The farm has been rapidly growing, evolving, and changing lately. Every hot day seems to multiply the green in our field noticeably—some days dramatically so. I thought I should capture some ‘big picture’ views of the fields right now to share with you all (especially since so many of our spring photos were showed details rather than whole fields). Here are a few photos I took over the weekend, presented in a larger format to better show the ‘farmscape.’ (Of course, even in the days since I took these shots, many of these plantings have become quite fuller and taller!)
In the foreground: our winter squash planting. We’re growing seven varieties in fifteen 200 foot-long beds. That’s a lot of winter squash! We’re hoping to store most of it for the late fall and winter shares. (This field is one that already looks different—you can barely see the paths between plants now, and walking through is treacherous since fruit is beginning to set and the vines are everywhere. Fortunately, we weeded it well just last week, since we won’t be able to get back in probably until we harvest.)
A view out the south end of our tomato field house. We grow most of our tomatoes under cover for various reasons, some of which apply more than others in this climate. We picked up this trick in Bellingham, where hoophouse structures are considered a necessity. We were surprised to see so many tomatoes successfully grown out of doors when we moved to Oregon last year. However, we’ve retained the habit of the hoophouse, for better or worse. (Really, the only negative is the time it takes to build. The positives are multiple, such as reduced disease exposure and warmer night temperatures.) This year our house is 200 feet long (rather than last year’s 100 feet long house). Between the house and one outside bed, we’re growing about 700 tomato plants, with 12 different varieties.
Looking across one of our fields. I love the ‘sideways’ views of fields because of the visual ‘stacking’ that occurs between different height veggies. Plus you can’t see weedy paths! In the foreground here is one of our best-looking sweet corn plantings—we’ve never had such green corn plants before! Behind the corn is several beds of brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, etc.). And behind that are sunflowers. (And in the distance, the trees of our seasonal waterway from which we irrigate.)
A view north from the same corn/brassica/sunflower field. You can just barely see the beans and onions to the right of the sunflowers, as well as the two fields north of this one. Our irrigation is running here—we use two-inch hand-lines with one-foot risers. We bought them used from another local farmer (they’d been on his family’s place forever). They’ve worked perfectly from the first day we started using them. That’s why we love aluminum hand-lines: they’re so low-tech, and you can replace almost every part inexpensively. In the distance you can also see our tomato field house, our neighbor’s house (the white farmhouse on the left), and our house (the cedar house hiding behind trees on the right).
We’re still planting! This is one of our mid-seasons succession plantings of lettuce and brassicas. To the far left, we also have planted some long-seasons crops: celeriac, parsley roots, and parsnips—all for the late fall and winter seasons. We’re also still sowing and will continue to sow/plant for several more months, in preparation for the fall and winter.
And to finish, a nice ‘aerial’ view of the entire farm—taken from our living room window. We often look out this way when we’re planning our farm projects while drinking our morning coffee. It’s wonderful to get a big picture view at times—although there are other moments where we ignore the view and focus on the newspaper instead. Especially on slow mornings.
That’s all for now. We hope everyone survives the heat ok. We’re sticking in there well so far—and the plants are too. We knew the weather was coming, so we were pro-active in our watering (rather than entering a heat wave behind). Hoorah!
