A Busy Winter

It may seem that I haven’t been posting because it’s winter, and the farm is tucked away under a blanket of cover crop, and we are sitting around twiddling our thumbs with nothing to write about, waiting for Spring’s first Robin to appear.  It’s true that the farm rests quietly in cover crop but that’s where the last truth lays.  We have been up to our ears busy!  To be honest (and I mean no personal offense to the species of Robins) I have been dreading the sight of a Spring Robin as we still have so much to get ready before our first planting.  Here’s a bit of what we’ve been up to:

Grower’s School

We talked a lot about farm expenses. Here I asked families what some common farm expenses in Burma are. It turns out if you don't have a water buffalo you have to rent one. Of course!

Jennie and I have been teaching an 8 week Grower’s School for our refugee farming families.  For 3-4 hours every Friday we teach a different agricultural, business or marketing topic.  Everything from soil fertility to farm finances has been covered thus farm.  Creating these classes has been time-consuming but very rewarding and our refugee families have really appreciated getting the chance to sit down in the class room and really focus on details and concepts that will help them be better farmers and marketers next year.  We’ve got 5 classes under the belt and 3 more to go.  As soon as we finish the Grower’s School we’ll head right into planting.

Grower's School teaching about Farm Expenses and Business Planning

Grower's School

Breaking New Ground

This coming year we will double our cultivated space to almost 3 acres.  14 of our 17

Our newly harrowed and bedded section. The soil looks good!

families will be given more space so that they can start growing enough food to market through a CSA (more info to come soon!).  Yesterday we had 52 (150 foot long) new beds harrowed and bedded.  A soil PH adjustment was needed on the new section as well as last years West field so yesterday Pawel and I spread 700 lbs of solu-lime.  The PH on our far Eastern field is a perfectly lovely 6.5 which means I can happily leave it alone–it’s perfect.

Now that the new section is bedded up I’ve got to start thinking about getting the drip irrigation set up over there……………..

Teaching about Soil PH

Spring Planting Soon

The first week of March we’ll start planting all of our cool season veggies.  That’s when all of our prep and planning will be put into action.  March and April will be a planting frenzy.  It’s my favorite time of the year though–I love being able to be outside watching the Spring unfurl.

Pawel and I spread 700 lbs of Limestone to adjust the Soil PH