Update from The Farm
Spring is quickly approaching & believe it or not if the weather cooperates we could have seeds going in the ground in another month. Our production plans are 98% of the way complete with the total production for 2012 season planned at 20,000 pounds of food. This would be almost 3x the amount of food grown in 2011, but we learned a lot last season and we think it’s an achievable goal. We had a good rain on Friday, and that meant that some of the site & soil prep we had planned for Saturday would have to wait.
However, this past Saturday an incredible crew of community friends come out to The Farm to help get us one step closer.
Specifically, they help make a lot of progress on laying down a rock layer under the pole barn. This will serve as a solid surface for our wash stations, produce preparation, and cold storage that will soon be build on site. They help clear rocks from the north end of the field and ensure the chickens were all set.
We grabbed a little video from the day and got to hear from Hannah & Gary on what’s ahead plus from we had privilege of having Andy, Kari & their son come down to help us continuing clearing the north field.
We have purchased a few pieces of equipment that have finally arrived.
Our High Tunnel (Hoop House) arrived on Friday & we had planned to prep the site to install it; however, the ground was too wet from the rain the day before so that will have to wait until the next opportunity. We are really excited about the High Tunnel as this will be a significant step in extending our growing season. Once completed, it will serve as a greenhouse to allow more delicate plants to get started earlier in the season and protect them during the more extreme summer months.
For more information on how High Tunnels are used there is a great article from the University of Arkansas Department of Agriculture “Horticulturists focus on organic and high tunnel production systems.”
Additionally, we were able to purchase a “Plastic Mulch Bed Laying” attachment for the tractor (see example picture below). This will allow us to layout all the beds, weed control, and irrigation tapes with the tractor and save us a lot of time and energy that we can allocate towards putting more plants & seeds into the ground, produce harvesting & processing, and pest management.
As you can see, we’re hard at work getting ready for spring. However, we could not do it without the tremendous support of the community. You are all amazing!!!
We still have some Harvest Share Subscriptions available that will allow you to take home a portion of the harvest (this is how we cover our costs for seeds, fertilizers, water, etc. at The Farm), so you get fresh, local, sustainable food, and we get to give a whole lot of it away to those at risk for hunger in our community!
We have Spring Preparation Volunteer days scheduled every two weeks for the next month, so check out the calendar and come out and join us!
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