May 12, 2004
Gentlemen, Start Your Engines
On the weekend, I was assembling another Adirondack chair on the concrete pad outside my apartment while Lorenz and his coffee cup kept me company when it started to hail. Lorenz's comment was "that's great, hail is just what those little plants in the field need". If I hadn't been sure that hail is not good for transplants, I wouldn't even have detected the sarcasm in that comment.
Farming is, by definition, tied to the weather, but horticultural crop farmers have it particularly tough. A week's difference in harvest dates can mean half the returns you would otherwise have. We seem to be willing to pay much more for the first Ontario tomatoes, new potatoes, early local brassicas, strawberries when they first come into season... so the challenge for the farmer is not just to get the plants to yield high quality produce, but to time it just right. When it looks like the brassicas under the row covers got a bit stressed, it doesn't mean that they won't bounce back or that the cabbages and kales won't be as beautiful as always, but it may mean that they mature a bit later, and that's a big deal.
Around here, it feels like the farm team is in the starting blocks, muscles tense - but waiting. When there are two or three dry days in a row, Lorenz is welded to the tractor from dawn to dusk. But, without fail, a thunderstorm passes through and dumps a whole lot of rain. At this point, the timing of the rain is not good for this particular farm. When the fields are wet, you can't work them. The spinach has come up, but there are lots of weeds there too. It's a good idea to get the weeds while they're small, but not if it means stepping on a very wet bed and compacting soil. Driving the tractor to cultivate is out of the question until the fields are considerably more dry than they were on the weekend. Too much compaction would just make the problem worse, because then, when it rains, the water would pool on top (and the solution to that, apparently, is several years of cover crops).
But the warm days and lots of moisture are making things grow, and not just weeds. The asparagus is up, and will be ready for its first cutting sometime this week. The rhubarb patch is ready to give up its first bunches - I pulled off a stalk and ate it up in the field, and it tasted so good.... The peas are up and seem to be doing well, the garlic is growing vigorously, and the leeks have recovered from their overwintering.
A few dry days, and field operations kick into high gear. In the meantime, there is some greenhouse work to be done (the micro mix is coming along nicely, there are many transplants to take care of, including a second seeding of brassicas, and the guys transplanted some plants that I'm guessing are watermelons on the ground in the greenhouse) [note: I guessed wrong. Cucumbers]. There is also a lot of maintenance-type work to be done: the cooler repair guy was at the farm this week, the van got towed to Milton to get a new starter put in, Sean is working on plans for a farm stand, the electrician is wiring the garage... it's just a hive of activity. I sit in my Adirondack chair in the middle of it all, and watch. When it gets too busy, I go to the garden - which is safely hidden from most of this guilt-inducing beavering...
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There are a lot of people working on the farm now - besides Lorenz and Tara, there are three interns (J.P., Justin and Sean), and of course H.P. Given that there isn't that much to do until it dries up a bit, though, H.P. has been diverted. I've been puttering away in my garden with every spare minute, and I whined at Lorenz that he needed to fix the fence along the south wall. He thought that the crab-apple tree needed some pruning-type maintenance first, though, and sent H.P. down. It became obvious very quickly, though, that much of this tree is not doing well, and if it is to be saved at all, a lot of it needed to be cut. Lorenz ended up hauling out the chainsaw and going to work. H.P. turned his attention to replacing the fence section under the tree, and then he thought it would be good to have a second entrance along the north fence. After he did that, he started constructing a grilling pit (no fires, just briquets). And then he spent an afternoon hauling flat chunks of limestone out of the bush (though sometimes he helped the flatness along with hammer and chisel), and built a stone patio.
Me, I'm no dummy - when someone wants to join me in a project and does such great work, I happily deliver beer to keep him happy. I've been putting in some raised beds, and wood chip paths, and hauling chunks of logs for seats. I've planted some perennials (H.P. came home with some more the other day), and I'm going to overseed the patch of weedy grass I have now. I painted two of the Adirondack chairs with farm implement paint - Ford blue and Federal yellow. Lorenz kept lobbying for John Deere green, but I suspect this has less to do with thinking a green chair would be good and more with his two John Deere tractors and how useful a can of green implement paint would be... Me, I'm leaning toward picking up a can of Case red (or maybe Massey Ferguson red) for the last chair (I'm not even considering Kubota orange, even though the third tractor is a Kubota... is it my fault Lorenz doesn't select tractors by colour and went with all green and orange tractors?).
Most importantly, though, we've inaguarated the garden - we hauled a picnic table in there on Monday night, and grilled chunks of meat while adding to the beer cap collection I've got going in one of the plastic flowerpots that the perennials came in. I had forgotten just how much I love having a garden.