Last Fall I was stuck in charge of running the different farmer's markets we went to 3-4 times a week. Fridays were always in this town square way off in nowhere-ville-- standing around most of the day, I got to know an old beekeeper who sold a few tables over from me. He was in his early eighties and all he did was bees, bees bees. Packed his honey in big old smucker's jam jars. Anyway, he had been traveling throughout the Mid-west for most of the summer visiting the big industrial hives in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Learned 2 lessons from the old man:
1. Specific "type" honey-- like berry, sage or buckwheat--is mostly a BS concept. Everything (whatever they might say) is for the most part that undefined "wildflower" type. It's a great marketing racket, but unless the hive is in the center of miles worth of dedicated berry, sage, buckwheat, etc fields, there is no way to draw a type distinction. Bees take from everything around them, residential gardens, forests, other farms, you name it.
2. Hive die off rates are an inexplicable and terrifyingly reality. (editorial aside: inexplicable my ass, I looked into the matter and France faced the same bee epidemic in the late 80s into the 90s. Same symptoms, same results. Some chemical element had been introduced into the herbicide and pesticide mix their companies were selling. Chemicals leeched into the plants, from plant to pollen to bees. People were outraged, the chemical was eventually banned and-- would you guess? The bees returned and the mass hive die offs ended.)
I've been keeping a curious eye on our bees this season.
Started off today planting out 2 trays or about 588 plants worth of loose leaf lettuce.
I never had noticed, but most lettuce seeds are wrapped in pellets on account of their tiny size-- making handling and planting much easier. We aren't in the practice of saving our seeds for the most part-- there are exceptions like broom corn. The boss explained that with his land and water source taken care of, his biggest expense is in hired man-power- and without the proper seed machinery, saving seeds is very labor intensive. It comes down to: pay a couple hundred bucks for seeds 100% ready to go, or pay a couple thousand bucks for a work crew to dry, separate and then store them. (Once we get into the full summer swing we have 1-2 dedicated picking crews, 1-2 people watching over the store and farm kitchen, then the general labor crew of myself, Bah, the foreman and the foreman's friend (but he doesn't start until June)) So to save time, and thereby money, the boss gets his seeds from his friend, a crazy man in Maine named Johnny. He sells nothing but organic and heirloom seeds-- and since all our seeds come from him, nothing we pull out is of the genetically modified variety.
We are not an organic farm, despite our seed choice- so none of our produce can be labeled as such. The politics of this stuff is interesting-- it doesn't matter if you spray only a little bit (and I'm not saying it should), the lines are just very absolute. We spray a bit in Spring, we are not organic.
I've tried to ease back a bit, as it often feels like I'm interrogating the boss with all my questions... so, a while back I asked him-- "We face all these pests and weeds, organic farms face the same problems-- how do they make it work?" The answer is complicated, but/and I'm very curious to know more specifics-- exactly what does one smallish but successful organic farm do start to finish. Some of the answer I received is tied up in the high price wholesalers/farmer's markets/big stores ask for organic produce. A higher percentage of a given crop is lost to pests/fungus/molds/(weeds?) etc-- so the price difference offsets a bit of the labor/time invested in a smaller harvest. Some of the slack due to no herbicide is made up for in manual labor, more frequent hand weeding-- and more wages needed paying. So far this is all price related, but some pests, even on organic farms are dealt with through spray-- there are apparently some organic based, nontoxic pesticides available (used in particular to battle white flies).
These are just some ways-- ones the boss pulled out when I put him on the spot. I'm inclined to believe some are actually used. As he emphasized, everyone does it their own way whether organic or not.
"It takes many ways to keep the world fed." -- The Boss
Hehe, a slight digression. I've been thinking about these particulars the past few days out in the field. A buddy, who is working a perma-culture farm in central america, had me puzzling over the question of toxins and their use in our sprays.
When I realize I'm rationalizing, am I still making rationalizations? Am I rationalizing the way we do things on this farm? Yeah, but I'm done on the subject for now--it would take a lot more blabbering.
Right, so I planted the lettuce. Headed up to the hilltop fields with Bah and the foreman-- more rocking, heavy rocking. This was the boulder field, and it will never end--already I see more rocks poking through places we've already picked over. We slugged it out, and filled many front loaders until lunch.
Early afternoon, Bah and I transplanted a good 1,500 swiss chard into the lower fields. The foreman laid out a half dozen or so rows of string beans. With the way plants are looking in the main greenhouse, I think there will be lots of transplanting in the next week.
We finished up surprisingly fast. We started laying more irrigation pipe, lots of it. We hitched up a wagon to the new tractor and piled the pipe (both 3in and 2in) high. Four more lines are going off the main artery in the lower fields now-- covering the beans, chard and some rows of sweet corn (I'm forgetting something, there has to be more planted there). It was a terrible exercise in impatience and aluminum grinding on pavement, dirt and stone. The wagon wasn't big enough (by a long shot) for the lengths of pipe, so Bah and I took turns either laying across the pipes to weigh them down or scrambling behind the wagon trying to lift up the dragging ends.
Afterward, the foreman and I connected up 2 of the pipe lines and started replacing a few of the damaged water guns and gaskets. Lots more to do tomorrow.
I've started germinating a tray of my own seeds at home. Planted a variety of grapes that are native to this area (saved these seeds from the grapes growing around the field edges, used to eat 'em like crazy during breaks last year). There have been some mistakes, as my choice of soil has much to be desired. I figure once/if these guys pop up and grow strong, I will plant them around the house. This variety can be a bit invasive, wrapping vines around everything in reach, but well worth having grapes at my fingertips while lounging on the porch-- like a roman senator. Once there is something to report I'll post pictures of the project. Also, I keep the camera handy these days so more farm photos coming.
See ya tomorrow.
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