November farming

Ok I am no longer 57 but I am still technically a rookie.  My rookie farmer year began in March so I am a rookie thru February.

Currently we have 4 Bar-T Kid Clubs and the MAC kids working in the greenhouse as we move to the inclement weather months.  The kids have planted lettuce, kale, carrots and beets in the greenhouse and we are already seeing sprouts.  The children spend time picking the late fall crops that are still growing in the garden, they are monitoring the seedlings in the greenhouse and they spend time making salsa or baking sunflower seeds.  It is amazing to me what is still growing in the garden and I am acquiring a taste for Kohlrabi.  I hope some of you don't know what that is because I had never seen it before much less tasted it.  What is so engaging to me at this time of year, when every yard, plant, and tree is going dormant, is that there is still so much to grow and harvest.

The beauty of all this is that when we approach schools with curriculum that ties into the "life cycle of a plant" we will be able to grow plants regardless of the season.  We have not chosen to heat the greenhouse at this time which will mean that January and February will force us to shut down.  But planting seeds in the classrooms or after school programs can begin in early February and those seedlings will be greenhouse ready by the first of March.  My hope is that we can get at least two 6 week growth cycles in the greenhouse before June, and harvesting will progress throughout the summer.  Josh has promised me that we will have August tomatoes in May.  The five school pilot program totaling 70 students should be able accommodate 18 to twenty schools with 200 or more participants this Spring.

Additionally (do you start a new paragraph with additionally?) we will have a full on mushroom production facility that will run all year long.  As a kid I never cared for mushrooms but I can't get enough of them now.   I have been told that mushrooms are gone within the first 2 hours of any farmers market.  I would love to have the children who are helping grow mushrooms, join Josh and Charlie at the markets and help them sell them as well. They might leave the market with a few dollars in their pockets.  We will call the program "Dirt to Dollars" or "Mushrooms to Money".

The cold weather may not be great to be picking vegetables in.  If you look back at some of my older posts, we have kids wearing tee shirts or bathing suits in the garden.  Last Friday it was flat out cold, heck it was almost painful to be in the garden.  What is important to note is that the interest and enthusiasm the children have is the same.  

burning corn?

Ok so the greenhouse is up, irrigation installed and plants already popping out of the great indoors.  Light get installed by Thursday which is critical because it is flipping dark by 5:15 now.  We have 4 after school programs visiting either Mondays or Fridays and the kids are really excited about the gardening club.  All is good.

More interestingly I have a mushroom expert, Charlie setting up a commercial mushroom growing operation that should be producing a variety of mushrooms as early as 3 weeks.  The task will be to find a market to sell to and to get kids involved.  My thinking is that an interested MAC student could adopt a string of mushroom pods.  Oversee the growing process and if we can get the parents on board, take the mushrooms to a farmers market with Josh and Charlie and the student and let him or her
make some money.  The idea would be called "dirt to dollars" or "crops to cash".  The possibilities at Mountainside are truly endless.  We need to inspire some kids and see where all this takes us.

I need to digress for a minute and examine a debate that has evolved with one of my employees.  I am very proud of the fact that I can heat my home with wood pellets or corn.  Last year I went thru 8 tons of pellets and when wood pellets could not be found anywhere in mid March I purchased bags of corn to keep the furnace going.  The biggest problem with pellets is that they must be packaged in plastic bags.  From mid October till March I had to dispose of over 350 plastic bags plus the plastic that covered the pallets that were stacked on and dispose of the pallets.  Hardly minimizing the carbon footprint.  Corn is something that can be grown on my property, it is completely renewable and with the gravity bin wagon I purchased this fall I can eliminate the need for plastic bags and pallets and such.  For $300 in seeds I have been able to secure 16,000 pounds of loose corn stored at Southern States which should last me the winter.  $300 bucks to heat my house for the winter!! As long as I can grow corn I have fuel for my furnace.  I never have to worry about oil prices or Natural Gas or other sources to heat my house.   Great huh!!

Not according to my good friend Debbie who hails from the midwest.  She was appalled that I would use a food source as heating fuel. I am not burning the cobs or the husks, I am burning the kernels.  It burns hotter and cleaner that the pellets and I have a pleasing smell that emanates from the furnace.  During a good harvest I would be using between one or two acres of corn to heat my home for the winter.  So is this the right thing to do?  I am interested in anyones opinion.  What do you think?

Greenhouse is ready

OK so no posts for quite a while.  It took over a month to get the greenhouse (actually a high tunnel) erected and ready for seeds.  I was out of town a lot and we have had a steady stream of students to teach sustainability and stream studies, both in schools and out at the farm.  It is all good.

Josh is tilling the soil in the high tunnel and getting ready for 5 of our after school programs to come to Mountainside this week a part of a pilot gardening program.  These kids will visit each week on a given day, they will pick carrots, kale, broccoli, and lettuce that is still growing in the garden, they will plant a section of the high tunnel and then they will spend about a half hour roasting sunflower seeds or making salads with our wonderful neighbor Valinda.  The idea is that by late winter most of our after school programs will have gardening clubs with to or three schools coming out each day.  The ultimate goal will be for a May parent dinner in which the kids will pick, prepare and serve their parents vegetables that they grew in the clubs.  Pretty cool idea huh.

I have been researching ways to heat the high tunnel in the deep winter months and keep it moderately productive while we get ready for spring.  We may keep it simple for the time being but the ultimate goal will be to have our growing facilities completely self sustaining will no use of fossil fuels.  Right now we just want to get thru our first winter.

I must mention that our real farmer Jason harvested 45 acres of soy beans and he was pleased with the harvest despite a lot of deer damage.  He estimated somewhere in the range of 1700 bushels of soybeans for the season.

Lots more info and pics next week as the greenhouse gets going

September sunshine

Yesterday the weather was just about perfect.  Temps in the low 70's brilliant sunshine lots of happy kids and staff running around the place.

I had noticed that there were a lot of cherry tomatoes ripe on the vine and to told Josh to get the after schoolers out to pick them before they end up rotting on the ground.  It just so happened to be gardening day and a lot of cherry tomato eating with some picking was the outcome, and the parents were allowed to take those sweet red beauties home for free.  We also had some of the kids scrape sun flower seeds off the pods this afternoon.  Josh promised to soak the seeds in salt water tonight so they would be ready for next weeks snack.

I cannot think of a better place for a child to be after school than at Mountainside in the fall.  There was a mom touring the facility with her first grader

to decide if he wanted to become part of the fun.  She could not get her little boy to leave.

We had 220 eighth graders out on Monday and Tuesday from a nearby middle school for high ropes and team building.  With the exception of a few kids who thought they were about to plunge to their imminent death as they prepared to jump off the zip platform, we had nothing but smiles.  Even the young man who was shaking and wiping away some tears as I helped him dismount from the zip was going to go home with a huge sense of accomplishment.  Two other private schools are visiting this week for outdoor education which is keeping us from getting the greenhouse up and running.  Speaking of which...The framing us mostly up and secured, and I fully expect the greenhouse to be completed by the end of next week.

I ended the day driving my grandson Frankie back to the house on the four wheeler bathed in the amber light of the setting sun.  A big dinner awaited with Nancy, three of my kids, their spouses or significant others and and all 4 grandkids.  It is not possible for life to be better than that.

Fall is winding up.

As I watch the garden transitioning from summer to fall(i.e.
tomatoes rotting on the vine, corn cut down, cuchs and squash ripped out and the sunflowers sagging) life for the year seems to be on the ebb.  Not so.

For one thing there are plenty of pumpkins, okra, and the watermelons that have come out of the garden are some of the best I have ever tasted even though they have lots of seeds and the flesh is yellow.  I don't have a lot of experience with okra but we did fry some up last week with lots of Old Bay mixed in the batter.  Not Bad.  The other thing I learned about Okra is that the blossoms in the fall are truly beautiful.

So Josh wanted to introduce me to a farmer in Thurmont who is an engineer and a soil guru.  I tried to follow their conversation as best I could to no avail.  I did learn that the reduction of acid rain thru the Clean Air Act has depleted area soils of sulfur and left farmers scratching their heads as to why some of their veggies are not producing.  Who would have thought that the closing of coal fired power plants in West Virgina could ever have a negative effect on the region.

While we were there Josh needed to pick up some fertilizer for the strawberry rows we will be planting.  I thought the fertilizer was coming in bags and brought my pretty F150 instead of the stake body.  1 1/2 tons of compost dumped in the bed had an interesting aroma and a lot of bugs that were very much at home in the scoops.  I had to stop at a gas station and everyone at the pump was glad to see us leave.  If I did not employ the power washer I probably would not be allowed to park in the truck in the driveway.   Lets be clear about organic compost.  It either came out of somethings butt or it died and is decaying.  The term organic is very sexy in food circles but there was nothing sexy in the back of my pick up yesterday.  Bottom line is this, farmers from all over the region buy this guys organic compost.  As we were spreading the black gold on the strawberry beds, Josh gave me another wry smile and said that the strawberries next year are going to absolutely amazing.  The guy has already grown the best tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and watermelons I have ever eaten so it is all good.

The greenhouse came today so next weeks post will be all about that.

Camp is over but we are so not done

No posts for a while.  I was in Maine with my aging mother and when I got back we had no internet in the house for a week.  So here goes...

The summer camp is over, squash zucchini, and tomatoes are on the wain and Josh has been prepping the upper rows of the garden for fall kale, broccoli and brussels sprouts.  Watermelons, melons and pumpkins are getting huge but for the most part this week has been way quiet.  Not for long.

Our after school program starts on Monday and we will have over 50 kids ever school day till 6:30.  We are taking delivery of a 30x96 foot high tunnel on August 28th thanks to the USDA for a grant, and over 10 of our school based after school programs will be forming gardening clubs with visits to Mountainside weekly.  Here is what our vision is for the fall.  Our Mountainside after school kids will become the resident experts on gardening and will mentor the kids who visit once a week.  Of course all of this is voluntary and no one need participate if they choose not to.  However...after our summer experience with our campers I am absolutely certain we will be growing expert gardeners this school year not just vegetables.

The high tunnel will be assembled by mid September, we have already run our water and electric lines and just when the school year starts to settle in, the greenhouse will be ready for seeds.  Josh estimates that we should be able to extend the growing season into December so there will be plenty for our school year kids to do this Fall  The possibilities are truly endless.  This winter centers will be planting seedlings at there school sites and when they begin to germinate we will transfer them to our greenhouse in late February or early March.  Produce harvested will end up in cooking clubs at our participating after school programs and healthy nutrition will be the buzz word with kids happy to eat the food they have grown.  Is there a down side here?

Our goals for the summer were modest.  I did not know just how good at farming Josh was going to be.  We did not want to tackle more than we could handle and we were worried that little would grow in our depleted soil.  With a wry grin Josh has promised that next year will be soooo much better.  Strawberries, onions and blueberry and grape vines will begin to cover the soy bean fields.  We are just getting started.  Did I mention chickens?  You know who will be the biggest beneficiaries of all this growing?  The parents.  Who wouldn't want their children to participate in this program?  We will have kids going home and teaching their parents how to make a killer cucumber salad, or kale chips.  Best yet, my grocery budget has been reduced to meats and milk (and chocolate).  I am even enjoying zucchini bread baked by my wife Nancy who has caught the bug.  Life on the farm just gets better every day.

Today was truly phenomenal

I have posted many times how happy I have been with the response of the campers to the garden.  I never could have dreamed of what transpired today.

My good friend Valinda stopped by yesterday and visited the garden.  Josh and I showed her the veggies stored in the refrigerator and she offered to come by and make some pickles with the surplus cucumbers we have been amassing.

After opening exercises with the campers Valinda was near the garden setting up her food processor and unpacking tupperware that she had brought.  I asked Tim the camp director to see if any groups would be interested in helping her with the cucumbers.  Within minutes the first grade boys showed up and we started helping the kids collect and clean the vegetables.  I left to attend a meeting and checked back on the operation an hour later.  A pop up tent was added and two other groups were there, older campers slicing cherry tomatoes and cucumbers and helping Valinda empty the food processor.

This went on all day.

By noon farmer Josh had 2nd grade girls skipping behind him in the garden collecting more peppers and corn for the batch of salsa they were making.  He was grinning ear to ear.  I loved listening to the children bragging about how good the cucumber salad was or the salsa or the pickles.  I was commanded to try everything that the kids were making. With Valinda's guidance each bowl could have graced the tables of the best restaurants in town.

I had to visit another camp at mid-day and I was  sure that Valinda would have been packed up and left when I returned at 2:30.  Wrong!!!  Closing exercises were fast approaching and the pool staff were there to see what all the fuss was about.  Bags of Tortillas and chips lay emptied by campers and staff alike and over 70 pints of pickles had been packaged.  5 or 6 gallons of sliced tomatoes, mangos (we bought) and ground cherries were collected in a bin to be made into salsa tomorrow.

These children have very likely eaten more fresh vegetables today than they have in weeks.  Kids were saying "I never eat pickles but I love these."  More than just teaching campers how to grow vegetables, we are teaching about good nutrition, how to make heathy food fun to eat, and to show children that they can make this at home. When summer camp is over our after school programs are going to be forming gardening clubs which will include lessons on how to prepare the food we are growing.

Today we stumbled onto the Why we are doing this not just the How.  I have never tasted a more delicious Why.

Veggies really do taste better when you grow them

OK so the harvest is kicking in big time right now.  Okra, cherry tomatoes, sweet corn, squash, ground cherries, sunflowers, pumpkins and watermelon and dang gum if the brandywine tomatoes that are as big as my hand may just be the best tomatoes I have eaten in years.  I know that I am biased but I am darn near a vegetarian lately, eating squash, zucchini, tomato sandwiches and everything else that Josh is growing.  You gotta love mid to late summer.

It is wonderful not to worry about who has been handling the vegetables before eating them as I pick the cherry tomatoes right off the vine.  They are sweet and as flavorful as table grapes.  When I go to the vegetable section

sunflowers reaching for the sun

of the local Safeway I am scoffing at the selections that are being offered.  It is amazing how arrogant one gets when you have a gifted farmer making your fields come to life.

The big worry right now is to prevent so much wonderful food from going to waste.  We are filling the walk in refrigerator at camp with fresh veggies and we barely have enough room for the camper lunches each day.  Even though we are filling vegetable orders each day,  they are not keeping pace with the output and we are not sure if we will be able to move the produce as easily once summer camp ends in two weeks.

Next year we will have a CSA in place for our after school school and summer camp families, but when we started out this past March we just were not sure how much we would be able to grow and if the vegetables would be good enough to sell.  Now we know.

todays harvest

As much fun as we are having right now Josh has promised that the harvest will be much better this fall and next year.  That is a little hard to imagine.  Most importantly is the interest level of the campers.  Each day Josh as no problem finding eager little helpers in the garden and he loves to share his knowledge with them.  It has been such a win win proposition.  Lots of help, a built in market, a great harvest, and so much enthusiasm from our campers and their parents.

A USDA high tunnel grant is awaiting my signature and the fall looks to be just as promising as the summer has been.  Good Good stuff.

Mid summer progress

Ok so the a week at the beach and a Ill family member has contributed to a lack of blog contributions lately.

We are now 6 weeks into the summer.  The cucumbers are still coming in at nearly 100 per day but the squash and zucchinis have slowed down.  The tomatoes are struggling with rot forming the top or bottoms so we are not looking at the output we had hoped for.  Josh seems to think it is from a lack of calcium.  I still had an amazing heirloom tomato he picked for me today.

The best news is that the USDA grant for a high tunnel is just a form submittal away.  Now to carefully select the greenhouse we want and to plan on how best to handle production and what to produce.  We will be operational by September and the possibilities of linking with schools is very promising.  It would be hard to keep Josh on the staff if we did not have the ability to extend the growing season and engage in proper winter preparations for next Spring with a greenhouse.  I am so happy that the plans we have made are completely on track.  Nancy and I had a small raised bed garden next to the house which has failed miserably.  Truly an affirmation that Josh is a talented farmer and there is so much for me to learn from him.

I appreciate all of the feedback and interest I have received from this blog but I am considering presenting at ACA National and the MAEOE conference to share our success with my peers.  My campers are so interested in the garden and the most involved campers have learned so much from Josh.  There are tons of kids out there who are hungry to be involved and need more places like mine to tap into.  There are a lot of Millennials who are taking a different look at farming and the current food chain and generation behind them are showing even more interest.  I really believe that food production and diet will be very different in the coming years than the processed food production that has impaired the health of so many Americans.  So much for the soapbox.

I am attaching a few more pictures of the kids in the garden and veggie orders going home on the bus with campers.

Can 57 year olds know what is cool?

It used to be that if I thought something was cool it usually was.  Two tone shoes, yellow sport coats, Steely Dan and Earth Wind and Fire.  These things will always be cool to me.  Call it "Old School", But the reality is that most of my cool stuff is just old.  I cannot Rap, heck I could never remember all of those words and to spout them out rapid fire. It is just not in the repertoire of and old man especially this old man.  A very few things that are old are still cool,  like Frank Sinatra and Betty White. I think my kids humor me most of the time when I bust out dancing to the song "September".

So what has this to do with farming?  The fact is that I thought it would be a cool thing to incorporate farming into our camp programing.  That is an old person way of thinking.  When I was younger the last thing I would want to do during the summer is spend time in a hot garden plot and picking cucumbers.  As a kid that would be the antithesis of cool.  It would have been categorized as drudgery or chores.  I remember mister Young trying to convince his son Steve and I to bend over the hood of his car so he could teach us how to do an oil change.  Instead we shrugged him off and went and played stickball.  So as an older man when suddenly I had this idea that if we set up a garden and really grew vegetables, that kids "now a days" would be into it. That they would think it was cool.   Dag Gum if I wasn't right.

No really... it has been truly amazing.  We have had four or more groups come to pick veggies in the garden each day.  They want to stuff them into their backpacks and I even had a camper have a melt down over not taking a zucchini back with him to the locker room.  We are setting up a vegetable stand that will be operational tomorrow and there is so much interest that we are working on ways that parents can pay for a bag of produce that the campers will take home on the bus.  We are making signs in arts and crafts and introducing this farming thing has become something of a phenomenon.  Today we picked over a hundred huge cucumbers and will be very busy picking beans and squash tomorrow.

Farmer Josh is now a regular at morning opening exercises and asking for volunteer groups to help him keep up with the harvest.  Everywhere he goes the kids call out to him and call him "Farmer Josh"  He is loving it.  Most importantly, we sneak some bonafide teaching into the mix.  How to pick the cucumbers off the vine without hurting the plant,  how and when to plant,  how to prune, and how prolific a well tended garden can be.   Even more so my director Tim and the head boys counselor Johan are thinking up more cool ideas on how to involve more people.  The suggestion that we open the garden for parents to pick veggies on Saturday is just one that is being kicked around.

Pretty cool huh?

beginning with thew end in mind and now the end in mind

OK sorry for the lack of posts for the month of June.  Or perhaps my many followers are relieved.  Regardless.... a brief explanation and then the long awaited update.

I am a computer dummy (for those that know me that will come as a complete shock!) and I cannot access my e-mail on my desk top.  I don't know why and the problem will not be resolved soon.  Sooooo... I thought I could not post, but clearly I can.  Am I starting to sound like a 57 year old?

Anyways. It is harvest time.  All these posts about tractors and tilling soil and now we are actually picking veggies.  Hooray!!  And not just by farmer Josh.  My Mountainside campers are into it and they are excited to help.  I even had a 6 year old cry yesterday that he could not take a cucumber with him after visiting the garden.  Now I never want an unhappy camper and children crying is bad for business and Nancy was mad at me for not giving him what he wanted.  However... there is a principle here that must be taught if we are going to do this correctly.  That principle is that you pick when the crop is ready, that timing is everything, and if you pick early or late you come short of the very best.  At Mountainside we are going to pick to perfection.

This whole farming thing is really working out just as I had hoped.  Josh had no idea how wonderful summer camp really is.  He never went to camp as a kid and even though I tried to explain what was about to unfold, until you experience camp you cannot truly grasp it.  There are 300 kids waving and smiling at Josh everyday, they are engaged in what he is passionate about

and he has all of these children to teach.  He remarked to a fellow WVU graduate who landed a great job, that he hit the mother lode when he signed on with Bar-T.  Where else can you do what you love everyday and be a focus of attention by a camp full of kids and staff.  At the end of the day yesterday, he hopped into the pool with the extended care campers and they were all over him.  He had this look in his eye that can only be understood by summer camp people.  That look could be best paraphrased by the quote from the movie the Field of Dreams.  "Is this Heaven?" No its Iowa".  "Funny I thought it was Heaven".   I am one of the few people I know, that is afraid that Heaven will be a disappointment.  How can anything get better that what I do everyday.

The veggie stand is being assembled and we start selling produce next week.  Yes there will be another post to mark the occasion.

To Roundup or not to roundup?

While we were on the cruise last week Jason Wood who as been growing corn, wheat and soy beans on the farm for the past few years told me that he planted soy beans.  I was surprised to see the Rye still growing but noticed that the beans had in fact been planted because you could see the planting rows thru the rye.  Each year I made sure that my farmer installed a winter cover crop to reduce erosion and when it became time to plant the field crop they would kill the cover crop to eliminate the competition.  I have concerns about roundup. Killing plants with chemicals so you can grow plants with chemicals seems somewhat counter intuitive.  Heck what do the worms think?

Anyways, my grandson spent the night last night and he is a freak over anything that has a motor and 4 wheels.  Just before Grandma took him to day care, we took a quick ride on the 4 wheeler and what he saw in the parking lot of Mountainside blew his little 17 month old mind.  It was the huge sprayer from Southern States preparing to spray the roundup.  I gotta tell you, farmers have figured out how to make cool vehicles that do farm things that just happen to be bad _ss.  The sprayer has outriggers that must cover 100 feet in a pass are pretty cool.  Little Frankie absolutely concurred as evidenced in the pic.

There will be some serious introspection over the winter with the Round up dilemma.  I could not hope to cultivate 60 acres of vegetables and field crops will always be in the mix.  I just want to be a great steward of the land and do the best thing for the environment.  Any suggestions to this dilemma will be greatly appreciated.

after the vacay

Ok so I established that farmers do not take off in May when plants are getting their game on.  I did and went on a cruise with my family...so everyone got a break from my introspection for a week.  The cool thing is that I can actually see peppers and other veggies looking like something I might actually want to buy.  I helped Josh string tomato Uh what do you call the plastic fencing stuff that tomatoes cling to as they grow? You know, you pound some t-stakes and string the whatever you call it to the stakes? Help me out here...remember I am a rookie at this.  I also picked some bugs that like squash and pumpkins but I forgot what the bug is called also.  And then I had to kill each one with my bare hands.  Usually I kill bugs with a magazine or my foot.  I did not know that farming was so ruthless.

Camp is really heating up as well as the weather, and we have groups out at Mountainside every day from now till the first day of camp.  I caught at the zip line for 7 straight hours yesterday and will be back at it tomorrow.   It was really a good call to have Josh do this full time.  With camp orientation for staff this Friday night I have to really get mentally in the groove and appreciate being able to rely on someone who not only knows what he is doing but goes to the extension office for advice and questions.  It is great to have a resource such as the Ag extension office to analyze invading insects and plant health.  Farming may be a solitary occupation but farmers are definitely not alone.  I will post a few photos of the progress so far and it is pretty exciting.

OK so maybe I am a part time Rookie Farmer

I admit that I have a limited understanding of farming but I do know that May is a busy month with planting and weeding and getting things put into order.  That knowledge however will not prevent me from going on a 7 day cruise with my family.  Do any real farmers take a week off in May?  If not than I will have to retreat to the designation of part time rookie farmer.

For real, I have 3 sons and a surrogate son graduating this May.  Such a momentous event calls for a celebration.  Most normal people would go to dinner at a fancy restaurant and call it a day.  No we have to go to a fancy ship to eat 21 meals.  All the while the thistle takes root and the tomato plants have to fend for themselves.  Thank goodness for Josh.

The reality is that at 57 I have a lot of people minding the farm (so to speak). Mark and Shannon have Mountainside covered.  Debbie and Katie have the opening of our Reston Center under control and I can't even mention all of the wonderful people who have Kids Club and the Summer Programs at the helm while the captain (Nancy) and the Swabbie (Me) come up with sound justifications for leaving and goofing off at the busiest time of the year.  My defense for such actions is to hearken back to the days when Nancy and I scrubbed the bathrooms clean after each camp day and then had to reorganize the bus routs each week and handled 30 or so calls from parents each night.  So what if that was 25 to 30 years ago and the smell of ammonia has long since faded from my senses.

I promised Josh that I will get sweaty and dirty as soon as I get back next week.

So much to do so little time

This rookie farmer is getting pulled in many directions as we move closer and closer to our summer camp season.  Today I was in Reston, VA unpacking furniture for our new child care center set to open in two weeks.  Yesterday was our Pre Kindergarten Earth Day observance in the morning with 150 Pre K'ers and their parents visiting our facility.  Monday I helped my son move back from New Jersey after his graduation from college.  Tomorrow I am teaching students at Spark Matsunaga elementary school on renewable energy.  Thank goodness Josh is there every day because there are no days off with a fledgling vegetable farm.

As I learn the nuances of farming and I am working hard to retain everything Josh shares with me and then turn that around and share with anybody who will listen.  With the Pre K children Josh was part of a tour that included a stream visit, a tree planting, a windmill tour and play time.  He was not sure what to share with such a young audience and I blended his technical expertise with my ability to communicate with 4 year olds.  I kinda never really grew up and think more like a 4 year old than a 57 year old.

The morning went something like this.  Q.  Where does food come from?  A. The dirt.  Q. Why is there plastic on the ground?  To protect the low growing plants from weeds.  Q. Why do you not need plastic for corn and sunflowers? A. Cause the weeds can't grow as high as the corn. Q. What is this huge fence around the garden for?  A. To keep the deer out.  Q. How many tomatoes are we going to grow? A. Depends...maybe a 1000 pounds.  Josh validated the correctness of my answers.  Dang I am getting smart.

The good news is that the deer fence is done, most of the vegetables are in, the gardening clubs come out again tomorrow and I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off.  No we have not started raising chickens.......

yet.

The real reason for doing this

Today several after school kids from one of our Germantown schools came out to help Josh with planting.  They are part of a garden club that will be visiting every Thursday for the rest of the month to learn about farming.  This ain't about farming nearly as much as it is about teaching.  I admit that I am the most enthusiastic student (and the most invested) but these kids started the afternoon worried about getting dirty and ended the afternoon disappointed that they could not plant the next row of peppers because they ran out of time and had to head back.

Over the next 4 weeks they will get the chance to measure to growth of the vegetables they planted, witness first hand, the successes and difficulties that threaten the seedlings they planted, understand the process much more comprehensively and hopefully gain a desire to start their own gardens at home.  Hopefully one or two of those kids will sign up for camp at Mountainside and be around for the harvest.  I can promise one thing, the campers this summer are sure going to get the chance to pick a few tomatoes and peppers and melons and beans and, and, and.

The real test today was weather or not they had fun...and they did.

With my rudimentary knowledge, I was quizzing the kids about the need for the plastic sheeting, showed them how to water and how the irrigation system will work once it is completed next week, the problems the deer pose to the plants and the reason for the field being fenced in.  Josh even had this cool planters tool that he picked up today and I am going to borrow as I complete the flower plantings at my house.  Once I learn, I love to turn around and teach someone else.  I hope that anyone who comes out to plant and play will do the same thing.  My hope is that we can engage lots of children and adults in the process, and have great tasting vegetables and fruit to dine on this summer.

We should have most of the rows planted by early next week and keep our eye out for the grant on the high tunnel greenhouse from the USDA.

First post in a week

Ok the ridiculous rains last week put everything pertaining to planting or deer fence building on hold for a couple of days.  The acquisition of the new tractor and the Green Acres school at Mountainside for 4 days last week (yes they were there in the rain) meant that there has not been a lot to talk about that was farm related.  I gotta give props to those 6th graders who slogged thru mud and endured days that most people would never have chosen to "stick it out".  The truth of the matter is that the rains made their stay much more memorable and Thursday and Friday were gorgeous.  Best news is that they had so much fun and they told me that Echo Hill was lame compared to us.  Holla!

Josh got the final fence posts in the ground today and we went an purchased some transplants as well as marigolds and gardenias for the circle in front of the new house from a local nursery.   Next year all of those transplants and flowers will be germinated on site but to get things started this spring we had to resort to a mercenary grower.  I feel a little embarrassed and feeble having to outsource our seedlings but the majority of what we will grow this year will come from the seeds that we ordered and will be planting this week.  I put over 250 little flowers in the ground this afternoon with a small planting shovel and my back will likely not forgive me for a day or two.  You know...this planting thing and pruning thing and weeding thing and watering thing and harvesting thing may be tougher than I thought.  For sure I am going to have to invest in some knee pads.

Tomorrow the majority of the plastic goes down and we will have some volunteer planters from our after school programs out to help on Thursday.  Gosh I hope the kids like getting their hands dirty.  Last thought.  Do farmers wives like back scratches with hands that feel like sandpaper and look dirty even after you have washed them 4 times?  So far Nancy does not seem to mind.

  Our calm steam was not so calm last week.

Dumb bus buyer

Ok so I am a rookie farmer but today I was also a "Dumb bus buyer wannabe".  Two months ago I was commissioned to acquire a 14 passenger bus for our new center in Reston.  I was pressed to buy a spanking new AB but $48,000 is a daunting price tag.  I was introduced to the website of a business near Philadelphia that had numerous used AB's (Activity Bus) with low mileage and significantly less in price.  I put off making that drive for weeks and then things got busy and I started farming and it simply had not happened.  The tractor dilemma gave me new motivation as I reasoned that if I bought a good used AB and saved upwards of $20,000 I could use the savings to purchase a new tractor that has become my most recent obsession.  It is sad isn't it.  10 years ago I was sweating a 57 T-bird and a Mazda RX8 and now I lust for a Kubota 7040.  What has happened to me!!!

I digress.  With resolve I committed to drive to Philly this morning and get the bus I should have purchased already.  I brought my transportation director with me so that we could bring that new/used baby home.  I learned however...that some websites out there can be a little misleading.  Kinda like the dating services where the picture of the prospect fails to accurately represent the real deal.  Instead of hundreds of busses to choose from, as depicted on his website, the guy had three. He struck me as more than a little skeevy and I returned empty handed.  Poor Tommy my trip mate, he was confined in my wife's mini-van with me for over 5 hours.  Half of which I spent apologizing for wasting his time and mine.  Fortunately I was home by 12:30 from Philly and still had time to clean up Mountainside after our wonderful Springfest and help Josh fertilize a few rows of crops.  

The forecast is for 5 inches of rain over the next 2 days so things may get a little bogged down, but the irrigation lines are laid (not that we will be needing irrigation any time soon) and we are getting ready to actually plant.  Thanks to Josh and Jose for helping put down plastic at the end of the day.

Last thing for now...two of our after school programs are coming to work with Josh and me...Josh and I... in May.

This will be our first test to see if we can get kids as excited about growing things as we are.  I truly believe we can make that happen, and the parents of these children are truly lucky their after school program can provided their kids with such unique opportunities.

The Eve of Springfest

OK, since we are on the eve of our 5th annual Springfest the focus has not been exclusively on getting seeds into the ground.  Today we had tree plantings from Landscape Enterprises.  I had the pleasure of driving my mom back to Gettysburg to my sister Barbs, and tractor problems continue to cause headaches.  I am lusting for a new Kubota 7040 but for some strange reason I am getting pushback from some of the other decision makers.

I did get a chance to help Josh sink 10 posts for our deer fencing but that was about it.  With the tractor on the fritz and the day waning away we opted to finish the day at Southern States, (my new favorite store) to pick up some buckwheat, lime and a replacement post because I broke one because I was too lazy to get off the tractor and pull it away from the fork lift and tried to shake it off and snapped it in two.  Good thing the post was only 9 bucks.  It is so weird that I am excited to buy this stuff.  By the way for those of you not in the know' the buckwheat is going to serve as a cover crop to help introduce more nutrients into the soil.  Dang I am getting smarter by the day.

I met with Rebecca from the USDA to go over our application for a high tunnel grant and was told we should know if we will be eligible for a contract within a month.  Hopefully we will be putting up the high tunnel during the first few weeks of summer camp.  Oh yes our campers are absolutely going to know what is going on behind the tent locker rooms.

So what is Josh going to be demonstrating at Springfest? Not quite sure but we at Bar-T are experts at winging it and looking good while we do.  

post Easter Weekend

So Easter Saturday was spent "prettifying" the house for the Easter family feed.  Flower plantings, tree planting, bush plantings and several runs for feast food consumed the day. After my son Drew gave an amazing talk at church, we enjoyed the Easter Sunday dinner with tons of family and happy nieces and nephews riding on 4 wheelers and eating far too many sweets.  Dang life is good.  Needless to say there was no time for farming.

A wonderful private school in Washington, D.C. The Maret Academy sent their 8th graders to Mountainside this morning for lessons on renewable energy.  That meant that I was at N+S Rentals at 7 am to pick up the roto-tiller for the back of the tractor before the students arrived.  We spent almost as much time loading and unloading the tiller from my trailer as we did turning the soil.  After I taught 3 rotations of 8th graders about how electricity is generated and the fragility of the power grid, and the need to rethink how we consume and produce energy, I took time during their lunch break to till a few rows.  I am so getting in to this farming thing.  Now if only we can manage to get some vegetables to actually grow.

It was truly a gorgeous day and it is such a blessing to be able to be outside as a job.  Josh finished the day ordering irrigation lines that will arrive at the end of the week.

We have allowed the Urbana little league to use our baseball fields for practice during the week.  At days end, I was riding with Nancy on the 4 wheeler back to the house when I noticed Mark (Our education director) attempting to spread recently delivered infield clay on the upper infield.  30 small mounds of sandy clay being spread by a hand rake is back breaking and very time consuming.  But... when you have the right tools....and I do... I had Nancy take me back to the tractor and put the tractor rake on the 3 point hitch.  I was able to do in 30 minutes what would have taken 6 hand rakers hours and hours to complete.  And the field looks great.

Since my truck had the big trailer loaded with the tiller to return I opted to drive the tractor across the field back to my house.  To me that was such a statement on how lucky I am.  To me, at 57, I can't think of a better way to commute to work.

That is me on the tractor

 

today I actually fixed something

I know that it is essential for any farmer to be able to keep going even when the equipment does not.  Part botanist and full time handy man comes with the territory if anything is going to get done.

Today Josh was digging post holes when the tractor in his words "crapped out".  When I arrived on the scene the first thing I noticed was that the gas gauge was showing full even though the tractor had been running for over 4 hours.  So the gauge is a liar...lets get some diesel and get back to work right?  It is never that easy.  As an owner of a ford 2810 diesel for the past 15 years I have run out of fuel many times and has resulted in vapor lock.  In the past I have always relied on Jose to bleed the injectors because he was there.  Not today and not until Monday.

A call to New Holland in Frederick and some descriptions on where the fuel injectors were and I was determined

to try to get it running all on my own.  You have to understand I have never fixed a true mechanical problem on a motorized vehicle in my life.  UNTIL TODAY! Trial and error, trial and error and over two hours of persistence along with jumper cables and sure enough that baby is running like a champ!  OK so the afternoon of post hole digging was lost but we are back in business tomorrow.  I even have the hands to prove it.

Sunny but still cold

So here is a question.  Do farmers care about tractor size the way boat owners do?  I have fretted that my Kubota 25 horse power was not going to get the job done so I traded up to a 35 horse power New Holland with a good friend.  After dodging paintballs from 10 to noon I found a substitute Zombie paintball target for the spring break kids and headed to Walkersville to pick up the bigger tractor.  By days end Josh was turning soil and prepping for the tiller that we will be renting on Monday.

Seeds should be arriving tomorrow or Monday.  The hope is to get some planting done in time for our  Spring Festival next weekend.  One thing that separates my farm from almost any other on the planet. I have 350 happy, playful children around all summer.  Today the kids were here during spring break and in two months they will be here when school lets out.  I must have the most perfect setup in the world and the campers will be participating and learning about farming without realizing they are being taught

.  This is going to be fun.

Spring break at the farm

In addition to becoming a farmer, my wife and I run a successful childcare business.  Actually many wonderful people run our successful childcare business and I keep tabs on the goings on.

Today I needed to serve as a Zombie paintball target for our after school kids during our Spring Break event at our summer camp and fledgling farm.  Even with padding those things can sting.  Fortunately our marks children were not exactly snipers so the hits were few and far between.

Josh placed orders for beets, melons, pak choi, from Baker Creek.  Beans, sweet corn, sugar snap peas, squash, watermelons, radishes winter and summer squash from Johnny's Seeds.  The tomatoes will probably come in trays since we are already late in planting seeds.  Pumpkins hopefully will emerge from the unclaimed pumpkins we allowed to rot in the fields after our fall festival last October.  I am getting hungry already.  We have to build our irrigation system which was partially installed several years ago and includes a 1600 gallon cistern that was set up to collect rainwater off our pool house roof.  Now to see if everything still works.

Tomorrow I  will be digging post holes with our tractor mounted post hole digger or serving as a zombie paintball target on day two our our spring break.  The question is, which job can I pass off and which is more desirable?  The tasks of a camp owner, farmer, environmentalist are very diverse.  

Day two in the process

2 inches of rain, a 30 degree drop in temperature, and wet snow tonight means that nothing is going to happen in the field for a day or two (or three).  Imagine that! Inclement weather when you are getting ready to plant.  Has that ever happened in the history of agriculture?  So what do you do?  My 25 year old manager calls them "Administrative Days." Seed ordering, introductions to our friends at the USDA, soil conservation, and a request for a nutrient management plan.  Hopefully we will be able to work the soil by the week's end if the fields dry out sufficiently.

We are taking stock of the equipment we have and determining the items we will need to purchase and rent.  My Kubota tractor is going to be inadequate for the long term and a good friend has a 35 horsepower tractor that is overkill for his needs.  A swap may be in the making.

The deer fencing will wait until the 30 rows of vegetables can be tilled and turned and seeded.  Our goal will be to have some of the planting commence early next week.  We are hosting a Spring Festival on the 26th of April and we want to have something to show and share with our visitors.  I am already beginning to realize that patience and perseverance are required attributes in the agriculture business.

Today, at 57 years old, I Became a Farmer

I have been running summer camps in Maryland for children since 1984.  In 2002 I purchased a wonderful 115-acre farm and started yet another great ACA-accredited summer camp.  The old farmstead was rundown and had been neglected for decades.  As we spruced the place up to prepare for children, I realized that there was potential for environmental restoration and saw the need to minimize the human footprint on this land.  A 10 KW windmill and 15 KW of solar panels soon followed and have shown mixed results over time.  Within the first 6 years of ownership came an opportunity to engage in a wetland restoration and the installation of a 9-acre riparian buffer to protect the local water shed.  All of this was made possible with the assistance of grant opportunities through soil conservation and the department of public works.

I found myself becoming a champion of environmental land stewardship and the farm is emerging as a demonstration site for best land practices.  I am an uneducated environmentalist, but I am learning.

Agricultural sustainability and healthy food production has become the next step in the progression of this facility.  Today, I hired a wonderful young man as my farm manager. At age 25 he will serve as my mentor and I, at 57, am his student.

First on the agenda is deer fencing and a quick trip to Southern States to buy 62 ten-foot posts, 990 feet of galvanized fencing, and chicken wire to keep rabbits and other critters away from the vegetables.

Tomorrow we will review the vegetables to be planted and in the soil in the coming weeks.  We will hoop houses and install a 96-foot tunnel greenhouse this Summer.

The goal is to grow crops profitably and to teach our campers, students from the surrounding counties, and community members about the importance of taking care of our land and minimizing our footprint on it.  Our successes and failures will follow.