What We Do in Winter

“To a Mouse” (standard English translation) by Robert Burns- 1785

“Small, crafty, cowering, timorous little beast,

O, what a panic is in your little breast!

You need not start away so hasty

With argumentative chatter!

I would be loath to run and chase you,

With murdering plough-staff.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion

Has broken Nature's social union,

And justifies that ill opinion

Which makes you startle

At me, your poor, earth born companion

And fellow mortal!

I doubt not, sometimes, but you may steal;

What then? Poor little beast, you must live!

An odd ear in twenty-four sheaves

Is a small request;

I will get a blessing with what is left,

And never miss it.

Your small house, too, in ruin!

Its feeble walls the winds are scattering!

And nothing now, to build a new one,

Of coarse grass green!

And bleak December's winds coming,

Both bitter and keen!

You saw the fields laid bare and wasted,

And weary winter coming fast,

And cozy here, beneath the blast,

You thought to dwell,

Till crash! the cruel plough passed

Out through your cell.

That small bit heap of leaves and stubble,

Has cost you many a weary nibble!

Now you are turned out, for all your trouble,

Without house or holding,

To endure the winter's sleety dribble,

And hoar-frost cold.

But little Mouse, you are not alone,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best laid schemes of mice and men

Go often awry,

And leave us nothing but grief and pain,

For promised joy!

Still you are blessed, compared with me!

The present only touches you:

But oh! I backward cast my eye,

On prospects dreary!

And forward, though I cannot see,

I guess and fear!”

The end of the season for us is usually anywhere between the end of November to the end of December. Something we’re trying to get better about is extending the season, but frankly we’d rather take advantage of the quiet cold of winter to visit with our family. Thanksgiving to New Years is usually a whirlwind of catching up, gift giving, and eating a ridiculous amount of food which is not our usual mode. Jinksee loves when farm season is on break because he gets extra attention and us farmers don’t usually have bacon and egg breakfasts to share during farm season.

Once all of the gatherings have come and gone, we try to get productive and hunker down with all of our seed catalogs and farm supply catalogs and take stock of what we need, what looks interesting, and more importantly what you guys want. We get about 8 different seed catalogs, usually a majority of our seeds come from one source but every year we find ourselves buying more unique herilooms and rare varieties to try.

Cozy on the couch with several notebooks from last year, and fresh ones for the coming season we spread out all of our catalogs for reference and inspiration, using the laptop to reference photos from the past season and quick research of diseases to help pick varieties and plan crop rotation, we begin our planning. We look over past market records and the space of the field and begin going over our weekly seeding plan. As we go through our past records, we have taken notes about what little changes to make for coming seasons. We apply our notes and the things we remember talking about wanting to do differently or earlier or less of and dial in our sowing plan. As we go through planning our weekly sowing, I go over our previous crop map and begin the crop plan, which is to say where we will be planting this years crops as we try to avoid putting the same families in the same place year to year to avoid the accumulation of pests and disease.

When you get this many seeds at a time you have to do an inventory to make sure everything is arriving, and you know where it is. Often certain seeds will be on back order so we will take note of that and when they are expected to arrive so we know to keep an eye out for them.

We organize our crops by family and put them in zip lock bags to protect them from moisture. We store them in a heavy duty tote and keep that in our apartment for consistent temperature. As we need them we just grab the few bags we need that contain the days sowing and into our backpack with our notes they go. When we are direct sowing in the field, and I have a bunch of seeds out with me, it is important to be very mindful not to put the paper bags on any potentially wet surfaces to protect the integrity of any unused seeds. I usually bring a smaller tote out and always keep the paper seed packets in the zip lock bags once I pour them out.

A few new varieties we’ll be trying this year. These are from Baker Creek Seeds, we highly recommend them, they even sent us a few free packets to try.

So, this is what the aftermath looks like. We’re going to have to remove all of this plant debris and get all the covers cleaned up. Unlike tractor farms who would just mow right over this and till in the residue, we will go plant by plant and chop them at root level with loppers and wheelbarrow them to the compost pile.

Well, got the majority of the bulky plant material out of these plots, so we cover them with tarps to keep them dry and deprived of light. Since we don’t use tractors, and we tarp our plots, we will be able to get into the gardens good and early. No tractors slipping in mud causing a mess. Just un-tarp and get busy.

One change I plan on making is utilizing this broad fork a lot more as opposed to our tiller. By using this broad fork to loosen the soil down about 10 inches, rather than stirring and chopping the soil about 4 inches, we are able to get down under weed roots and remove them much more easily. This running grass for example, the rhizome runs under the light soil along the hardpan, and if you till you are most likely going to chop this rhizome up allowing it to continue growing while making it nearly impossible to rake out. The loosened soil after broad forking allows you to reach into the bed and easily find any roots that may not have above soil growth, and you can follow the rhizome and remove the whole problem plant.

So behind us we have 2 plots (50 beds) tarped but not fully cleaned up. Before us we see 2 plots that you will get to see how it goes down.

These beds were under ground cover for many months as the winter squash grew for about 90 days (and after the season). They were nice and clean but the walkways needed a quick wheel hoe followed by Sammy’s raking with a tine cultivator. This will define the beds and remove any troubling weed roots.

It’s nice after all the plants have died back, they don’t put up much of a fight. However, they have dropped thousands of seeds so… the fight will continue indeed.

POV you just stood up from being on your knees tediously going through some lovely loose rich soil listening to the birds to take stock of whether it’s worth the trouble. Mmmmyup.

So after broad forking the bed, one hasn’t turned the soil, only lifted it up a bit releasing any roots and introducing air. To remove the plant material and weeds I like to take the tine cultivator and loosen up the soil even more and get some leverage on any stronger rooted plants, and it is quite helpful for reaching across the bed instead of going down and back.

This is what we started with post broad fork. I was trying to find a picture of the broad forking but I reckon we’ll have more chances to take some.

This is the initial run getting a majority of the bulky material and redefining the beds (I actually broad forked straight across the walkways they were pretty weedy).

After some final detailing it’s time to rake it smooth and get any other tiny stuff that fell out after picking up the piles. Only thing that’s left is to get the vacuum. Just kidding, but if there was one to get weed seeds that’d be pretty slick.

You gotta stand up and look around and stretch from time to time.

Because there are piles to make yet and piles to pick up still.

Just go ahead and pick them up and wheel barrow them across the farm to the top of the hill then thanks.

We do other stuff too! Sammy is a great artist and she is making some new signs for the market as well as a custom hire she’s been working on.

And Jinksee and I are mountain bike enthusiasts.

This week we’ll be getting out the growing racks and starting some early plants to plant in the tunnels.

We co-op on some potting mix with a local farmer. This year we got 2 sacks of potting mix.

Under all the snow, we have 50 beds that are perfectly clean and tarped, ready for mid-March when we start direct sowing. We will go over the other plots the same, we’ll peel back some tarp and clean up then put it down and do the other half. Then, we have all the 100 foot beds to get the same treatment. But before that, we will do the tunnels so we can get them direct sown this week. I’m sure we’ll take you along for that process as well. Since we haven’t been able to get compost yet due to being too wet and/or the ground not freezing solid, we will be as ready with clean beds as we can so we can run compost as soon as we get it. We probably mostly need it on the new plot, as our soil is looking quite nice if I do say so myself.