Week One

Last summer I bumbled around at my friends’ place in Ohio to see what I could learn about growing food. Mostly, I learned that growing food isn’t as easy as one might think. Turns out, there’s a lot to know. Each plant has its quirky preferences of medium, moisture, temperature, spacing, planting depth, etc. Though there’s a lot to know, we humans have been doing this for a while and have learned a few things along the way. Many plants can be cajoled into producing earlier/ later/ more/ bigger/ smaller/ sweeter. So last year I tried my hand at reinventing the wheel and lo and behold, it barely rolled. This summer I have the opportunity to work at the Stone Barns Center For Food & Agriculture where they know quite a bit about the wheel.

The Field, my new office until October

The SBC sits on what was part of the Rockefeller estate. The Rockefellers put over a thousand acres into a land trust and the farm - once a dairy - was crafted into a non-profit that aims to teach and innovate in the fields of sustainable agriculture, health, food and associated political issues. The farm is beautifully transparent. The public is invited to stroll unaccompanied through the greenhouse and fields and visit the livestock. The farm is joined at the hip with the Blue Hill restaurant, which draws crowds to the farm and buys about 80% of its produce.

Apprentices fuel the place, so there are plenty of youngins running around, full of pep, ideas, and industry. It’s a great environment. I’ll be working as an Apprentice (the old man on campus) in the field until October. There’s plenty of time for monotony but my impression after week one is that growing veggies on a small scale – the field has 4.5 acres under cultivation – entails a constant shifting of tasks. During week one, we ran irrigation lines, harvested spinach that had over-wintered, clipped young, flowering kale shoots, raked beds even, de-stoned the potato patch, amended beds, mulched, transplanted artichokes. On a daily basis I have dozens of questions and am lucky enough to be working along side Zach, who has lots of answers. So far, so good.

Water for irrigation comes from a well. To deliver water to the crops we use all types of tubing that can be arranged and rearranged Lego-style.

At the end of the season, all of the irrigation gets pulled up and stacked. We raid the pile as we rebuild the system to fit the new season.

T-tape: An irrigation line that comes flat on a spool. The line is slit periodically along its length, letting out a slow and steady drip.

T-tape laid out on the artichoke beds.

Beds getting mulched with leaves over the drip-line

Chokes outside the prop-house, ready for transplant. Artichokes are naturally biannual but started inside early and planted out while it's still cold, they can be fooled into fruiting in a single year.

Planting out the chokes