Wait, June is over?

Hey all!

It's been awhile since I last wrote, so it is time to update you on what's been happening at Roots lately!  We're mostly done planting, so we've been doing a lot of work caring for the plants that are already in the ground.  In other news, many of our farmers are well under way with their plots!  In addition, Jodie, another Roots intern, and I have taken over a plot in the community garden adjacent to the demo farm, which I will discuss further below.

Over the past couple of weeks, we've been doing a lot of weeding.  With all of the rain and hot weather we've been having, the weeds have taken off.  As a result, I've become very familiar with using a stirrup hoe. We've also been busy hilling and mulching our potatoes.  Hilling is the process of shoveling more dirt on top of existing potato plants to give them more space to grow.  Potatoes will keep growing as long as you give them space, so hilling can help grow larger potatoes.  Potato plants are very hardy, so you can almost completely cover them over with dirt and they will pop right back through.  It's pretty neat to watch!  Hilling also removes most of the weeds in the potato beds, so it kills two birds with one stone.  After hilling the potatoes, we covered the beds with straw to prevent the weeds from returning.  Weeding and hilling is not glamorous work, but it is necessary for keeping the plants healthy!

Potatoes after hilling and mulching

One process that we got to take part in this week is what Neal, our Gardens and Growers Coordinator, calls a farm walk.  A farm walk is part of the monitoring, planning and coordinating process of a gardening or farming operation.  As you might guess from the name, a farm walk is when you walk around the farm and assess the condition of your plants, equipment, and facilities.  From that, you derive and prioritize a list of tasks for the next few days.  You do that by writing out a list of everything you would like to get done and then list those tasks in order of importance.  These tasks could include general maintenance and care as well as solving unexpected problems.  Then you set up a schedule for accomplishing those tasks according to the time and resources (such as labor) that will be available.  It was interesting to learn more about the organizational side of running a growing operation.  It's something that is very important to have for a program like this to run smoothly.  It's also very practical and can be applied to almost any type of operation or business.

One of the tasks that we planned out in our farm walk was thinning our radishes.  Crossing this task off of our list was very fun, because it allowed us to literally see the fruits of our labor.  Some of the radishes are already getting fairly large, so we got to snack on some of the ones that we thinned out.  They were spicy and a little sandy, but delicious!  In the picture below, you can see where some of the radish plants were growing very close together and needed to be thinned.  The particular section of the bed in this photo is also an area where the germination was a little spotty.  In the majority of the bed, however, the plants were growing in quite thick.

Radish plants, before thinning

Our lettuce and mesculin mix are also growing quite well, and might need to be thinned out soon.  The reason that some of these plants are growing in so thickly is that the EarthWay seeder, which I told you about in a previous post, tends to drop seed heavily.  It would be possible to plant those seeds by hand, but we decided that it would be a more efficient use of our time to plant heavily and then go back and thin later on.  Many of our seeds are donated to our program, so we are often unaware if they were stored and taken care of properly.  As a result, germination of these seeds can sometimes be spotty, so it is usually safer for us to plant heavily and then thin the plants later.  Our pole beans have sprouted as well, and are looking healthy!  We did not, however, have very good luck with our spinach.  We have found small spinach plants sprouting in many places that they shouldn't be, and very few of them in the bed where we actually planted them.  We think that this is because many of the seeds washed away in the heavy rains we received after we planted them.

Lettuce!

Mesculin mix

Pole beans

As I mentioned above, Jodie and I have taken over an empty plot in the community garden adjacent to the demo farm as part of our internship.  This will be a great way to get even more hands-on experience by growing our own plants.  At the beginning of the week, we spent some time planning the layout and choosing what types of plants we wanted to grow.  We decided to start by planting tomatoes, peppers, and broccoli.  For those plants, we acquired some starts and transplanted them in.  We will also be direct seeding some carrots and bush beans.  We are also going to leave a couple of beds open to put in some fall plants, which we will decide on soon.  We put in the majority of our transplants on Thursday, so we are well on our way!  Many of our tomatoes are already producing fruit and will probably need to be trellised very soon.

Our peppers (on the left) and broccoli (on the right)

Tomatoes

As part of taking over the community garden plot, I decided to experiment with a growing method called Square Foot Gardening, which some of you may have heard of.  My dad showed me a book about it, and I thought it was pretty cool and decided to try it.  

The idea behind square foot gardening is to be able to grow the same amount of food as a traditional garden, but in less space.  As a result, square foot gardens are great for people who don't have enough space to put in a traditional garden.  Because of their compact size, they can also be easier to manage than traditional gardens.  They are also great to use if you have poor soil. Mel Bartholomew, the author of the book I read, recommends putting together a mix of compost, vermiculite, and peat moss, which you can buy in bags at most gardening centers.  Square foot gardening, therefore, can be helpful in addressing some common limiting factors for growing produce.

To build a square foot garden, you build a wooden box and fill it with your soil mix.  Bartholomew also recommends placing standard landscaping fabric beneath your box to prevent weed growth.  You then lay out a grid showing each square foot of your box.  Every plant needs a certain amount of space, so each square foot can hold a certain number of each plant.  One square foot, for instance, can hold one pepper plant or nine bush bean plants.  A standard box is 4 feet by 4 feet.  This is a very basic explanation of the process, so if you are interested in learning more, I recommend picking up Bartholomew's book.  

I put together two 4' x 4' boxes for our plot.  One is six inches deep, and the other is twelve inches deep.  I planted the same varieties of plants in each box and in traditional rows to be able to compare yields later on. As we take care of our plot, I will also asses how easy it is to maintain the square foot boxes as compared to traditional rows.  After putting them together, the boxes look great!  I'm excited to see how things turn out.  So far, they really do seem easier to manage.  I found that planting the boxes was much easier and faster and planting the rows.  I didn't have to constantly move down the row, and I also didn't have to rake out any weeds or debris.  

12 inch deep square foot box, planted with peppers, broccoli, and tomatoes

Six inch deep square foot box, planted with broccoli, peppers, and tomatoes, with space left open for direct seeding

The beginnings of our community garden plot

If it works as well as advertised, square foot gardening could be a great way for people to grow their own produce.  Bartholomew's book is clear, detailed, and thorough, making it easy for beginning gardeners like myself to grow their own food.  There is no produce more local than food that you grow yourself!  I'm excited to see how my experiment (albeit a slightly crude one) turns out!  

Thanks again for reading, I will post again soon!

Mud, mud, and more mud: Planting Continues

Hello all!  The past week out at the farm can be described in one word: muddy.  Regardless of the conditions, we have accomplished a lot!

Hurray for mud!

We have been continuing to put a lot of plants in the ground.  At the end of last week, we planted a few varieties of radish, some salad greens called mesclun mix, and some other types of lettuce.  We planted those while learning to use two neat seeding tools.  One was called an EarthWay seeder and the other was called a four-row pinpoint seeder.  It was fun learning to use a couple of new tools that I had never seen before.  As of this week, some of the lettuce is growing fast and looking good!

Lettuce coming up

At the start of this week, we also transplanted in some tomato and pepper plants.  We also mulched the beds with straw to hold in moisture and prevent weed growth and soil erosion.  We also began setting up a trellis for the tomatoes.  A trellis is any structure used to help support a plant, like a tomato cage.  Instead of using tomato cages for each individual plant, we put in poles along the bed and will weave wire between them to support the plants once they grow tall enough.  In one bed, we used metal T-posts.  In the other, we used bamboo poles.  This is to demonstrate different options for the farmers.  Bamboo poles are also much cheaper, so they make more sense for an operation with limited funds, like Roots, to use.  So far, the tomatoes and peppers seem to be doing fine in their new home.

Tomato trellises 

Tomato transplant, already producing fruit

Pepper plant

Pepper bed

Tomato beds

We also planted some pole beans on Thursday, using the EarthWay seeder.  Then we used more bamboo poles to build a series of A-frames over the bed.  We will eventually hang some twine or wire from the top for the beans to climb.  Setting up that bed was fun, and it looks great!

Pole bean A-frames

After finishing our planting for the day, we ventured into the hoophouse to do some pest control.  We have started to notice some cucumber beetles hanging around, so we searched each plant.  The beetles are fairly easy to spot because of their color.  Whenever we found them, we simply picked them off the plant and squashed them between our fingers.  A few managed to get away from us, but I think we eliminated enough of them to prevent major damage to the plants.

We have also finished installing most of our drip irrigation tape in the demo farm beds, and it's looking pretty good.  We have decided to retire the overhead irrigation system in the hoophouse due to continuing technical difficulties, so we'll soon be installing drip lines in there as well.

Drip irrigation lines

Drip irrigation hookups

A few more of the farmers have been out at the farm lately as well.  Everybody seems very excited to be out there, which is great!  I've enjoyed meeting everyone so far, and I'm looking forward to helping them out more as we go along.

As we've been working out at the farm, I've continued to think about localized organic farming in general.  I find the progression that food production has taken in this country to be very intriguing.  Hundreds of years ago, people farmed in a way that was similar to this.  People in most settlements supported themselves by growing their own food with a self-sustaining system.  Eventually, people developed systems of bartering and trading, and people began to specialize in producing certain goods.  Over the years, that developed into the huge commercial farming system we have today.  Many farms began producing single crops and trying to maximize production.  Several small farms growing many crops became a few huge farms with monocultures.  People would then just ship the food to wherever there were customers who wanted it.  In recent years, it has become apparent that this specialized commercial farming system isn't very environmentally-friendly.  Monocultures require huge amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and transporting the produce burns fossil fuels and emits greenhouse gases.  Intensive livestock farming also emits a great deal of greenhouse gases and requires the use of chemicals like antibiotics.  There are also ethical issues regarding the treatment of livestock in those farms.  In response to these findings, there has been a resurgence in small-scale organic farming.  We might be seeing the beginning of a return to methods similar to those of earlier times, which I find poetic.  It reminds me of the classic technology debate: is there a point where we should stop developing new technology?  Should we draw a line somewhere, so to speak?  It appears that we may have bumped up against that proverbial line with food production and are now beginning to reverse our course.  We probably won't transition completely away from industrial farming, but it is conceivable to think that we could come to rely mostly on small-scale organic methods.  It seems to have a lot of benefits.  It's healthy for us and the environment, and it can provide wonderful social interactions as well.  So why not try it?

Thanks again for reading, I hope you are enjoying my blog!  See you next time!

The Beginning of Planting Season and Musings on Roots and Detroit

Hey everyone!  June is here, and planting season is underway out at the farm.  We've been doing a lot of work to get our plants in the ground out at the demo farm, and some of them are already beginning to sprout!

Over the past few days, we've been planting butternut squash and cantaloupe.  So far, we've planted fourteen beds of each.  Here's what the squash seeds look like:

To plant the squash, we used trowels to dig small holes about one or two inches deep.  The seeds were donated to us, so we put three in each hole to make sure that at least one of them will grow.  After we planted the squash, we covered the beds with a fabric called Agribon to protect the plants from pests, specifically the squash vine borer.

Planting the squash

The rowcover

I did not personally take part in planting the cantaloupe, as I was caring for our plants in the hoophouse.  Two other workers and I weeded the beds with a stirrup hoe.  We also put in some eggplant starts into one of the empty beds (I forgot to get a picture, so I'll show you one next time!).  To ease the transplant shock, we fertilized the plants with a little bit of kelp juice, which is an organic fertilizer.  As for the cucumbers that we planted in the rest of the beds in the hoop, they are looking great!

Cucumber plant, growing fast!

Cucumber beds

In other news, some of our potatoes are starting to sprout!  It is very exciting to see the things that we planted, like our potatoes and cucumbers, start to grow.  I can't wait to watch the transformation of our other plants.  Some of the farmers have also been out getting started, and I have had the pleasure of meeting one of them.  I'm eager to meet the rest and help them get going.

Potato sprouts!

Since I've started at Roots, I've been thinking a lot about the benefits of a program like this, like I wrote about in my first post.  I think a program like Roots would be very beneficial in a place like Detroit.  You may have heard about the idea of converting Detroit's abandoned neighborhoods to farmland, as described in these articles:

Plowing Detroit Into Farmland - The New York Times

Is Detroit doing the right thing? - Mother Nature Network

As you may have heard, poverty is a big problem in Detroit.  Using repurposed land to start a program like Roots there would be a great way to help people earn extra income.  Although there have been contradicting reports in the media about whether or not Detroit is really a food desert (see Data Driven Detroit debunks food desert myth, highlights food distribution issues and Mapping the Basics in Detroit), a program like Roots would also be a way to provide fresh produce to people who may not have easy access to it.

Many things sound easy in theory, of course, and Roots has taken a great deal of work by many people to get started in Lansing.  But I think Detroit would be the perfect place to emulate a program like Roots if it works as imagined in the Lansing area.

Thanks for reading, see you next time!