January 2010
January. I'm glad it's January though it's freezing outside. For Howard's End this will be a busy month in preparation for February when new heated hoophouses will be erected and thousands of seeds will be planted. So this month is the time to determine which seeds to order and how many. That task demands a complete count of the seeds onhand. It is also a time for intense research. This will be our second season and I am very much a novice at all of this so... as Valerie brings in the books on farming from the library (or on occasion from the bookstore or Amazon.com), I read them, taking notes and telling my brain to remember.
It's also a good time to work on the unfinished residence. I will be here for a week before I have to head to New York (to earn some extra cash ) so one of the tasks I hope to accomplish is getting the rest of the straw into the walls so that in between farming tasks (in March, April and May) I can start stuccoing the exterior walls. A second task this week will be to make a half dozen ceramic tiles from clay which we will display for sale at market and other venues. In fact, some of the research I'm doing this winter involves the construction of wood fired kilns for raku pottery. Since the hoophouses need to be heated, why not a heat source that also provides pottery?
It's funny, but up until the past couple of years, I never even thought that I would ever farm. My grandfather farmed, two of my uncles farmed (all in Kentucky) and my brother has been farming ever since he left high school. Farming and playing tennis. I always loved visiting my relatives in Kentucky when growing up, oftentimes travelling from Belgiuim, or Holland or whever we were living at the time. Our family- we were the "city slickers" and I always felt a little looked down upon. We didn't know what hard work was. That was a long time ago. Now I talk to me uncle about the meaning of "sustainable agriculture" and I must admit to cringing when my mom gave him our brochure (oh no, Here We Go!). But the conversation went well and he agreed that there was a place for "niche" farming (which meant diversified farming). I let it go at that. I like farming. Organic farming demands that you know how to maintain a rich, healthy soil while all the time removing nutrients from it. Soil chemistry, microbiology, plant chemistry, weather science, companion planting and crop rotation, geology, insect cycles, germination and propagation, accounting and other business skills make it a stimulating business. Since I am an artist first, (well was anyway) I'm finding ways to make the topography of fruits and vegetables more interesting (or peculiar) by adding earth sculpting, mazes, standing sculptures and, since there is alot of stone to be had, finding creative ways to install stone walls, menhirs and other stone-age constructions. Not this month however. that will come later when things warm up.