Tuesday, 14 June 2011 12:00

Well, I have a moment to write, so it is time to back log! After all the work planning out the Fondy Farm Project--from an idea to help farmers and consumers, working to find partners and land, applying for and receiving funding, hiring a farm manager, contacting interested farmers, starting up a greenhouse in the snow of March, and waiting, waiting, waiting for the spring to warm up and the soil to dry out--we finally put plants in the ground!

On Wednesday, May 4th, the sturdy Ford tractor and Kuhn Rotovator were brought out and we tilled a dry section on the South end of the farm to see what it would look like. We are farming on a heavy clay soil. What this means for tillage is that one must pay close attention to soil moisture. Till too early, and the soil will come up in big wet clods. When the clods dry out, they will turn hard as concrete and stay that way the rest of the season. Not an ideal environment for vegetables. Wait too long, and there will be no moisture in the top six inches of soil to mellow the ground out in a flat, smooth texture. Again, you get dry, hard clods that prevent much of anything from growing. Judicious tillage will be a cornerstone of creating a healthty farm scape--a space where shallow-rooted vegetables encounter less stress and put on consistent growth until maturity.

This eventful day--May 4th--brought two family farms out to plant onions. These cold-hardy plants are usually one of the earliest crops planted in the ground, partly because they can be and partly because they need to be. Many (not all) varieties of onions are day length sensitive--that is, they depend on the spinning of the Earth, the tilt of its axis, and the fact that it orbits around the sun. Onions depend on the amount of light in a day to form a bulb. Plant too late in the year, and these vegetables will grow, but won't make a bulb. I have heard it said that in order to get a one pound onion, one must plant by the middle of April (in the Norhtern Hemisphere).

As you can see from the pictures, our farmers did not plant seeds; they ordered field-grown plants. These are grown down South (mostly Texas), dug up early in the spring, and shipped up to us in frigid Wisconsin. Our farmers did not know if there would be a greenhouse ready, and ordered the onion plants this winter. Next year, we will try to grow our own.

It was a cool, sunny day, and everyone was so excited to finally get their hands in the soil and start planting. Now it is time to play the catch up game...