Home Garden Plot Part I: Use what you got

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You don't know what you got til it's gone.  The truth of that overused cliche could never have felt more real than during my current withdrawal from not living and working directly on a farm.  Although the world of research agriculture is fascinating and important, there is nothing like a stash of delicious homegrown veggies growing just steps away from your door.  No trips to the market, questions to ask, determining if prices are fair, deciding which company or farmer seems most trustworthy or who has the best reputation.  Trying to determine the differences between the supermarket organic brands and market brands can be time consuming.  Although I believe in buying local, which generally means closer to harvest when purchased, it still leaves a lot of unanswered questions.  In this "wild west" time for food production there's no easy "best" option for you and your family.  Observing my own transition, I've gone from a person who almost never bought produce, to growing my own food (basically living in the produce section) and now purchasing food as a more conscious, yet fairly confused consumer.  It's a weird in-between, last year I bought food to supplement what I grew and now I find myself growing food to supplement what I purchase.  Not bad, just different.  Compromises and opportunities offered with each choice, and choices, although at times frustrating, are a beautiful freedom I am thankful for.  Today we are touching on a simple and...

Cheap Chickens: More reasons to keep your layer hens in a winter greenhouse

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Another valuable discovery about winter greenhouse usage for...

Winter Pruning: A Journey to California Pruning Peach Trees

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One of the most challenging yet exciting parts of farming without your own land is figuring out your next step.  What do I want to learn and where do I want to learn how to do it?  At this rather early stage in my farming career, stability can still take a backseat to opportunity and exploration.  The goal is to have my carrots and eat them too, but while searching for that balance, there are many roads to travel, some of which happen to be in California.  Christmas marked the end of my season with Barbara and Eliot, at Four Season Farm and I booked a ticket to California.  I started up in the foothills of the Sierras, down through the valley of Sacramento and west along the Pacific coast, I encountered a variety of farms and lifestyles.  Every farm is different, every farmer has a different philosophy and every two hours I experienced a different climate.  Farming and good food have been staples in California for many years and although the majority of our country's conventional food production is found in the Central Valley, some of the longest running organic farms and farmers can be tracked down not to far away.  Locally sourced food isn't as much of a gimmick as it is a lifestyle here in California, but maybe that's because you can grow 12 months of the year without too much additional infrastructure.  In the northeast, we have a long way to go to catch up, but with greenhouse technologies and places like Four Season Farm and Stone Barns developing and sharing simple, applicable, four season farming practices to this ever-growing population of interested and active eaters, we are well on our way.  Today we are going to narrow this trip down and focus on one fascinating...

Simple Greenhouse Innovations: Growing incredible corn, delicious eggs and improving your land

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Fifteen foot vibrant stalks of corn, delicious eggs all year round, compost, fertilizer, cheaper feed costs and improvement to the soil in the process?  Too good to be true?  Actually, too good not be done.  Eliot has impressed me with his variety of efficient and sustainable models and this one is definitely at the top of the list.  For agriculture to be sustainable, an ever-evolving relationship with the land must develop.  It has to progress over time through the study of past attempts and future predictions.  I've learned that agriculture is not a perfect science, rather, it is a great scientific experiment and as with all science, it is only as good as the evidence suggests.  A hypothesis waiting to be disproved.  This requires attention to detail, willingness to adjust and simply being there.  Today's cheap and innovative greenhouse solution involves taking one of the summer greenhouses and turning it into a winter resort for pasture raised winter layer hens.  One of the byproducts of this is to simultaneously create...

High Tunnel Quick Hoops: More quick and inexpensive greenhouse solutions

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Fall is in full flush and I can honestly say that I have never see such beauty and color in my life. Maine has lived up to its reputation as the epicenter of fall foliage.  The abundance of reds greens, orange and yellows mixed with everything in between are visible from every vantage point, whether it be a simple drive to work the winter farmers' market or all the way up north to Acadia national park for a hike.  Discussing my plan for a late summer and fall apprenticeship, I was often told how bitter and cold Maine is.  I've learned that winter is only stubborn and harsh on the way out, yet majestic and slow going in.  The ocean, only a light jog away from the farm, takes time to cool down from the summer warmth and equally as long to warm up during the spring or elongated winter as so many Mainers dreadfully refer to it.  Nevertheless, there is always work to be done on the farm and at Four Season Farm, always something new and interesting.  With my intro to farming being in a massive greenhouse, I have grown to love greenhouse technology and the concept behind season extension.  Today we are going to take a...

Low Tunnel Quick Hoops: Minimum expense, maximum efficiency

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Before the farm became a part of our reality, before we learned that carrots didn't grow in the back of supermarkets, farming was always something we believed was done in the summer. Nevertheless, it was a cold, snow-filled November morning in 2009 that we decided to set out on a simple task...if we want to learn about food, why not ask some farmers?  Although we believed the growing season must have been nearing its end, we were surprised to learn that this was far from the case.  This curiosity shifted our perception, the earth came alive and so did food.  It became individualized and we began to understand that not all food was the same.  To our surprise and enjoyment, it turns out there is a huge amount of food that can be grown all year round and some that even surpasses its summer counterpart.  Looks can be deceiving and while winter carrots may look like summer carrots, when you taste them you might think they are completely different vegetables.  Today we are going to look at the simple innovation and advantage of...

Dried Black Peppermint Tea: Saving a little summer

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Curiosity and the desire to learn originally led Matt and I to the farm each weekend and since making the leap out of the corporate environment and into the agricultural industry these feelings continue to be my driving force.  Finishing the day and realizing that I've learned something new, something I find useful to living a good life is an incredible feeling.  It's not everyday, but it's a lot closer to it than I've ever felt before.  Sometimes the list of new projects I want to try exceeds the amount of time I think I have, but then surprisingly enough the motivation, the tools and the spark of energy come together and it's important to take advantage of those moments when possible.  I have been diving into a lot of different food related activities lately from preserving to fermenting.  What I keep learning is that most tasks are not that hard or at least not impossible, but require persistance.  Whether it's the passion to achieve something or the curiosity to try something new, the action of doing will offer an opportunity to learn and enhance with each attempt.  To generalize, doing things myself instead of simply purchasing them.  This requires the time to analyze, deconstruct and finally rebuild whether it be a product, a recipe or even a structure.  With the famous and colorful...

Saving Tomato Seeds...Natures Version

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Last year I shared what I had learned about saving tomato seeds, a relatively easy yet technical process.  By selecting your favorite tomatoes based on flavor, size, shape, disease resistance, etc, you can continue to regrow and pass them on from season to season.  This year I witnessed the natural process without plucking a tomato off the vine.  To simplify the steps involved in saving tomato seeds,...

What Did You Do Today? Mulching cucumbers and spring tomato preparation all in one.

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Weeding, a plague to farmers and their families for centuries.  There are many sides in the war on weeds and although the spectrum ranges from those who choose to leave their weeds be and others who choose to spray highly toxic chemicals, there is always an investment of time and energy into this inevitable battle.  While there is no one "right" way of taking on weeds, some methods offer more benefits than just simply suppressing weed growth.  Some techniques actually...

Soil Block Party: The basics of propagation without the plastic

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For the last year I've spent my time working in a greenhouse at Stone Barns, persistent in my desire to learn and understand that complex space and all that went with it, I didn't take time venturing into other places on the farm.  I honed in on a specific set of skills that helped me dig deep into my initial understanding of farming.  One of the gratifying parts of working at Four Season Farm is the variety and range of tasks I have had the opportunity to participate in.  Everyone is involved with every aspect on the farm.   In the two weeks I've been here, I've had the opportunity to work on many projects ranging from standard vegetable harvests for markets and restaurants to rare tasks such as roof building for the new chicken slaughter house.  The philosophy involves everyone being able to do anything on the farm when it's needed most.  The skills and concepts come from Eliot Coleman's methods, which he has been perfecting for decades (over forty years and going strong) and his wife Barbara Damrosch, who has been a leading voice in horticulture since the 1970's. Our development and understanding of these methods come through the experience of working, but also by clearly explaining the information and guiding others as we work.  The beauty of this layered teaching method is that information is shared through necessity, which helps develop an understanding of the why.  Skills are taught and directly applied under the pressure of a "real life" situation i.e. restaurants need their weekly orders filled and delivered, market stands need to be filled, customers are waiting for freshly cut herbs, weeds are growing out of control and transplants and seeds need to go in the ground.  There's no orientation week or handbook that preps us on the inner workings of a farm, you drop your stuff off in your little room above the wood shop and dive right in.  One of the rolls I've been wanting more exposure to is...