Day 21

Asparagus, you so good!

If I tried to sum up the day in one word it would be asparagus. Erica and I harvested this morning and it was serious because it had grown over the weekend. I think it made 65 bunches (our normal is from 1-20). Some of our asparagus has been around since the farm so about 5 years and the rest was planted when Cory got here about 3 years ago. It takes about 3 years for them to establish, and establish they did, all over the place. When you harvest asparagus you cut at the crown and cover it back up with dirt to grow again.  I also processed them by bunching them together which begins by sizing them up (as seen above) and making sure each bunch is a pound each.
Everyone's allergies were bothering them today, but I think mine were the worst, good job allergies, always gotta be on top. I went to get tissue from the bathroom and a salamander was on top of the tp and I almost grabbed him. I made some sort of surprised noise and it had a minor freak out then we stared at each other. We both agreed that wouldn't happen again.
Erica and I also checked on the irrigation for the orchard...quite the adventure. It reminded me of Indiana Jones Temple of Doom when Willie tries to find the lever to free Indy and short stuff from the spikes while bugs were crawling on her. No? Well, here's a picture of where my hand went today:

Let's back up. The water here comes from the well, except the lower fields where it comes from the lake and is filtered and gravity fed.  The water to the pipes turns on and off by turning the handles in these scary ant minefield like holes. The next one Erica checked had a black widow. I feel like we were just farm hazed.
After lunch we pinted strawberries then weeded a bit before we split up. Erica harvested for restaurants, while Daniel, Jason and I moved irrigation in Jeff Cook Field and planted corn. They had finished planting the potatoes earlier (I think there's potatoes in every field now!), and the corn planting went in without a hitch. 

Day 20

 Mice won't be an issue for long! Get to work Mr. snake!

 What a productive day! Started out the day by putting in the trellis for the peas on the T posts (or stakes), but we didn't spend long on that before we were off to Jeff Cook field. That's the field where the cows hang out, I think there were 5 there this morning according to the neighbor, not good. While Erica and Cory weeded the onions and garlic, using the wheel hoe's to break up the ground <pause> This is as good a  time as any to mention the interns starting out last year tried to use a hoe upside down, haha oh interns!

jerk

Now back to business, Jason and I weeded the cucumbers and this guy popped up, a cucumber beetle. They bring bacterial wilt which can take out an entire crop. We bring out the big guns on these critters, Pyrethrum which is an organic broad spectrum pesticide derived from Chrysanthemum plants. This is serious sizzerp because it kills all insects, good and bad, and in organic world you need to keep the beneficial ones. But we used small amounts on that row of cucumbers to wipe these little suckers out.
We finished weeding the zinnia's, carrots, fennel, beets, and quinoa. It's good to get the weeds early with the hoe because that prevents you from having to weed by hand later, which takes forever, bad on knees, bad on back, bad news.

I helped Cory finish up the pea trellis and we realized I was bad with measurements, or rather Cory did, I had already come to that realization, but it's now a work in progress. Started weeding when Daniel grabbed me and Erica to go do some planting in Jeff Cook field.  We planted lots of Brassica's to finish out one of the fields in Jeff Cook, I must say I'm glad the seaweed fish gut fertilizer part comes at the end of the day, otherwise my popularity around here would drop. It does help that the other people I hang out with smell like dirty pirates too.

Perfect End to my Day

Day 19

Refrigerator door

Today felt like Spring! Damp, chilly, depressingly gray, what Ireland would call Monday. Daniel and I re-potted some eggplant and like yesterday he blew through that tube for the fish guts fertilizer. He asked me if I wanted to try but I told him I've been trying to quit. Afterwards, we joined Erica and Jason to weed the asparagus. It was quite the weeding day, we continued on to the hoop houses weeding and clearing them out to make room for new yummy veggies. It's pretty warm in the hoop houses which felt great today, not so much on a hot day.  We finished up to get ready for our first lunch together.

Erica and Lane's mighty feast

Erica volunteered to cook and we had an awesome lunch with peach tea, strawberry reduction tomato puree sauce on noodles along with cooked asparagus, kale salad with balsamic, homemade bread with olive oil and pepper. It was delicious and who would've thought strawberries would taste good with tomato sauce! Cory's family came out to join in on the festivities, it was good times.
After lunch more weeding in the hoop houses. Erica's boyfriend Lane volunteered with us today cause everyone wants to get in on this weeding action. You see all type of creatures who don't appreciate you redecorating their homes, Lane saw a black widow spider which are pretty non aggressive, but no, just no.
I picked some green strawberries for a restaurant that wanted to pickle them and add them to duck and experiment with other dishes. I believe some others requested them as well, so new trend perhaps? After that I left early for Atlanta to deliver about 50 pints of strawberries to Empire State South restaurant on 10th and Peachtree. The place was really cool with a bocce setup, modern/refurbished wood decor and chef was really nice, but he was missing half a finger. So I learned today that strawberries are good with everything and don't become a chef if you want to keep fingers.

Happy Easter!

Day 18

We went to town on some strawberries! But first we put together some orders for Farmer's Fresh Co-Op and some restaurants in Atlanta I'm going to drop of for tomorrow. We harvested some easter radishes, 60 lbs of hakurei (turnips), and arugula. After harvesting the strawberries we packed them into pints, there's also some important taste testing involved, and we save the gooey ones for King of Pops in Atlanta who cooks them down and makes them into popsicles.

Cory siphoned fish guts to get it out of the barrel, farming turned Fear Factor part one edition. Daniel finally got the fertilizer out by blowing through a long tube. The interns sorted all the varieties of tomato transplants and loaded them into the van; Jason and I went on an adventure to find the lower field, after I took the van on an off-road (meant for walking) detour we found it. Cory got out easy because he had to give some UGA agriculture students a tour while we did, well this:

 

It was all dandy, then it started raining which is actually a good thing when you're farming. I like to think it helped wash away some of the fish gut/seaweed smell, but with all the pollen going on I could hardly smell it anyway, thanks good for one thing allergies. We all switched out and then Jason helped pot up some blackberries and we harvested some more veggies for tomorrow's lunch! For boyfriend Jason:

Day 17

Home Sweet, what the?

I found mouse droppings in my dresser this morning right about the time Erica found them on the kitchen counter. Mice wars 2012 has commenced. I don't do rodent roommates, so we went to Cory for a solution and he described an elaborate rat trap involving peanut butter and drowning; it was about that time I stopped him and asked for the poison where they go outside to die peacefully in their sleep. I'll keep you updated in about 4-5 days about the success rate. Yesterday, they sprayed our yard and entire back field with chicken waste for fertilizer...smells delicious. That's my home life update for the time being. House still looks cute though doesn't it?
Anyhoodle, today Erica (and Daniel) gave me more practice driving stick, which had it's ups and downs, starts and stalls. We gathered food for Cory to drop off at restaurants before he went to Athens to do a question/answer for the Grow documentary movie. We installed floating row covers over the squash, zucchini, cucumbers. Some of them had small cucumber beetles but nothing serious. But some of the squash had a worm issue which had also affected our turnips and we figured out it started in the greenhouse and then we transplanted those plants to different fields, thankfully it wasn't too many. Insects will be our constant enemy this summer because of the mild winter; they're already mine, I'm looking at four bug bites on my wrists as we speak, write, whatever we're doing.
Next up, driving in the stakes to trellis the peas. This is hardcore and I'm sure I'll be feeling it tomorrow.  Daniel went to lay out plastic row covers in the lower field so we were on our own for direction. So we screwed up a couple things then called it a day. Did we do more good than harm today? The scales about even but we came out okay and I'm ready for tomorrow.

Pea Trellis

 

Day 16

This morning Erica had a dream that we had calves in our backyard we had to get out, that didn't happen but we did get cows in our onion fields that Cory had to get out! We harvested the asparagus, weeded the hoop houses and cleared out lots of turnips and lettuce to make room for new crops. I came through with the wheelbarrow and picked up the excess. The crew went on a field trip to the gas store to try some local milk while I took a much needed siesta.
Second half we harvested strawberries and planted more varieties of potatoes in pasture field. The potatoes we planted were by hand, adding fertilizer after. Sandy's strong suit is not the tiller and he was on the tracker (tractor) so we raked over the potatoes. We now have 6 hoop houses, I think Daniel put the plastic over that last one pretty much by himself, that man's a machine!
We just made contact with Linda who cares for the horses and she said we can ride whenever, and that the horses like carrots preferably organic I'm thinking.

Day 15

Our tomato trellis

Working it out

Air Conditioning

Strawberry overload! 87 pints worth. And today we had a helper, a senior in high school who was working on a project to cut class. The booth next to ours at Peachtree market is the Queen of Tarts, and Katie (the senior) is working with them for her final project and while the owner is out of town she's visiting farms from the market. Side note: Katie went to pee in the woods like a champ, I prefer to use the lady's room at the barn...because I'm a lady, and I like toilet paper but that's another story. We weeded the asparagus, carrots and beets. I tried not to uproot all the beets and I believe I was able to do more good than harm, however a few beets would disagree.
After lunch we talked about soil and saw some soil tests from Burge and talked about of their test results. I'm still reading the more scientific of our weekly required reading books and learning about the chemistry. Cory doesn't like liming (putting lime in the soil) even though it helps in some ways chemically, it masks the organic matter deficiency which is the root of the problem. He said it was good if you're starting out in a new field. I helped put in the tomato trellis poles and watered the greenhouse. It's so amazing to see something you plant actually sprout! I just keep looking at them like really?!! I just did these last week.

Sunflowers I planted!

Erica, rommate/intern made a delicious dinner tonight by roasting beets, sweet potatoes and carrots! I'm keeping her.