11/23/18 - Week 25 - Notes on the Year Past

This year, our second year farming this farm, brought with it new observations, new challenges, new joys, new ideas, and new wisdom about farming in this beautiful valley.

With the first hard frosts last week, the first good storms pattering on our rooftops now, and the bulk of the year's harvest safely stored away, we take a breath and reflect on this past season and look ahead to the future.

Week 24’s share

On horticulture:

One of the most unexpected pieces of advice we received before our first year, in the Winter of 2016-2017, was that horticulturally the first year would be the easiest. (An unintuitive idea, given the newness of everything in the first year.)

But it did turn out to be true. For us, it was true partly because of the simple ecological relationship between garden pests and food.

Last year we brought what few garden pests there were here a banquet. They feasted, made families, and to this year's banquet they brought their kids, their grandkids, their great-great-great grandkids, their nieces and nephews, their cousins, their second cousins, their third cousins once removed... You get the idea. We're thinking of renaming the farm to Slug City.

We experienced far more crop loss and disease to pest pressure this year than last year, which was hard on morale, but it will hone our discipline as farmers as we utilize diversity, rotation, diversity, and healthy ecology to check pest populations.

We've come away from this year with further refinement to our crop planning dates and quantities: How many bed feed of carrots should be plant? When should we plant leeks? The answers to these questions are becoming more and more honed having witnessed another season.

On systems and infrastructure:

This June we had the rude awakening to the fact that the system that supplies our storage tanks with water is not up to speed, so we'll remedy that this winter as well as experiment with planting more blocks of drip, as opposed to overhead, to keep weeds down.

We need to be better about weeds next year so we'll focus on staying disciplined on weeding, play more with stale bedding and tarping, and we'll finally get that electric cultivation tractor into the fields.

We're also planning on investing in a walk-in cooler over the winter to make harvest handling and storage easier on our bodies.

On people and community:

By far the heart of the farm for us is the social fabric surrounding it, and this year it grew and took on a life of its own. The farm's natural gifts as a place of meeting, grounding, and connecting were able to reach more people and more connections abounded.

We were thrilled to see members getting to know each other and children connecting on the farm. We were thrilled with the farm's growing collaboration the Weaving Earth Wild Tenders camp. More volunteers came out for harvests and Weeding Wednesday than we ever expected.

It was so inspiring to have other farmers (hey, Anna and Kate!) in the mix, leaving their indelible mark in the garden and fields and barn, and defining what is possible.

Small organic farming can be dubious enterprise, but the community growing around this farm is becoming a font of inspiration, potential, and hope for a very bright future. Thanks for being part of it!

See you in the fields,

David & Kayta

11/16/18 - Week 24 - A Farmer’s Thanksgiving Vol. II.

The first hard frosts have been rolling through the farm this week, killing our husk cherries, frying peppers, amaranth flowers, many of our zinnias, and nipping some of our field greens (though they recovered). The first hard frost is a milestone event of the harvest year; the beginning of a new chapter; the first salvo of Old Man Winter; a cause for reflection; a time for thanks.

Kayta and I both grew up in the suburbs and like all Americans, we encountered those odd, ubiquitous expressions speckled throughout out our vernacular — “three shakes of a lamb's tail”, “like a horse whose seen the barn”, “make hay while the sun shines”, "coming home to roost", “getting hitched”, etc. It wasn’t until we started farming that we began to viscerally understand the roots of these sayings. (Hint: A lamb shakes its tail really fast when it's nursing.)

And it wasn’t until we started farming that we began to understand — like really understand — the significance of giving thanks in the Fall.

The Fall is an incredible time of year in the temperate world. It is a season of unimaginable bounty. The plants of forest and field have spent all Spring and Summer harnessing the sun’s energy into fruits and seeds and roots and leaves and we have harvested. In the Fall the root cellar is full, the larder is full, the granary is full; the land has burst forth at its seams and we gathered the overflow.

The land burst forth at its seems…

The farmer, sitting at home with her feet up next to the fire, is keenly aware of the bounty in the root cellar below. She feels a giddy contentment in this — but no pride. She realizes how little she did to create it all. Sure, she worked hard all summer — moving things here and there — but it was others, present now and before, and life itself, that filled that cellar. It was others who laid the roof over her head and dug the cellar. Others who forged her tools and taught her how to use them. Others who saved the seeds and taught others, who taught others, who taught others, who taught her how to care for them. And what, or who, made those seeds sprout? Not she.

For all this, there is nothing to give but thanks.

We’d like to take a moment to give thanks those who made this year's harvest possible.

To our landmates and neighbors here at Green Valley Farm + Mill: Temra, Jeremy, Teo and Quin Fisher, Aubrie Maze, Scott Kelley, Jeff Mendelsohn, Josiah Raison Cain, Genevieve Abedon, Michael Crivello, Lindsay Dailey, Cliff Paulin and Ateus, and everyone at Weaving Earth: Your work, attention, perseverance, appreciation and support for the farm, harvest help, simple daily interactions are an invaluable web of support and meaning that sustain us day-by-day.

To our friends and families: Your unconditional love and support as we go AWOL to tend this farm toddler in the growing season means the world to us. Let's hang out again.

To our farming mentors and the farming community in Sonoma County (too numerous to name here); to Andy and Julia Henderson at Confluence Farm down the road; you make the long-days shorter in solidarity, camaraderie, and much practical wisdom.

To all the volunteers who showed up this year, you’re many hands made light work when we needed it the most.

To Ingrid the Egret: Your capacity to devour gophers is truly astonishing and incredibly expedient. Thank you for being such a good listener.

To Anna Dozor and Kate Beilharz. No words. OK, some words: At the beginning of the year Kayta and I were trepidatious about embarking into the new frontier of managing people on our own farm. You have spoiled us. We couldn't have asked for kinder, harder working, lovelier people to spend our days with. This season would not have been possible, or nearly as fun, without you. Thank you. Here is to many Harry Potter marathons.

And finally, to you, our members. Whatever bounty we’ve enjoyed this year is because of you. Your trust and support paid for the seeds, the compost, the irrigation tape, the tomato trellising twine. You harvested our potatoes, our corn, our squash. You took a risk on a pair of young farmers and a farm and showed up every week with words of encouragement, cookies, kim-chi, and cute little doodles to put on the chalk board. You pickled cucumbers for us when we didn’t have time to pickle them ourselves.

You reminded us day after day, week after week, that real, life-sustaining bounty comes from people working together to accomplish something bigger than just themselves — from a community.

Thank you.

11/9/18 - Week 23 - Dig, scrape, heave, plop!

Farming plants is a rhythmic craft. Some of the rhythms are quick: Shovel hits earth: Ding. Slices earth: Scrape. Heaves up. Plops down. Repeats… Ding, scrape, heave, plop!

Some rhythms are daily: Rise, open greenhouses, water at 10, work, water at 3, close greenhouses, sleep. Repeat...

Some rhythms are a year long and a little harder to hear. Plant garlic, wait. Garlic spires emerge. Winter becomes spring. Spring becomes summer. Garlic scapes. Garlic swells. Harvest garlic. Eat lots of garlic. Save seed. Repeat...

Some rhythms are many years long and can only be heard by the oldest trees...

One of the coolest things about all these rhythms is that they mark time, they weave time together. Like the holidays, you can remember back to where you were, who you were with, how you were feeling, the last time you were at that point in the rhythm.

Last year at this time we were just on the down beat of our first full year as a farm and feeling giddy. We had never planted garlic on this land before and picked the nicest spot we could.

We started the garlic planting drums on Nov. 5th, 2017: Prepped beds, called friends, popped cloves, readied mulch, planted, mulched beds, prayed. That little rhythm set into motion all of the garlic we've been munching this year.

This Sunday we’ll strike it up again, with some of the same friends, and put a prayer in the ground for 2019's crop. We hope you'll join in!

Ding, scrape, heave, plop…

See you in the garlic field,

David & Kayta