Our First Year in Retrospect--Soil Preparation

Welcome to Our Blog!

We just got the blog up and running today.  This follows a very busy year of progress on our farm.  Unfortunately we haven't had time to share our progress with you this whole time, so let this first post be an overview of what we've been up to this year.  

Our inspiration to farm owes some credit to Foxtail Farm where Ayla interned for the season.  For my part, simply witnessing their CSA operation showed me that this kind of farming not only utilizes a skill set that I share in but that I truly enjoy putting these skills to work.  Whether its fixing tractors, inventing implements, creating and managing farm systems, or just getting my hands in the dirt, I realized that this could be something I may really want to do.  Ayla, I think, already knew that she wanted to do this in some capacity.  For her, the internship helped her build upon what she already knew about growing vegetables and, more importantly, aided her in building confidence to apply her knowledge in getting started with her own farm.  

We've already jumped many hurdles to get our CSA and Market farm started.  We spent much of this year getting our equipment operational and putting it to work in order to plant green manures and a winter cover crop.  Breaking ground with our old moldboard plow was a heck of an adventure.  It was sure nice to see the soil turned over and ready for planting, though.

In all, we tilled up about 4 acres to plant our summer
Oats and Peas.  It was quite gratifying to see it all tilled
up, especially after dealing with the mechanical issues
along the way.  

The first pass sets the perimeter.  In this picture I was
having trouble with the carburetor.  Apparently
there was rust in the bottom of tank and running
it too low on fuel and suck this junk into the carb.

Of course we need an efficient way of getting our seed in the soil, though.  Luckily, we've inherited some useful tools from my father's small collection of farm equipment, one of which is the grain drill.  Nothing came easy, though.  The hitch on the thing had long ago been bent all out of shape and required straightening and a little welding before it could be put to use.  

The old beast!  She's not pretty, but it's better than broad-
casting the seed by hand--far better.

Playing with my new welder.

We got it up and running, though, and our oats and peas were a success, as was our recent planting of winter rye.

Anyhow, that's about all I can write today.  Tune in next time for another installment of our first year story.