Smoke and Earthways
These past couple weeks have been interesting.
We are extremely grateful to have received some help from some friends shaping new beds in what will become Block 2. This area of the farm has the most clay-y soil by far and it really is a struggle to work with.
Magda (with posture we don’t recommend) preps some beds for planting.
Big thank you to everyone that helped up get these beds going!
We paid extra attention to the pathways in this portion, some of which had to be shaped with a pickaxe.The aim was for water to be able to flow down the sides of beds, into the path and out at the eastern side of the block. Having seen how water collected in this field prior to tilling we need to avoid our beds getting swampy. In a recent rainfall we were relived to see that water did flow down the paths and collected at the bottom of the slope! Success! Next step is to extend the pathway “trenches” out beyond the beds to allow water to move further away.
Zach cutting some metal for the floor in the trailer. As you can see it’s a bit crusty!
The smoke from the wildfires that rage in Canada just north of us have covered Ann Arbor in a low air-quality haze for the past few days. This past Friday being the worst by far. So bad that Magda lost her voice and it has only just returned.
Despite the smoke, we still had things to do outdoors, so we braved the high AQI and got to work. There were beds to shape, compost to spread and crops to plant. We have also been continuing some of our larger infrastructure projects on the farm, namely our walk-in cooler trailer. The trailer has a ton of work that still needs to be completed and, like many of our projects, is going to take a bit longer than previously expected.
The peanut butter lid in the hopper of the Earthway. We would later add some wood to stiffen it up even more.
Our new Earthway Seeder underwent some modifications as well. The Earthway is a nice seeder for the price but it does tend to crush smaller seed (like turnip and carrot seeds) because of its design and the use of flimsier plastic parts. Using a peanut butter jar lid, a long bolt and some wood we were able to stiffen up the seed plate and noticeably improve the performance of the seeder. Be on the look out for a video on our Instagram talking about this process! It’s a fairly common and simple modification that people do on these seeders and I was really pleased with how well it turned out. Now we have carrots, radishes and turnips all germinating on the farm.
A snake we uncovered when pulling the tarp off of Block 2. They love the warm plastic!
A few housekeeping items:
We will be at the Ypsilanti Farmer’s Market on June 28th! Our offerings will be a bit limited but we are excited to finally be able to go to market. Closer to the date we will have a clearer idea of what we’re bringing but right now it is looking like kale, chard, radishes, salad mix and some plant starts. Hope to see you there!
We have also uploaded our second YouTube video. Be sure to check that out. We’ve been appreciating all of the positive feedback from everyone. Video making is slow work but Magda has been doing her best. Haven’t we all.
All the best,
Zach and Magda
