Greetings everyone! Sorry about the week-long delay. We had two busy, eventful weeks here at Buckhorn. Two weeks ago we tore up most of the beds in the dome, including the melons, the tomatoes, and the kale. We left the hot peppers, the perennial herbs, and some miscellaneous plants like nasturtiums, alyssum and datura. Next we will amend the beds and plant some cold hardy veggies. If you're a CSA member who picks up your share at the farm you should definitely poke your head in the dome - it looks pretty darn empty now!
The next weekend Breigh, Darren (and his parents) and my fellow interns worked a long Monday off in order to get all of the beds covered with frost blankets. For this we used mostly Remay, a white mesh material, and some old bed sheets that Jinelle scored from the thrift store. We situate the blanket over the length of the bed then secure it tightly with large rocks so that the wind doesn't pick it up. The frost did happen Monday and Tuesday night last week, so we were right to have covered everything, but we reached a low of 28°F so some of the crops were effected anyway. Squash, melons and cucumber production has definitely slowed down due to the cold. Outside tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and beans were all lost. All the beds are uncovered at the moment so they can carry on with their photosynthesizing, but they will need to be covered again before the end of the week - there's a chance of snow on Thursday!
The reason the blog didn't get updated last Tuesday was because we harvested the kid goats. Darren and Jesse did that dirty work while Noel, Breigh, Jinelle and I did another sort of dirty work - shoveling out the goat barn so the mother goats could have clean living quarters in exchange for their kids. I helped a little bit with the kid harvesting process and it was eye opening to be sure. I figured that I will likely be partaking in the goat meat so I thought it would be appropriate to lend a hand.
This weekend was very exciting because we, Breigh and the four interns, took a farm tour! I plan on devoting an entire blog entry, including pictures, to this excursion because it was so fun and so educational. We had the opportunity to visit with three farmers to see how they run their operations. It was a great road trip and I'm looking forward to talking more about it in another post.
Today was an exciting day for Breigh and I here on the farm because we welcomed the 4th and 5th graders from Ridgway Elementary to help us with a few special tasks. They moved around the farm in three groups. One group helped me dig up potatoes, another group popped and planted seed garlic, and the last group hauled rocks into one of the new beds in the dome. All the kids had a great time getting their hands dirty and we were able to experience the unique gratification that comes with instilling the value of earth-tending in the next generation.
That about does it for the past two weeks. I hope you're enjoying the last of the warm weather as well as the transition into the coziest and loveliest of seasons, autumn. Be well, we will see you soon!
The next weekend Breigh, Darren (and his parents) and my fellow interns worked a long Monday off in order to get all of the beds covered with frost blankets. For this we used mostly Remay, a white mesh material, and some old bed sheets that Jinelle scored from the thrift store. We situate the blanket over the length of the bed then secure it tightly with large rocks so that the wind doesn't pick it up. The frost did happen Monday and Tuesday night last week, so we were right to have covered everything, but we reached a low of 28°F so some of the crops were effected anyway. Squash, melons and cucumber production has definitely slowed down due to the cold. Outside tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and beans were all lost. All the beds are uncovered at the moment so they can carry on with their photosynthesizing, but they will need to be covered again before the end of the week - there's a chance of snow on Thursday!
The reason the blog didn't get updated last Tuesday was because we harvested the kid goats. Darren and Jesse did that dirty work while Noel, Breigh, Jinelle and I did another sort of dirty work - shoveling out the goat barn so the mother goats could have clean living quarters in exchange for their kids. I helped a little bit with the kid harvesting process and it was eye opening to be sure. I figured that I will likely be partaking in the goat meat so I thought it would be appropriate to lend a hand.
This weekend was very exciting because we, Breigh and the four interns, took a farm tour! I plan on devoting an entire blog entry, including pictures, to this excursion because it was so fun and so educational. We had the opportunity to visit with three farmers to see how they run their operations. It was a great road trip and I'm looking forward to talking more about it in another post.
Today was an exciting day for Breigh and I here on the farm because we welcomed the 4th and 5th graders from Ridgway Elementary to help us with a few special tasks. They moved around the farm in three groups. One group helped me dig up potatoes, another group popped and planted seed garlic, and the last group hauled rocks into one of the new beds in the dome. All the kids had a great time getting their hands dirty and we were able to experience the unique gratification that comes with instilling the value of earth-tending in the next generation.
That about does it for the past two weeks. I hope you're enjoying the last of the warm weather as well as the transition into the coziest and loveliest of seasons, autumn. Be well, we will see you soon!
0 comments:
Post a Comment