a day of barefoot weeding, planting, mulching and picking I was sitting exhausted but alert eating food that had no intention of killing me, it was giving me life to continue the cycle, the leaves were making me healthy to make sure I could continue my work in the fields. I do not care what the economists have to say about black and red, so long as I see green I am in heaven and you do not need cash in paradise. I will find a way to be a farmer if it kills me, I will find paradise either way. We finished the day with a family goat milking, oh did I mention they have about 30 laying chickens, a reduced number of broiler chickens as a weasel has been eating hardy lately, about 8 milking goats, most Nubian with a few alpine, a Nubian billy goat and a bunch of youngsters, three sheep along with 2 cats, a dog Dixie. Milking goats compared to cows in a piece of cake, they only have two utters and it took about 45 minutes. Mark and Sue arrived a bit before as well, two chinese WWOOFers who are helping out this month as well. The goats produce about two gallons I would say by eyeball. I made cheese later that night, Paneer is a simple indian cheese that consists of heating the milk to 180 degrees F slowly then adding a capful of calcium carbonate and 1/3 cup per gallon of milk of vinegar. Its super simple and easy, the cheese is bland and acts a bit like tofu when cooked as it soaks up the flavors. (sorry I do not know how to make paragraphs on this blog yet)
Day 3 was today. It was an earlier morning, rising at 7 am to load the truck for the Bedford farmers market with some seedlings, chopped produce and CSA bags for pickup. The market was expectedly slow nearly empty really but a few transactions were made, I got to explore Bedford-it reminds me a lot of Clinton, NY my hometown-I stopped by the banjo shop got myself some new pics and tuner and we headed home. Lunch then more planting, mulching and weeding as well as picking for the Cumberland farmer's market. That about did it for today, farming is the same old stuff different day but as the weeks pass I am sure the duties differ slightly as well as proportion-more weeding and picking, less planting and mulching. I keep reading my soil book and I am getting into the good stuff about microorganisms and plant nutrition, as a chemist this is the stuff I gobble down faster than fresh romaine. I will likely post some pictures tomorrow and add to this blog. I will try to add everyday with whatever I learn, I have left out a lot already, and add recipes Dawn has and how to prepare food. There is a lot of policy stuff and economics to learn...I am learning, it seems politics plays a large role which is too bad so I am less optimistic about the future than I was but I will persevere. Si introduced me to a character Dutch Clutch...and it suites me just fine. You may not know who I am but I will definitely share all my rants, raves and philosophies with my readers should there be any if you keep reading, follow me and enjoy yourself you will learn a lot about everything. I try to be a renaissance man for the western way of thinking that each topic is independent is false; like a healthy soil the bacteria, fungus, worms and plants all need each other, if one fails the others fail and so behaves our culture and civilization. All we need is to regognize we are all connected to quote my man Ben Franklin "We must hang together or we shall certainly hang seperately."
Tootles
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