Full Bloom

On Wednesday evening we had a perfect thunderstorm. Work was done for the day and whatever we had planted that day got a good soaking before the sun set. 

All the rain has made our trees blossom and bloom. 

And we're definitely enjoying some color in the trees and hearing the wind (constantly!) in the leaves. 

Our asparagus and rhubarb patches have been showing themselves and we've gotten our first taste of green this week as a result!

We've mostly been eating it raw, right out of the ground!

This became a cake, baked by yours truly, and four pies, baked for us by a very generous CSA'er!

If you've been out and about in the past few days, you might have noticed that the dandelions are in full bloom at the moment. In fact, the peak of dandelion madness at Frith was somewhere around Tuesday. 

According to Daniel (and other people too I'm sure), when dandelions are out in their fullest force, it's time to plant potatoes, so on Thursday morning, we planted ours, all twelve beds!

Our potatoes will be pink, purple and yellow beginning in August!

Below you'll see the potato plot that had been recently tilled. And since we're on the subject, this would probably be a good time to explain how tilling works at Frith. 

At the vast majority of farms, tilling up the soil is a part of the normal process of preparing a bed to be seeded. It's a conventional wisdom that has been accepted for years.
For a number of reasons though, Frith only tills in rare instances, such as when a plot has been in pasture and is being cultivated for the first season. 

Although tilling introduces a lot of oxygen into the soil and encourages a lot of growth initially as nutrients are released, the soil loses a lot in the process mostly in terms of the rich ecosystem that has been created and maintained underneath the soil layer we can see. Wormholes are destroyed, root systems are upended and the respiration of millions of microorganisms is increased, sending soil carbon up in the atmosphere. 

To add to all that, weed seed is stirred up by tilling and you often wind up with more weeds than you started with. 

So why did we till up this potato bed?
Well, unfortunately, there just hadn't been time at the end of last season to properly mulch the beds before winter and the weeds were out of control by this week when it came time for potatoes. Tilling isn't something that this farm labels as evil, but it is definitely something that we strive to minimize when possible. 

Tilling and tractor work in general are not something that we rely heavily on here on the farm. In fact, today Josh and I were saying that our expectations of other farms we may work on in the future is going to make us realize how spoiled we are here this season!

Our First School Group (And Rain!)

A few weeks ago a teacher from Wentworth Intermediate School came by the farm to talk about some groups of 3rd and 4th graders coming to Frith on a field trip in May. 

I decided that a scavenger hunt would be a fun way to introduce the kids to the farm and get them thinking a little more about what they were seeing here. 

We talked about what the animals eat; why there's only one rooster; why the greenhouse doors are open in the daytime; and why the pig pen has tons of holes dug into it. 

Some of the questions led them to beds that were labeled with some of our more exotic veggies - kale, collards and kohlrabi. The kids were supposed to compare their appearance and describe what they saw under the row cover. 

They went into the greenhouse and found some basil seedlings. 

They were most interested in the chickens and the pigs and had lots of really good questions; how many eggs chickens lay each day; where they lay the eggs and how we get over the electric fence!

We got a group photo next to the pigs and then headed over to the lambs. That's right, we got our lambs last weekend!

Afterwards, the kids presented me with a bouquet of dandelions with some turkey feathers, and one even said that he wants to be a farmer when he grows up!

Overall the kids were extremely engaged and truly interested in the different aspects of the farm. Most of them had not thought before about the process that goes in to getting the chicken that they eat for supper and there were some interesting moments when it registered that animals must die in order for us to eat them. 

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In other news, Wednesday marked the end of a dry spell that had lasted for over two weeks. We are still in the process of setting up our irrigation, so our newly-transplanted kale, collards and spinach had been looking especially parched.  

Wednesday night all that changed though and we woke up Thursday morning to a mist-filled farm. 

I think these shots are particularly beautiful.

Two beds of lettuce, planted Wednesday were especially glad for the perfect transplant weather. 

And we've gotten around ten more beds planted since the rain - brussel sprouts, turnips, bok choy, Napa cabbage and rutabaga!

Onza's kittens are sprouting up like weeds as well and all have opened their eyes in the past week. 

We'll likely have two kittens available for adoption in the coming weeks. Let us know if you're interested!

Chicken Feed and New Roofs

It's been an exciting week. 

There's the grain bin's continual progress.

Above was shot on Tuesday. 

I elected to hoe some beds instead of helping with the grain bin construction!

Below on Wednesday. 

Look closely you'll see Josh's hand sticking out of the center!

This grain bin will save us from driving two hours twice monthly to pick up feed for our poultry - the layers, the broilers and, eventually, the turkeys. 

It holds over four tons of grain, which is delivered to us, saving us on gas money and time wasted in the car! 

It's a pretty big deal and was almost single-handedly constructed by Josh. He would argue and say that the other boys helped out, but he was the one who knew the instruction manual frontwards and backwards. 

Also this week we had our very first trip to the Portland Farmers' Market!

I was the lucky dog that got to accompany Daniel on his inaugural run to the Wednesday market on Monument Square. Although we don't have anything growing yet to be harvested, we did scrounge up some overwintered parsnips, some celeriac from the root cellar, plus tons of fresh eggs and meat. 

Daniel and I woke up before 5am in order to reach Portland and set up by the market's start at 7am. It was the first time I had actually seen the sun rise over the cedar trees on the farm. 

In the midst of all this we have still managed to accomplish lots of transplanting this week. Above you'll see Will toiling over our first bed of spinach. 

The greenhouse is not as cram-packed as it was last week. And today I got some tomatillos seeded, summer is definitely on the way. 

The most noticeable event at the house the past few weeks has been a sizable carpentry/timber-framing project to reinforce the roof. A local timber framer, Robbie, has led an amazing effort to make the apprentice's part of the house more sturdy and today, we started on the roof itself! 

Will and I (but mostly Will) worked to pry off the shingles from a roof whose angle is a bit more steep than would appear at first glance. 

Robbie and Will then pried off the old, rotted boards and replaced them. 

Although at the moment (6:42pm on Thursday) about half of our roof is still gone! 

We definitely have a much airier house today and thankfully there's no rain in the forecast for the weekend!

Enjoy the roofs over your head folks and send us some good wishes that we'll get ours back soon!

Transplants!

It's been a lower-back heavy week! 

At times passing motorists may have seen two or more apprentices lying in the grass doing a yoga pose or two to stretch out. But all the effort has definitely been worth it as you look around at all the plants we have in the ground now.

 As I think back on the week, I see in my head a haze of beds in different parts of the farm. 

The kale and collards came first, as they were the leafiest and most ready to get out of the greenhouse.

Next came some kohlrabi and my first experience with Daniel's new dibbler contraption. Now we just roll this modified barrel down each row and the pegs create holes where we place each transplant from the greenhouse. 

Then, if memory serves me right, there were three straight days of onion planting! 

This year at Frith we will be offering five different kinds of onions in addition to shallots, all of which are already in the ground and reaching toward the sun.

It was a dry and sunny second half of the week, so we meticulously watered in each transplant. 

A new addition to the farm came in a chirping package from the postal service late last week. 

We now have baby chicks who are living in the hen house now that the layers are out on pasture. 

In just a few days the chicks are already noticeably bigger and will soon be out on pasture as well!

A Few Honest Words

Daniel taught us a class this week on soil, which probably isn't the most thrilling of subjects to most of you.

Mounds of compost, adding nutrients to our soil!

Something he said though, has stayed with me throughout the week and has shifted the way I think about growing food. 

In a nutshell, he said that a farmer's primary goal is to create and maintain healthy soil. A never-ending task that has multiple components. 

It was really during this conversation/lesson on Monday night, that I realized what a unique opportunity it is for the three of us apprentices to have landed at Frith. Increasingly I'm realizing that not many farmers operate with the same principles and ideals as Daniel does. 

Though this makes the level of physically-exhausting work that we do a bit higher, it's also really great to learn that it is feasible to repair the damage done to soil. 

Let me give you a few details to make this post a bit more concrete. 

When Daniel bought his land on Ash Swamp Road, the soil was largely depleted of nutrients because the land had not been replenished each time hay was grown and harvested. 

Josh, gearing up for another afternoon of shoveling compost!

That's why Will, Josh and I have been shoveling compost into the hundreds of tiny mounds you see around the new fields we're bringing into cultivation this season. 

Will spreading Tennessee Brown, a rock phosphate. 

In addition to making sure that every inch of our beds has a rich coating of compost, we spread amendments like lime, phosphate, and green sand with the aim of increasing the soil's ability to maintain the most diverse biosphere possible. 

Some beds with lime freshly spread on them.

It also bears mentioning that though it would be much easier to spread compost, till and seed our beds by tractor-power, you'll only rarely see Daniel sitting atop his John Deere. To avoid soil compaction, the four of us more often than not push wheelbarrows and plant by hand. 

When we can we also use the chickens to spread our compost piles for us, which they gladly do, poking around and foraging for bugs and worms. 

Our chickens spreading the compost for us, how considerate!

Today we covered new beds with plastic to discourage quackgrass from overtaking any other plant from taking root. 

Rolling out plastic for these beds' first year in cultivation. 

Now all that's left is transplanting our leafy kale and spinach plants which have been thriving for weeks in the greenhouse!

Though I promise that there will be more fascinating topics in the future, soil, as the basis of all we do here at Frith, is something that deserves a bit more time and thought than most of us give it in life. 

Wintry Mix

Frith Farm is receiving a wintry mix of hail and rain on this gloomy Friday, so I'm taking this opportunity to introduce a bit of spring into a not-so springy day. 

This week on the farm has seen a number of hours spent in the greenhouse. 

Though Daniel had planted several dozen trays before the apprentices arrived, the greenhouse is nearly bursting at the seams now that Josh, Will and I have planted thousands of seeds this week. 

A lot goes into seeding in the greenhouse, mostly because at Frith we make our own potting soil. 

Will, on a seed-blocking shift

A combination of peat moss, compost, lime, fish meal, green sand and perlite must be thoroughly mixed and then compressed into seed blocks before any seeds ever leave their Fedco packages. 

After we measure out the seed blocks, each seed is hand planted and then covered with a thin layer of peat moss. 

Here are some seeds planted at the end of March.

Collards, a southern treat!

And here I have to note (just in case your attention is wandering after being confronted with pictures like the above) that I too normally find any post whose topic is seeding pretty boring and repetitive. They're just plants, right?

Endless onions...

Which is true. 

Except now I associate these trays with a lot of hard work by Josh, Will and me, and a lot of planning (and of course, hard work!) on Daniel's part. 

Liz, watering the air (?)

This year Frith Farm will be supplying not only a 60-70 member CSA (sign up for shares now!), but also we will be selling at both the Scarborough Sunday market and the Portland Wednesday market. All those crops and harvests must be synchronized to allow us to offer a wide selection throughout the growing season. 

Fortunately the greenhouse allows us to get a head-start even when there's a wintry mix in the middle of April!

In other farm news, the chickens have had a big, and slightly disruptive, week as they were transferred from their winter coop to the Egg Mobile. 

Home, sweet home

Overall, the transition went smoothly. 

I say "overall" because some chickens just did not get the relocation memo. 

If you happened to drive by the farm on Monday evening around 8pm, you would have seen Daniel, Josh and Will cornering upwards of 50 chickens, waving nets about, and at times making diving tackles after the wayward layers. 

Arthur, meticulously protecting every last one of his chickens.

Our youngest ladies have had no experience spending the summer season in an Egg Mobile and were understandably a bit skittish about roosting in an unfamiliar place. 

Although I missed Monday night's excitement by falling asleep on the couch, Tuesday night featured a repeat, albeit with fewer chickens refusing to cooperate. 

By Wednesday night all the chickens were used to the routine and enjoying being able to forage on new plots of land as Daniel readies the soil for new beds. 

We've rounded out the week by taking advantage of disadvantageous weather. 

Although I've been somewhat sidelined by a particularly nasty rooster run-in, the boys are out at this very moment attempting to burn brush piles in the relative safety of a rainy day.

Next week promises higher temperatures and more time direct planting in the beds....stay tuned!