So I finally have some crops in the ground! As of this evening, I have planted oregano, parsley, dill, fennel, thyme, potatoes, beets, Swiss chard, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, winter squash, peppers, tomatoes, basil, and a variety of flowers. I also spent an hour stirring the horn manure in my boyfriend's grandparents' driveway, which I later sprayed on the garden with a pine branch from the yard. It feels really good to finally have this started, and I actually don't care that much how productive the farm is this year as long as I have the opportunity to try it out. Well, that's not entirely true. Of course I want all of the plants to thrive and develop into robust, healthy, delicious beings. But I am willing to adapt and accept a little failure. Speaking of which, somebody (some bunny?) has eaten most of the broccoli already! I received a generous donation of Russian banana potatoes from Dr. Hans Aas, owner of Lakewood Berry Farm and my part-time employer. I'm hoping to make some money on those and on some cut flowers, and whatever is left will feed us in the late summer and fall. The space is small, water could prove difficult to deliver, and there will probably not be a fence this year. I am just happy to have the space to try this out.

At other folks' farms I had felt anxious about working fast enough. I tend to work a little slow, taking care to put plant starts in a good spot and pack it in well, but as I was told by an employer last year: “our time isn't valued so we have to work quickly.” I was glad to not have to worry about that this year...until the mosquitos started biting. My help evaporated immediately and I planted as quickly as I could to finish the job and get away from those merciless jerks.

We are getting a good amount of rain lately so I'm putting off coming up with a solution to the water dilemma. I'm considering a tough love type situation, where I don't baby the crops and see what happens. 

Things are changing so fast with the farm. Today I'm moving for the first of 3 times in the next 3 months or so. I still don't know if I'll have access to water, so I may end up fashioning a water tank out of a rubbermade container or trash can so that I can ensure my crops won't dry up. The timing on this stuff is terrible but I will make it work somehow, and I'm sure I'll be able to harvest a good amount of stuff this year, and that next year will be a lot better since i'll be able to start sooner and be more established, I won't be moving anymore, and will either work much closer to home or will not have another job to eat away at my free time. I have winter squash and rainbow chard sitting in my car as I type this, waiting to get transplanted in their new home. I also have some horn manure in there, which I will be applying either today or tomorrow.

ch-ch-ch-changes

Some interesting developments have transpired in the last two weeks. I now have access to a large chunk of land in Cloquet, Minnesota, which is about 20 miles from Duluth and it is where I plan to be living within the next 2 months. I have decided not to farm at Duluth Community Farm because it is so far from my new house and because the organizers have asked for, in my opinion, too much of my profits. I have nothing against them. I understand that this is the first year and they are just getting started with the program and they are lacking funds, but for me a major part of farming on my own is keeping the money I work so hard to earn.

I still haven't planted anything yet, so that is not a problem. The new place will still have to be tilled and it's possible the soil isn't as good and that the farmers' markets I might end up selling at might not have the visibility that the one at Duluth Community Farm will have, but farming in Cloquet means I get to spend more time with my boyfriend (and hopefully get more help from him) and it means we can grow perennial crops and benefit from our own soil-building efforts, and that we can start right away at making the land productive. A fellow gardener has offered us such treasures as weed-blocking fabric, a rain barrel, and a worm compost bin. We found horsetail and raspberries on the land.

It's a little scary to be doing this more or less by myself but it's also exhilarating. Something similar happened to me last year and the best outcome possible was the result. I started the season working for farm managers who didn't value my hard work and I ended up leaving for another farm where I was treated and compensated much better. Now that I find myself in limbo again, I am comforted by the fact that I found the right place to be last year, and I trust my instincts.

I will post more information as I figure it out, and I will let you know in which farmers' markets I will participate once I know. Once that gets started, I will post my produce availability each week.

My horn manure has arrived! I ordered two of the biodynamic preparations from the Josephine Porter Institute in Pennsylvania. I got 500, which is composted, well-formed cow manure (the kind that results from a grass diet) stuffed into the horn of a mature cow who has given birth several times over her lifetime, which is buried in the ground over winter; and I also purchased 501, which is ground quartz stuffed into a cow horn and buried in the ground over summer. Biodynamic agriculture is pretty esoteric, and if you can believe it, some of the other preparations (there are a total of 9) are way stranger and more gross. Check it out for yourself at www.biodynamics.com (well, not much info there, try wikipedia I guess).

I first became interested in biodynamics when I read the book “Secrets of the Soil” by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird. The authors describe a “spiritual science” developed by Austrian clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner in 1924 in response to requests from European farmers for a solution to their farming woes and worries about the future of European agriculture. Biodynamics are (to me) essentially an improvement upon organic agriculture by adding a spiritual element to more fully connect the farmer to her crops, land, and self. I have serious problems with some of the things Rudolf Steiner believed and talked about, including some things that were ridiculously racist and offensive (check out www.waldorfwatch.com for specific examples) but I believe in the power of his preparations to help heal the earth and produce quality foods.

Six of the biodynamic preparations are meant to be added to compost in order to make it more nutritious. As this is my first season as an independent farmer and I've only lived in Minnesota for a little over 2 months, I don't have any compost, so I'm skipping that part this year. The last preparation, 508, is a tea made of horsetail (Equisetum arvense) that is used to prevent fungal infection and help plants cope better with wet conditions. I didn't purchase that one because horsetail grows all over the place up here and I can harvest it for free. 500, the horn manure, is stirred into water alternating clockwise and counterclockwise for one hour and then applied in the spring to freshly plowed land. It encourages the growth of beneficial microorganisms and earthworms, and helps make elemental nutrients more available for use by plants. In the summer I will apply 501 to the plants when they are growing big and strong. 501 is stirred into water in the same way that 500 is and then applied as a foliar feed that is intended to increase the plants' capacity to absorb light.

Now you know that I believe in some pretty wacky stuff. Honestly, this is just the tip of the iceberg. But what you can take away from this is that I really care about producing healthy food and soil, and that my heart is fully in this.

I'm so excited to finally have a chance to try my hand at farming on my own. I worked on 3 different farms last year, and while those experiences were amazing and I learned so much, I couldn't help but wish I had my own land to farm on. I spent the winter thinking about how to make that happen while also trying to figure out in which state I would be living. My first choice (Athens, Georgia) fell through so we ended up moving to my boyfriend's first choice (Duluth, Minnesota). I bought the seeds that caught my eye, mostly organic ones but some conventional too. Now I'm not quite sure they'll all fit on a quarter acre, but I'm going to try some intensive farming techniques to increase the productivity of the small space allotted to me. One example of this is planting radishes with carrots, since the radishes develop relatively quickly and provide shade under which fewer weeds can grow, and carrots require a much longer time to grow and their leaves are so thin and dainty they can have a hard time getting started with so much competition from weeds. I'm toying with the idea of an onion/marigold border too, since both plants are good pest repellents.

It feels way too late in the season to be admitting this, but I have nothing in the ground yet! I still haven't seen the exact plot of land that will be Magic Summer Minifarm this season. I have some plants started, crowding out the window sills of my tiny house. I am waiting for Duluth Community Farm to put up a deer fence and point out my plot to me. Memorial Day weekend is typically the last frost date this far north, so I'm hoping to get most of my stuff planted in the first week of June. Let's pray for a long summer. No, make it a magically long summer.

My Prayer For the Farm:

May we provide plenty of nutritious food to eat and beautiful flowers to decorate our spaces and events. May the land heal itself with our commitment to sustainability through low-impact organic and biodynamic practices. May we witness the miracle of beings who turn sun and rain and soil into delicious food. May our hearts open ever more as our spiritual wisdom deepens. May our souls be nourished with the knowledge that we are doing a good thing for ourselves and the world.