Saturday, October 3: Field Shifts 42 and 43

Today was the last day of our official apprenticeship shifts.  It was a crisp morning, and we began with a field walk on farmers’ lives during the winter.  We talked about how farmers plan during the winter, scheduling when and where they will plant certain crops, how they will talk about changes for the coming season.  Farmers may continue growing through the winter in greenhouses, generally crops like salad greens or microgreens.  Some farmers will go to conferences to improve their knowledge in fields like cover-cropping and tool maintenance.  Winter is also the time when farmers will do maintenance on farm equipment since the equipment won’t be in much use during the winter.

Farmall (photo credit: Eric Pan)

After the field walk, we prepared some of the beds inside the new high tunnel using ground forks, to loosen the clay-like soil.  We then transplanted some parsley and lettuce using measuring tape and hand trowels.  Then we were tasked with killing carrots (since the carrot seedlings needed to have more space to grow, about 1″ at least between each sprout).  To finish the shift we hulahoed some beds and laid irrigation tape.

In the afternoon we started the shift by moving a tarp into the greenhouse and re-organizing some of the materials that were inside the greenhouse.  We did some more hulahoe-ing, then had a field walk on microgreens.  Microgreens are like sprouts except they are larger, usually about 3 inches long–and grow in trays instead of in jars.  Earth Dance supplies microgreens to several local restaurants–mainly from pea, broccoli, and beet seeds.  We planted trays of pea microgreens, using about 1 cm. of soil and then lightly covering them with more dirt.

We then finished the day by having a field walk in the garden to review the lessons we had learned throughout the apprenticeship.  We talked about guilds–groups of plants grown together because of the beneficial effects they have on each other, tip-layering–expanding the area covered by a plant by burying its new growth shoots, cover-cropping with Daikon radishes–to improve the nutrients in the soil, and composting.  We talked about the herb spiral, permaculture planning, and building terraces–so much I had never known about before coming to Earth Dance!  It has definitely been an interesting and rewarding season.

Tuesday, September 29: Farmers’ Panel

Tonight for our class we started with a short presentation by a representative from the USDA, who gave an introduction to the resources available for organic growers in MO.  She gave us a folder of resources with information about grants, organic growing research, and Farm Service Agency programs.  She also spoke about the importance of encouraging pollinators to our potential farms.

Then we had a panel discussion with three farmers: Liz Greiznek, who runs a 58-share CSA in Columbia, MO; Paul Krautman, who owns a 38-acre farm, and Ted Geisert, who runs a 25-acre pig farm in Washington, MO.  Liz has been farming for six years, Paul for 23 years, and Ted for all his life–with the experience of five generations before him.  Each of the farmers use organic techniques in raising livestock and growing vegetables, though Liz’s farm is the only one that is officially certified organic.  All three of the farmers spoke to the physical demands of farming–how it is a career that can require you to be on your feet from sunrise to sunset–give or take depending on the season.  They said that they employed high schoolers, family members, and students on internships to get all the work done.
When asked about the best parts of their jobs, the farmers said that they liked the diversity of their work–how they are required to master many different skills, and how their schedule changes every day.  On a farm, there is an immense amount of work to do, and so there is always a lot going on at once.  Also, Paul noted that one of the most rewarding parts of his job is seeing how the cycles of nature work–from a young seedling to full plant to fruit, from birth of an animal to youth to adulthood.  His take on farming was that it is important to plan and structure your farm, but also to watch nature and let her natural cycles guide your farming practices.

Saturday, September 26: Field Shift 41

We started the shift today by talking about site planning.  We first discussed the scales of permanence, which are central to permaculture planning: prioritizing changes to the site based on their permanence.   Climate is at the top of the list as most permanent, and soil is near the bottom as least permanent, with elements like sunlight, structures, and water in between.  Next we talked about the attitudes to have towards site preparation: to shake off old preconceptions, to embrace change, to be observant, to go out and explore, to talk with other people, and to welcome criticism and suggestions for improvement.  We then looked at maps for Earth Dance farm and talked about the changes in design that Earth Dance has gone through over the years.  The takeaway message was that it is important to always be flexible, keep an open mind, and thoroughly investigate the location and all options before making any final decisions.

For the next part of the shift we transported alpaca manure onto raised beds and raked it over them, leaving about 1″ spread on top.  Then we transported woodchips to the compost pile in wheelbarrows.  We each then took a turn using the tractor to turn the compost windrows–digging in deep in one side at the bottom, then moving the tractor forward while lifting the front bucket and then dumping it over the top.  It was a little hard to coordinate moving all the levers in the right directions but I finally was able to do it.

Then we finished up the shift by weeding rows of turnips and transplanting lettuce.

lettuce, chard, mustard (photo credit: Eric Pan)

Tuesday: Medicinal Herbs

Our class today was given by Crystal Stevens, who runs the La Vista CSA in Godfrey, IL, with her husband Eric.  Crystal received a degree in herbalism and knows many medicinal qualities of certain plants.  She introduced us to the qualities of these plants and also methods for preparing tinctures and salves.  We started by going on a walk around the farm to identify herbs and other plants.  Plantain, commonly considered a weed, is especially good for reducing the swelling from bee stings, if chewed into a pulp then placed on the sting.  It is also edible, and can serve as a good band aid–wrapped around a cut finger.  Dandelion also is a weed which is especially healthy to eat, full of vitamins K, A, and C–though it tastes bitter raw.  The root of dandelion can be boiled to make a strong detox for colds.  Thyme and Sage are especially good for aiding digestion, and Red clover is known for having qualities to balance female hormones.

Crystal did a demonstration on how to prepare a tincture–a substance to be taken when sick in order to provide the body with health-promoting nutrients.  It is taken orally, generally by drinking 20-30 drops mixed into a glass of water.  The first step of the process is to sterilize the jar–by boiling.  Second, dry herbs are added (during the demonstration she added sage, parsley, verbena, bee balm, dandelion root, lavender, yarrow, mullein, and Echinacea leaves).  Third, vinegar or alcohol is added to fill to the top of the jar.  The most inexpensive option is to use cider vinegar, though Crystal also recommended Everclear alcohol.  Fourth, the mixture is shaken for 2 minutes, then placed in a cool, dark place.  The jar must then be shaken for one minute each day for four weeks.  The last step is to strain out the pieces of herbs that remain, using a cheesecloth or muslin.  The vinegar tincture can last 1 year without refrigeration, and the alcohol one can last 5 years.

At the end of the class Crystal showed how to make a first-aid salve, using beeswax and different oils.  She boiled it in a pot inside another pot like a double boiler, to keep the oils from burning.  This salve can be used to help heal minor cuts, scrapes, burns, and to moisturize dry skin.

Saturday, September 19: Field Shift 40

Today we started by folding a large clear plastic tarp that had been used for solarizing a field–for killing early weeds by raising the temperature under the tarp.  We then had a lesson on the greenhouse and high tunnels.  The greenhouse design is called a “gothic arch” design, since it has a point at the top of a rounded arch.  Inside the greenhouse the arches are supported by interior trusses attached to horizontal lengthwise pieces.  For heating, there is an electric heater which heats the air inside the greenhouse.  Earth Dance is currently installing a different kind of heating system for the greenhouse, which will run heated water through tubes on the tables holding the plants.  This system should be more efficient, because it will only need to heat the space where the plants need the heat the most–instead of the entire space.  This is also more natural for how plants would receive heat outside the greenhouse–through the soil, not the air.  To make sure that the temperature inside the greenhouse does not get too hot, there is a computer-controlled system that raises and lowers the sides of the greenhouse, according to the temperature inside the greenhouse.  The system works in increments of five–so the first raise of the sides will only be one-fifth of the total.  This is to ensure that the greenhouse isn’t cooled too much at first.  Then the system evaluates the interior temperature a second time, after a few minutes when the sides have been raised the first increment, and raises them again if necessary.

For the plastic covering over the greenhouse, there is a double layer and a fan that pumps air between the two layers.  This is to improve insulation and also give structural support to the walls.  By having a “pillow” of air between the metal bars, there is less of a chance of the plastic sagging and tearing–and also less of a chance that snow and ice will weigh down the plastic.  During the winter, there is the inevitable problem of dealing with snow, and worse–ice.  It may be necessary sometimes to cut the plastic and let the snow fall through–rather than risking the collapse of the entire metal-beamed structure.

After the lesson on the greenhouse we then folded a shade cloth–a large black mesh cloth that had been placed over the greenhouse during the summer to prevent extreme hot temperatures inside.  We transported this shade cloth and the solarizing tarp using the tractor, and placed them where they would not be affected by the elements.  We then did some work preparing the high tunnel for planting by spreading a thin layer of compost over the raised beds in the ground.  We ended the shift by taking wire cages that had been used around the tomatoes and placing them around young fruit trees that had suffered from deer grazing.  Earth Dance has not generally had too many problems with deer, except for recently with these new trees that were just planted this past spring.

Tuesday, September 15: Sweet Potato Project

For class today we took a trip to the Sweet Potato Project, also the site of Good Life Growing, in the Ville.  This is a project to bring economic and social development to North St. Louis, through teaching skills to local youth for growing, cooking, and selling healthy food.  We first had a tour of the Good Life Growing site, which has several raised vegetable beds–for tomatoes, basil, melons, beans, lettuce, and peppers.  Beside this outdoor garden there is a greenhouse which holds an aquaponics system.  There is a tank at the entrance to the greenhouse with fish, whose excrement is then piped through to tanks of water underneath trays of pebbles holding plants. The fish waste is so nutrient-rich that no other chemical additives are needed.  From what we saw, plants are placed into the pebble beds without soil (or just a little from the original transplant), and seem to be in healthy condition.  There are a few tomatoes and young kale and lettuce starts–though most of the pebble beds do not have many plants yet.  Outside the aquaponics greenhouse there is a pretty arbor covered with squash and cucumber vines.

The second part of the class was to see the Sweet Potato Project–which is composed of several beds simply growing one crop: sweet potatoes.  By focusing on this one crop that is relatively simple to grow, the project can appeal to people who may have no previous experience in gardening.  It also allows for more of the project to focus on other aspects like preparing and marketing the good.  The sweet potatoes are baked into cookies, which are then sold by the kids in the project to raise money for the project.  We got to try some of the cookies–and they are pretty delicious!

With these two projects in the Ville, there have been a few problems because of the nature of the location.  There is heavy narcotics trading in the area, and associated violence.  There was one night when the project’s garden shed lock was melted with a blowtorch and some lawn mowers were stolen.  However, there has not been as much vandalism and theft as could be expected from the area.  Generally, the site is picking up new interested visitors and workers and is becoming the cool hang-out site for many of the local teens.

Saturday, September 12: Field Shift 39

We started this morning with a lesson on crop planning, and learned much of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into preparing the beds, ordering seeds, and planning CSA shares.  We started by talking about the goal yield that Earth Dance has: to provide enough food for a 70-member CSA, wholesale, and farmer’s market.  For the CSA shares, Earth Dance has to plan so that there is a variety of vegetables in each share, and so that each week the share is different.  To do this, Earth Dance categorizes vegetables based on their family/type: root (beet, carrot, turnip, radish, potato), salad green (head lettuce, arugula, Mesclun, spinach), fruit (tomato, zucchini, cucumber, tomatillo, husk cherry), cooking green (chard, sweet potato greens), head (cabbage, kohlrabi, broccoli), cooking herb (basil, oregano, thyme), and tea herb (lemon balm, mint).  Every week, Earth Dance aims to have one of these types of vegetables–and this is planned out months in advance.  This is then used to plan the schedule for when certain crops will be harvested–and this is in turn used to determine the time those crops will be seeded and transplanted.  Earth Dance keeps all this information in Excel spreadsheets as part of its crop plan.  For determining the beds to use for certain crops, a general rule is to never plant a crop in a field where the same crop was in the past two years–because of the nutrients that that crop took from that soil.  We also talked about ordering seeds–because Earth Dance is certified organic, it must buy organic seeds.  If there is a certain variety of seeds which the farm wants that are not offered organically, then Earth Dance has to look for them in two other places before ordering non-organic seeds.  Earth Dance buys from a number of different seed catalogs, the majority of which are surprisingly located in Maine or Massachusetts.  Earth Dance also saves seeds and reuses them.  Typically Earth Dance does not keep seeds any longer than 2 years.  Apparently the germination rates after 2 years go down to about 20-40%, generally speaking.

After the crop planning lesson, we gave feed and water to the chickens as usual, then harvested some extra kale to bring over to the farmers’ market.  We then picked flowers for an event on the farm later today–zinnia, celosia, and gomphrena–and arranged them.  Then I helped build a table inside the greenhouse, using PVC pipe and plastic beams–while the others seeded trays of spinach and lettuce.  At the end of the shift we did some cleanup tasks around the greenhouse, sweeping and organizing supplies.

Friday, September 11: Field Shift 38

We had a harvest walk this morning where we saw demonstrations of harvesting broccoli, leeks, and sweet potato greens.  Sweet potato greens can be used similarly to spinach or chard–in stir fries or steamed.  They are especially good to have during hot summer months when most other greens cannot survive.  However, sweet potato greens can be tedious to harvest.  So Matt proposed a contest for sweet potato green harvesting: he would time us for 10 minutes and then we would weigh each of our bins to see who harvested the most.  Whoever won the contest would demonstrate the harvesting technique used, and then this would be used by the rest of the crew for harvest.  I don’t really know how, but I won the contest–so I demonstrated my technique–a simultaneous two-handed grab, using the thumbnail to snap the stem below each leaf.  I filled my hands with leaves before emptying the leaves into the bin.

Then we went and harvested broccoli, taking small shoots from the Happyrich variety and bigger heads from another variety.  The broccoli was unfortunately infiltrated by harlequin bugs and so we had to soak the broccoli heads and remove the bugs before packing for market.  I later jointed a crew to harvest cherry tomatoes in the high tunnel, using the double-bucket technique as usual–two buckets attached by a belt around my waist.

Later I harvested okra, taking both dark red and green varieties.  Near the end of the shift I picked scallions and leeks, uprooting the plants and cutting off most of their roots, removing browned stalk parts, and bunching them.  For the leeks, we did a special cut with the knife to trim the ends of the greens–which Monica demonstrated seamlessly, and which I had a more difficult time replicating.  After bunching the scallions and leeks we brought them back to the harvest station and washed them before packing them in boxes for market.

harvested leeks

Tuesday, September 8: Permaculture Design

We had a second class on permaculture tonight, the design principle for creating “permanent agriculture.”  We discussed the ideas we had learned before, such as using the “keylines,” the lines of highest elevation, to guide the planning of irrigation and crops.  Generally, there are three factors that are the most important when planning a site for permaculture design: slope, sun, and water.  It is important to plan so that the natural drainage patterns of water are effective for the placement of crops.  Also it is important to consider the path of the sun to plan so that the plants are placed well according to their lighting needs.  Aside from these factors, there are some outside vectors to consider like: existing plants, structures, and infrastructure, privacy, views, noise, smells, and shade.  It may seem overwhelming to plan in consideration of all these factors; however, there is a scale used to determine the priority of these factors and others, called the “Yeoman’s scale of permanence.”  In this scale, the most permanent factor is climate, followed by: land shape, water flow/storage, roads, trees, buildings, land subdivisions, and ending with the least permanent factor of soil.  Accordingly, the design of a permaculture farm should take these factors into consideration according to their permanence.  In addition, there is the idea of zoning land into 5 concentric rings: 1 being the ring closest to home and 5 being the farthest out.  Then crops can be planted according to how often they need tending– how close they need to be to the home.

Permaculture is a design style which maximizes the use of space.  Its principles include layering and stacking plants according to their heights and shapes, and their abilities to benefit one another.  Permaculture gardens thus can have the appearance of being disorganized and chaotic to an untrained eye, since so many plants overlap and are not planted in straight lines.  Another principle of permaculture is maximizing edge space; creating raised beds so that the exterior edge has the maximum surface area.  So instead of just planting a circular or square raised garden bed, a permaculture bed would have a waved edge–so that more plants would be accessible for picking along the edge.  Edges are also good to maximize in garden design because they are the site of the most biodiversity, since they are at the intersection of two distinct communities.

Saturday, September 5: Field shifts 36 and 37

This morning we began the shift with a tree identification walk.  We started with a sugar maple, which Earth Dance tapped for maple syrup last winter.  In general, the ratio for sap to syrup is about 40 to 1–so it was a very small amount of syrup that Earth Dance was able to make from the sap of this one tree.  We then identified an oak tree, which produces acorns–which can be ground into a flour.  It is important to first remove the tannins from the acorns first, though (the tannins give raw acorns their astringent taste), so this can either be done by grinding then soaking them for about 2 weeks or boiling them.  Next we identified a Black walnut tree, which produces walnuts encased inside a spongy green coating.  For collecting nuts for eating, it is best to take ones with the husk still green but soft to the touch.  The next step for preparing the nuts for eating is to remove this husk–which can be done by driving over the nuts or squeezing the nuts through a small hole.  Then the unshelled nuts should be washed, dried and cured.  They should be dried for several weeks before eating.  Another new thing I learned about walnut trees is that they prevent other plants from growing around them because of a toxic substance they release into the soil through their roots, called juglone.  Fortunately the walnut trees at Earth Dance are not planted very close to any fields.  We identified a chestnut tree, whose nuts come encased in a spiky, tan-colored husk, and whose leaves are long and have a jagged edge.  These nuts can either be boiled or roasted “over an open fire.”  When roasting them it is important to score them first (cut an “x” into them) so that moisture can escape.  We then identified a persimmon tree, which has particularly glossy leaves and plump orange-colored fruit.  We identified a mulberry tree, which we had already feasted on earlier in the season–which has natural asymmetrical leaves.  We also identified a catalpa tree, known for its long bean pods, a tulip tree, known for its tulip-shaped leaves and flowers, and an Osage orange tree, known for its green-colored orange-looking fruit.  It is debated whether Osage orange is edible; apparently it has seeds which are edible but have to first be removed from the pulpy interior.

Then we tended the chickens–we gave them fresh water and food, and moved their coop.  We then weeded rows of fall lettuce and chard with hula hoes, pulling weeds from the rows and the pathways.

Then I was taken out of the group for my next task: mowing a field with the tractor.  Today was my second time driving the tractor, so it was a little less daunting than the first time, but it’s still something I have to get used to.  First we filled up the tractor’s tank with more diesel.  It is especially important to keep enough fuel in a diesel engine because the engine is a compression engine and if there is not enough fuel, then air from the outside could come in–and this could prevent the engine from firing.  After filling the tank, I drove the tractor to the field to be mowed.  Once I was on the field, Monica showed me how to lower the back end of the tractor to different levels (after pressing down the clutch)–which controls the height of the mower.  Then I learned to turn on the blades of the mower and increase the engine speed of the tractor (and also how to turn them off and stop the tractor), then started mowing the field.  Whenever I reached the end of a row I had to raise the back end so that the blades would not hit the dirt road.

driving the tractor

After mowing, I joined the rest of the group again to plant parsnip seeds directly into a field.  Monica had soaked these seeds overnight to help with germination.  We then attached and turned on irrigation tape to water these seeds.  We then harvested okra and did some tomato trellising.  We ended the shift with some cleanup tasks around the farm–pulling up old irrigation tape, collecting wire hoops and shade cloth, and moving sandbag weights.

In the afternoon, we started with a harvest walk, first going to see the field with brassicas: Happyrich broccoli, kale, collards, cabbage, and brussels sprouts.  We talked about the best times to harvest these crops and some general harvesting techniques.  Flowering buckwheat had been planted in the rows between these crops as a cover crop that would help enrich the soil.  Then we prepared seed for a cover crop of oats and peas, which is a typical cover for fall and spring.  I learned that rye and vetch, by comparison, is a cover crop that overwinters–which can be planted in the fall, last through the winter and then come up in the spring.  For the cover crop of oats and peas, we mixed about an equal amount of both, and then calculated the amount we would need for the size of our field, given the known ratio for an acre.  We then split up this mixture into buckets which each of us carried into the field and spread by throwing handfuls.  After this, we harvested potatoes–digging them up after the field had been tilled through with the tractor.
We then did some work in the garden, refilling the compost collection bin with woodchips and chopped leaves and removing dead plants.  We pulled out the cherry tomatoes, which have nearly come to the end of their season now.  Once we pulled them out, we added aged compost, incorporated this into the soil, and then planted storage turnips in their place.  These turnips are specially grown for enriching the soil–for the nutrients they bring down into the soil through their tap roots.

We then had a lesson on seed-saving, and practiced collecting and drying seeds from various plants in the garden. We collected seeds from marigolds, husk cherries, heirloom tomatoes, corn, beans, and sunflowers.  I had the husk cherries–which I took the seeds from by squeezing the pulp of the fruit out onto a tissue and separating out the seeds to dry.  After the seeds have dried, we will place them in brown paper bags and store in a dry, cool place.