There are swaths of ground where if you stand still you can hear water running just under the grass: I don’t know if it’s channeling through mole tunnels or over stacks of underground stone, but it sounds very much like the edges of the marsh at home in South Carolina where you can hear crabs […]
Category Archives: The Farm
In Gear
Thursday, April 2, 2009
It felt like winter would never end, and like waiting would never cease, and then suddenly the ground that was frozen a week ago is percolating snowmelt and begging for onion sets and carrot seeds. We have a new dirt mover and a bid for a giant deer fence coming in and we are finally, […]
Somewhere, Under all that Snow
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Something is going on, I’m sure: water crystallizing and breaking up little clods of soil; near-dormant bacteria slowly converting crude organic matter into more basic elements; worms dreaming of humus in Guadaloupe. But above this foot-thick blanket of snow, we’re thinking about seed catalogs, tillers, deer fencing and anticipating the day late next spring when […]
Slow Growth is Good Growth
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
The barren garden has suddenly sprung to life and is choked with tomatoes. Five lettuce seedlings out of the twenty I brought up from our apartment in Brooklyn survived and yielded exactly two salads. Mustard and arugula are bolted and gone, replanted with lola rosso and butterhead. It seems what these gardens needed more than […]
Project List
Saturday, July 19, 2008
When we closed on the farm in December, I envisioned a field full of ripening tomatoes and feathery lettuces by this time of year. Instead we have one large overgrown meadow and two small patches of scrappy peas and overgrown sunflowers. I knew getting things planted would be more work than I could anticipate, and […]
Garden Gnomes
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Not much to report on the garden front after this trip. Kale, mustard, and arugula are all growing well; sunflowers are frighteningly large; tomatoes and peas are coming along. Still no sign of chard, and our lettuce seems to be fattening the slugs alone. We did discover a couple of blackberry bushes in the yard […]
Farm, June
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Here’s some of what’s going on at our farm in Oak Hill, New York: The apple trees are full of young fruit. As is the cherry tree. The test garden I worked compost in to is growing pretty well. We’ve got arugula, mustard, snap peas, and kale all looking strong: I didn’t do anything to […]