tractor time

This morning, I went on a long walk around a nearby lake and when I returned to the farm, the sky had darkened and a storm was threatening on the horizon. Jarrett was tracking the bad weather on the radar and he said it would only last an hour or so, short and sweet. After a few days of intense heat, this rain was rather welcome, but we had lots to do. Plants were keeling over in the greenhouse, ready to be transplanted from their tiny trays into the wide open space in the field, with lots of room for their roots to stretch and grow, and for their stalks to reach for the sky.

Yes, planting was the priority of the day. But in order to get plants into the ground, we had to get beds formed. For this, we have a bed former, an implement we attach to the back of the tractor. I was a total tractor newbie this time last week, so for all you others who may be as clueless as me about these machines, let me clue you in. Basically, a tractor is a super-powered vehicle to which you hitch "implements" or heavy duty farm tools to do a big amount of field work for you that would otherwise take you your entire lifetime to finish. We have a relatively small farm, only about 7 tillable acres, and even we would find it nearly impossible to get our fields prepared and ready for growing veggies without a tractor. Some of the tractors out in the midwest are GIGANTIC, with heated cabs and cable television! They are also steered by satellite GPS because those fields are so enormous - thousands of acres! - that they need more perfect precision than using just their eyeballs can provide. It's hard enough to go in a straight line for 200 ft, I can't imagine conquering those mondo fields of grain out in Iowa and South Dakota...

So anyway, back to Belchertown. The field that we call the "barn block" had already been plowed and disc harrowed over the weekend, so it was ready for bed forming. Basically, this field had been in "cover crop" all winter; a combination of winter rye and vetch had been planted in the fall as a cover for the bare ground (better not to leave soil bare because of erosion and nutrient loss) and would be tilled back into the soil in the spring (now) to add organic matter to the soil. As an added bonus, vetch is a "nitrogen fixer", meaning that it removes nitrogen from the air and stores it in nodules in it's roots. When that plant dies and decomposes in the soil, that nitrogen is released and becomes available to other plants - free fertilizer, without the nasty chemicals!

First, a plow goes over the field of cover crop and essentially picks up a strip of soil and turns it over, displacing the organic matter that was growing on top of the ground and covering it with dirt, beginning the decomposition process. After that, the field gets "harrowed" by an implement- in our case, a disc harrow- that breaks up the lumps of soil and levels the field. After this step, which I have done on another occasion with much difficulty, the soil is ready to be made into neat beds into which you can transplant veggie crops from the greenhouse.

Now, the bed former is not as difficult to use as a disc harrow or even a plow because by the time you get on the field with the bed former, the ground is level, making everything much easier. The bed former pulls soil from the sides and flattens it into a bed, and a rolling mechanism in the back makes holes at certain intervals for easier transplanting. All you have to do is plop the implement down at the end of a bed and gun the engine and try to make it to the other side in as straight of a line as possible.

Let me tell you one thing, folks. Driving a tractor in a straight line is no easy task. And these beds I was forming were actually double the length of a normal bed, making my task even more challenging! Oh and not to mention the rain, the lightning! Farming is so hardcore, can't you tell? Haha. For all my complaining, the beds came out just fine (well, generally decent enough) and I didn't get struck by lightning and I felt like a complete badass, as I do anytime I'm driving the tractor (I really should give him? her? a name). Also, it's a great feeling of accomplishment afterwards, looking at my lovely lines of garden beds, just waiting for us to dig our fingers in and free these plants from the confines of their trays, to let them roam free in the field!

I always joke that the plants are living the cushy life in the greenhouse, getting watered everyday and babied by our greenhouse queen, Emily. When we put them out in the field, there are no more frills. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and the fight for survival isn't always easy. It's going from the penthouse apartment to living out on the street.

Today, we brought sweet potatoes, watermelons, and waltham winter squash out into the real world. Let's hope they can hack it.

Happy memorial day!

springtime on the farm!

Hello lovely blogworld folks, so sorry to have been completely MIA for several weeks? months? I have no good excuses this time, just good old fashioned busy-ness/laziness? Since the last time we have "talked", I've road-tripped up the eastern seaboard and am currently living in a barn in western Mass. Wait, let me explain. I moved back up here to work as an apprentice under farmer Jarrett, owner and manager of Stone Soup Farm, and I'll be here all season - from mid April til Halloween! I am one of 3 budding young farmers to be sharing this awesome experience, and so far, the job has been going exceedingly well. The weather has generally been holding up quite well, with the exception of nearly 2 weeks of nonstop rain. (The sun has since come back out to play - whew!) I have developed a strange yet beautiful affinity for driving tractors, more specifically the John Deere 1050 --

which I will get into at a later date. My biceps are growing by the day and no amount of handwashing is able to remove the dirt from underneath my nails, and I like it that way. Life is good, I can't complain. A bounty of organic veggies at my fingertips, most still in their seedling stage, but the potential for deliciousness is huge! At the moment, we've been munching on mostly green things - leeks leftover from last fall, early chives and scallions, spinach galore, and finally salad mix - yes, summer is here! The tomatoes have been transplanted from the greenhouse into the field and we await with abated breath as those tiny yellow flowers will eventually turn into luscious pomodoros - can't wait!

So that's a quick recap on my life at the farm, and hopefully there will be plenty more news updates to come. Stay tuned, and make sure to sow your seeds for summer!