Farmer? Proud Parent? Babysitter?

So Monday morning we had 70 2nd graders out to the farm to and poor Josh was more than a little nervous. They toured the high tunnel, planted seedlings they grew in their classrooms, created a compost bin, hiked the stream and woods identifying habitat of our two, four, six, eight and our hundred legged neighbors and pulled weeds in the garden. It was the pulling weeds in the garden that had Josh on edge. Of the many job responsibilities Josh has at Mountainside, the primary one is growing food, the other big responsibility is teaching.

Often teaching and growing conflict with one another. You never have enough time to take care of the tasks at hand and teaching can consume some of that precious time.  Teaching can also mean that plants are mistaken for weeds and weeks of effort can be undone by one class.  I am happy to report that most of our plants are still in the soil and not compost.

But observing Josh on Monday was a bit of a revelation.  He really looks after his seedlings as if they are his babies...thousands of them.  As tedious as weeding is, he tenaciously keeps bully weeds away from his family.  Last night with the temps falling into the 30's Claire (a teen volunteer) and I helped him spread covering over his tomato and pepper plants in the green house no less to keep them warm and healthy. It is a labor of love and when he snips a leaf of swiss chard or spinach to give me a taste his eyes brighten with pride. It really is compelling.  So much effort for the satisfaction of a flavorful salad or side dish.

Babysitter is not adequate to describe what the produce means to Josh.  Eat what he grows and you can almost almost taste the love that goes into what he does.  It really does taste better and I will never take a salad for granted ever again.  Proud parent seems more like it.

Our Annual Springfest

So we have been hosting a Springfest/ Earth Day celebration every Mid April for the past 7 years.  The idea is to showcase some of the environmental practices on the property, bring out vendors, have live music and let people use the Ziplines and high ropes.  More people on the property means more campers, and more business right?  Not sure it is worth all the work and expense but yesterday was amazingly beautiful and we still had hundreds of visitors.

For me I wanted to showcase Josh and the great things he is doing in the high tunnel and in the gardens.  Charlie my mushroom guru was there and with my assistance we did a mushroom log demonstration with the hopes that some mushroom lovers would make logs and pay to take them home.  So he takes wood dowels and inoculates them with mushroom spawn.  Drill holes in a log, pound the dowels in and voila! You have mushrooms for years to come depending on the girth of the log. Not surprisingly most people were more interested in the vendor tent and zip line.  I have to remember that I am crazy interested in the farm but most people do not share my enthusiasm quite as enthusiastically.  We still have thousands of inoculated dowels if anyone is interested.  We are also seeing Oyster mushrooms blooming in our mushroom shed.  We picked about 10 pounds today.

Mid April is a pretty busy time and the high tunnel is already showing a lot of promising plants.  Tomatoes should be ready for picking as early as May so I will not have to wait until August to enjoy a great tomato sandwich.  Josh is also growing Wasabi lettuce.  I do not think that is really where Wasabi comes from but dang if it does not taste just like Wasabi.  There has to be a market for it.

Speaking of markets, our job is to insure that we have plenty of customers to sell our produce to.  The idea is to market to our 2000 Bar-T families and to local restaurants and farmers markets.  Our web site is still a work in progress but the veggies are on the way and we will be picking before we know it.

The last item for this post is the "Life Cycle of a Plant" field trip we are hosting this week.  Six 2nd grade classes are coming to visit our garden and greenhouse and transplant the seedlings we helped them to start at their school 5 weeks ago.  It will be the culmination of several weeks of work and months of planning.  Our hope is that these students will have a much better grasp of what it takes to put food on the table.  Most children think that food comes from a grocery store.  Little do they know, but these kids will come away with knowing lots.  Pics and a report on the lessons will follow in the next blog.

I was afraid to post pics with my first blog so here goes

Pics of the plant trays and the mushroom shed.