Spring On The Farm: Black Plastic Mulch and Drip Irrigation

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Agriculture is inherently an unnatural process.  It is a division of horticulture, the study of the cultivation of plants.  It's unlikely to find plants naturally growing in perfect, weed-free, straight lines.  Wild plants do not sprout up in raised soil beds year after year.  Human selection has perpetuated and "improved" the development of our food system to feed large populations of people throughout the world.  Since agriculture is not a direct act of nature, it requires outside interaction and when humans get involved, choices have to be made.  As we continue to develop a deeper understanding of the current limiting factors we face i.e. natural resources, we have to decide how to properly manage our means of sustenance.  This includes a balance of environmental, economic and social factors.  

Today we are looking at black plastic mulch and drip irrigation, a great combination involving a balance of time efficiency and environmental...

Fun with Flowers: The art of squash breeding at Cornell University

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Winter squash in the spring?  Yes.  Should you care?  Yes, but why?  Have you ever thought about why the carrots at the store are orange or why the tomatoes are always red?  Does it have to be this way?  The short answer is no.  As it turns out, these colors, shapes and sizes have more to do with human selection than any "fact" of nature.  At the beginning of my journey, the question was where does food come from?  This lead to the farm.  Taking things a bit further, the question became, where do all the seeds come from to grow the food on those farms?  In an interesting twist, while exploring the beautiful, natural diversity of northern California's agricultural scene, I got an unexpected email that lead me back to the northeast, where I am currently working at Cornell University, an institution at the heart of northeastern food production.  I'm working in the department of Plant Breeding and Genetics with Dr. Mazourek and his team.  Through surveys and direct communication with farms, they figure out the biggest challenges facing farmers in growing our favorite annual vegetables.  Who knew so much thought and so many people went into those little cucumber slices (not to mention all the other veggies) we eat everyday in our salads?  Behind every delicious bite of food is a massive web of research, people, farms and institutions working to protect and progress our food system.

  The goal is to develop stronger, tastier, more disease/pest resistant varieties of our favorite everyday foods.  With a current focus on the cucurbit family (e.g. squash, melons, watermelons, cucumbers, gourds) as well as research on peas and peppers, this team gets to the crux of solving these problems through traditional plant breeding.  This is the natural, methodical, ancient process of pairing two plants together, with desirable traits and observing, selecting and experimenting with the best of each new generation.  In conjunction with nature's methods, we are fighting the war against disease and pest pressures that can restrict and limit growers from producing food locally.  The research spans a number of different specific crop traits and as I get more involved in these projects, I will continue to share that knowledge.

  Today we are looking into the basics of pollination.  Last year, while working at the Stone Barns Center, we touched on the basics of pea pollinations and got some great feedback from readers working on similar projects (click here for a refresher).  With peas, we looked at pollinating perfect flowers.  Unlike a pea, which can pollinate itself, squash have separate male and female flowers, which require...

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...