The new farm
Posted by Lauren on 13 Apr 2009 at 08:57 pm | Tagged as: johnson farm, pictures
The new farm, originally uploaded by laurenipsum.
Last weekend we went up to the new farm to see where we could start tilling. It’s hard to get a coherent picture of an expanse of grass that’s this big, but for reference, I am standing at the southwest corner of the plot. The post on the ground in front of me is the southwest corner post. The plot is about 100×200, with the long side to my right — Garth is walking the length of the 200′ side — and the short side to my left. The bottom border is in line with the flowering plum tree (though that is not the corner; it’s about 3/4 of the way across).
Since then, Garth has tilled up an area from the corner to the pile of mulch on the left, and over about 80 feet beyond him, to make a semi-triangular plot that follows the contours of the hill. Not sure yet what will go in it — he’ll be putting in some hoophouses this week to get the soil warmed up in preparation for planting … something! Not sure yet. Any ideas?
A man outstanding in his field!
You have no idea how much lauren hates that joke. I keep telling her that it’s a family tradition but she’s having none of it.
Hehe I thought the same thing. My other thought is you guys are INSANE! Just double digging that farm would take three men and a boy two years!
For what to plant on your 20,000 SF garden (mine’s 140 SF by the way)… try whatever you think will sell at the farmer’s market since it’s either that or feed an army…
/boggles the mind!
We’re definitely going to market this year as soon as we start producing. We got a late start so we haven’t got early crops in production quantities.
As for double digging, well, sometimes you need to cheat. I’m busting the sod with a BCS tiller (less destructive than other tillers) and then opening up the soil with a broadfork. We’re going to finish killing/composting the grass with black plastic mulch in the hopes of not requiring such drastic measures next year.
In the future, as we continue to scale up, I’d love to have a rotary spader which aerates soil and incorporates amendments without thrashing the soil structure as much as a tiller does. However, they’re spendy, spendy critters and right now we’ve got more labor than capital.