SEED KEEPING

Tobacco Road Farm is where I worked both 17 and 10 years ago, and where I first saved seeds on a larger scale, just outside this very high tunnel using my feet alongside a then 8-year-old hopping up and down with our bare feet. I visited a couple times this weekend while back home, and they were in the thick of Mizuna, Mache, Tokyo Bekana, Vertissimo Chervil, and Rutabaga seed harvest and processing. They grow lots of winter hardy and otherwise awesome varieties for our seed catalog and dry them down on tarps as seen here before threshing by foot and winnowing by box fans. Bryan O’Hara wrote No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture, and he’s always super generous with time and information when I visit, updating me on their new methods and trials and efficiencies and joys. I love Tobacco Road so much! Also the jumping 8 year old is now an 18 year old flower farmer and I thoroughly enjoy trading dahlia tubers and info with her. 💜 PS. Tobacco Road Farm is in Lebanon, CT - ten minutes from my mom’s house. #seedkeeping #notillfarming https://www.instagram.com/p/Cf7lktEuM0V/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Here’s @cryptogam_ transplanting baby plants into one of our few fully prepped rows in the main field at Mill Hollow. Just a couple days earlier I weed whacked the whole field before some of dominant weeds went to seed. We use a mix of winter/spring weeds and intentionally sown cover crops to hold the soil in place until planting time. Since our primary focus is seed production from long-season crops, we don’t do very much winter production except for some biennials for seed and a few crops of winter-hardy greens and roots for our own consumption. This year we didn’t even know if we were able to stay on this land, so we had even fewer things in the ground from the fall. In terms of field prep, we use some methods I picked up while working at Tobacco Road Farm in Lebanon, CT (see Bryan O’Hara’s new manual No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture: Pesticide Free Methods for Restoring and Growing Nutrient-Rich, High Yielding Crops from @chelseagreenbooks). We do not till unless expanding the field into new pasture/sod for the first time. We solarize freshly decapitated weeds and crop residue with clear plastic on sunny days above 70 degrees Fahrenheit, we then mulch with a thin but thorough layer of compost to smother any weed seeds and give our plantings a head start and a nutrient boost. This is what works for us! So excited for this time of year, and very grateful for the many different seasons of our work. #seedkeeping #notillfarming #notillintensivevegetableculture https://www.instagram.com/p/B_yk25eAOJ6/?igshid=aeqsmt50uq4j

Solarizing in front, new beds in back. This section is new this year. We just finished the expanded fence today. We also skimmed off the weeds with hoes and covered half with plastic, using the zapping effect of the sun to bake down the weed residue. On the back half, I felt seeding the corn was too urgent since I want to get a second succession in later this summer, so we simply smothered the weedbank with compost and planted into that. Hoping I don’t regret skipping the solarizarion there. Overwintered parsnips are taking up a little space, but will hopefully go to seed and leave room for the three sisters to sprawl soon. #solarize #notill #notillgardening #notillfarming

I only solarized for 24 hours this round because it was so hot and sunny. See my post yesterday for more info on how and why I am solarizing and not tilling. In the top photo the area to the right is the same area I posted yesterday that was green and freshly weed whacked (actually in the foreground I had hoed because my weed whacker stopped working - but down the row where it is tan is the weed whacked area). Today, I weed whacked the area that is now under the row cover. In the lower photo you can see where the neighbors laid down some compost to make the rows. I'll move it aside where the tomatoes and peppers are going in because it is too hot, but it makes a great mulch and improves the soil. I'll mulch on top of it again with chopped leaves or hay. This is my first year using the Tobacco Road Farm no-till method fully. #notill #notillfarming #solarizing (at Newtown Square, Pennsylvania)

I solarize my annual weeds instead of tilling. Soil is very much alive and highly structured for air and water exchange, with micro and macroorganisms ready to deliver nutrients to your plants' roots as they feed on exudates. So I leave it in tact. The top photo shows an area where I weed whacked close to the soil and then laid down plastic row cover for two days in the sun. The bottom photo is another area freshly weed whacked before I move the plastic over it. Next, I lay down a thin layer of compost to smother and feed, then plant or seed my crops, and then mulch with hay or shredded leaves. This method is adapted from my friends/mentors at Tobacco Road Farm in Lebanon, Connecticut. #notill #solarize #notillfarming (at Newtown Square, Pennsylvania)

Low tunnels cover acres of winter greens, roots, and herbs at Tobacco Road Farm in Lebanon, CT, perhaps my favorite place on earth. Every time I visit I leave inspired to grow the highest quality food and seed. They do not till; they use rock dusts to increase silica (to balance the growth-inducing elements like calcium and nitrogen); indigenous microorganisms from the forest and ramial wood chips to increase fungal activity in the fields; and hoops and a couple layers of plastic row covers to farm all four seasons in the snowy north, a town over from where I grew up. #lowtunnel #lowtunnels #hoopsandrowcover #fourseasonfarm #tobaccoroadfarm #seasonextension #silica #indigenousmicroorganisms #ramialwoodchips #notill #notillfarming

Kristyn Leach of Namu Farm in Sunol, CA welcomed a bunch of us who were at the Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners Conference at the end of the Black and Brown Farmer Convergence day yesterday. That farm (and farmer!) are a major inspiration for me: no-till, using Korean natural farming methods (including Indigenous Microorganisms), keeping the seeds and stories of Korean heirloom food and medicine plants, trailing and growing seeds for Kitazawa Seed Company, and (new to the list) welcoming guests with cold bears and delicious donuts, probably traded for a crate of long beans at the donut shop down the road. Thank you @namu_farm!! @kitazawa_seed #seedkeeping #indigenousmicroorganisms #naturalfarming #notill #notillfarming #donutsandbears #farmertofarmer #blackfarmersconference