Rain--Finally, An Ode to Soil, Farmer's Log
01. The last week brought the first few days of rain we’ve had on the island in recent memory. According to the Northeast Regional Climate Center we’re still in the middle of a “moderate drought,” along with much of the rest of the Northeast. Even with an irrigation system, the lack of rain means that we spend hours a day moving and adjusting sprinklers and turning on and off drip tape.
As much as the drought is an inconvenience for us, it’s a real nightmare for the thousands of farmers across the country who dry crop their fields and can’t irrigate for one reason or another. With such droughts (and much worse) becoming increasingly frequent across the country, it’s also a reminder that we all need to be doing what we can to combat climate change.
How could I not talk about rain, I suppose. I don’t know if there’s a correlation, but with rain, came tomatoes, ripe and ready, come get ‘em. Even with many of the cherries split from over watering, it felt like the heaviest harvest we’ve had yet, and all the splits made for a yummy mid-harvest snack.
—Pierceson Brown, Farm Crew
02. I watch the soil as I weed. As roots are pulled, the earth is ripped apart and the soil is alive with animals and insects; a snake slithers through the cabbage bed that is being flipped, followed by a vole, their shaded halls of green leaves dismantled. A nest of soil spiders is disturbed and their gray flight bodies slide over the earth like sand blown in the wind. Worms are thrown into the air as hands pull out clumps of grass. But they slide back down to their soil creating pathways that water will happily trickle down when it rains. Sometimes as I am weeding, I run into a nest of ants. I realize this because my hand feels as though it is under water. Instead, I look down to see it engulfed by small crawling black bodies. This is when admiration of soil life truly turns to fear.
—Olivia Meehan, Farm Crew
03. Because of the schedule I often work Sunday’s as the only one on the farm. While the two time consuming priorities are watering and farmstand, it’s always a challenge to see what else can get done during the day. Here is my farmer’s log for the day:
7:00 Open farmstand, do daily cleaning logs.
7:20 Short harvest to keep the farmstand in stock for the day. Sunday afternoon tends to be a busy time as people head back from the beaches.
8:30 Prune/ trellis tomatoes in the hoop house.
10:00 Start to cut out powdery mildew from squash plants.
10:25 Set up sprinklers, hand water in cover crops and other beds that got direct seeded in, lay out drip tape for new beds, water seedlings in the hoophouse.
11:50 Clean and restock farmstand before lunch.
12:00 Lunch and naptime.
1:00 Check farm stand, turn on drip tape for the afternoon and set up another sprinkler for a cover crop plot.
1:35 Do a harvest of heirloom tomatoes for the farm stand.
2:15 Pull out bed of peas, haul to the compost.
2:40 Check farm stand and water, fix drip lines.
3:15 Flail mow three beds of greens by the hoop house.
3:30 Prep bed and transplant head lettuce.
4:30 Start to clean up, put tools away, take several bins to the compost pile, water hoop house.
4:45 Make notes for tomorrow's list of things to do. Final clean/ restock of farm stand. Turn off drip lines and sprinklers, close gates.
4:55 Hand water smallest plot of cover crops by the power tool shed.
5:00 Call it a day.
—Seth Miller, Farm Crew