MacGyver-Farmer

Life at the farm has been fabulous! Up until this past week if you wandered the beds to see what was growing at Ripple Farm, you would have been convinced we were expert weed growers! With a couple of days of dedicated attention to weed pulling (almost all by hand!) you can see food is up and growing.

To the far left you of the first picture you will notice flowering potato plants. Then in the middle picture are some gorgeous lettuces/greens and in the picture on the right are beets, glorious beets! We also have green onions, storage onions, carrots, broccoli, kale, cabbage, sunburst squash, peppers, winter squash, mizuna, mesculuns, tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, beans, soy beans, pumpkins, parsley, potatoes and quinoa growing. It is absolutely delightful to see so much food on its way. Although we have missed the first harvest of the season due to the odd weather, we hope to have at least a couple before the winter sets in.



Heading out to the farm tonight I was feeling pretty tuckered. Upon arriving and surveying the progress, I noticed the little marvel peas had doubled in size and were being boxed in by weeds from the past few days of sunshine and heat (which thankfully arrived in the nick of time). Ack! Sprinkle began a weeding frenzy and I headed to the closest store for staking materials. Is it because mercury is in retrograde or because I am exhausted (who's to say for sure), but staking with the florida weave in mind was quite the task, as this first picture shows...



Can you see how messy that is? There was twine everywhere and the stakes were coming out of the ground. This was partly because I didn't have a hammer and was trying to put them in the ground by banging a shovel on top--until Sprinkle determined it was better if she pushed them in with her brute strength :). Then I was MacGyver-farmer (so named by Sprinkle) as I tried a trick (based on my research) where you tighten the twine by twisting a stick in it at the stake. This was a hilarious task as the only sticks at Ripple Farm consist of half decomposed corn stalks!

After about a half hour of trying this "most preferred method" (based on my research, of course), and a few good laughs, we abandoned the florida weave and put one length of twine towards the top of the pea plants and draped them over. Fingers crossed this works. It sure was easier and looks better as you can see...



Ripple Farm--where we research, we try, we laugh, we simplify and at the end of the day, we are grateful for the experience.