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The Barefoot Farmer (Jeff Poppen) uses his farm (Long Hungry Creek Farm) as an example in demonstrating good farming principles. The landscape and atmosphere of the 21st century is leaning away from a small farm economy, bucolic scenery, sustainable agriculture and homegrown meals. The health of ourselves and our environment can only be enhanced by a reliance on local small farms for our needs. To learn more about these principle join Jeff Poppen with his weekly column - Barefoot Farmer. To e-Mail Jeff -
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Tuesday, June 23, 2009 |
Iceberg is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to lettuce varieties. The garden has ten different kinds this year. Alternating rows of red and green one five the beds a striped appearance. Gardening is like a painting that changes weekly.
Leaf lettuces do not make heads. Black seeded Simpson is the most well known. We grow Red Sails, which has red frilly leaves and gets big. It doesn’t pack and ship well because it is so tender. |
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Music Makes the World Go 'Round |
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Wednesday, June 17, 2009 |
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Music makes the world go ‘round, soothes the wild beasts, and has a universal appeal. All cultures make some kind of music, and it can be as different as night and day. With seven acres of vegetables planted (finally), you know we do a lot of picking. But there is always time for picking guitars, too. |
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New Land, New Tractors, New People |
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Tuesday, June 9, 2009 |
In between the flurry of farm activities here, I slip into Davidson Count and continue the fun. Twice we’ve taken our manure spreader there, and have about 150 tons of biodynamic compost spread over two acres on four different farms. One field is potatoes, one is sweet corn, on is melons and fruit, and the largest one is for the vegetable garden.
This is new land for me, new tractors, and new people, so I am definitely on a learning curve. The day I arrived to plant potatoes, George informed me that there was a wet weather spring in the back third of the field. But they already had the seed potatoes cut up, so we planted the whole patch. With the extra wet spring, that part of the field did not come up. So our potato crop, which is flowering and is hilled up, will be less than we planned on. But I planned on too much anyway, so we are about on target.
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Time to Move and Move We Did |
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Tuesday, June 2, 2009 |
We did not complain about the rain, but our spirits fired up when it finally dried up. After the wettest spring in many years, and a bit of consternation over all the seeds still in their packets, the weather cleared and the sun came out. It’s time to move and move we did.
First things first. The spring crops (Onions, potatoes, carrots, beets, lettuce, swiss chard, parsley and celery) all get hoed and cultivated before we can plant. The rows are laid off for the summer vegetables. The extra day or two helped dry the soil out a little more, but some spots were still damper than I like.
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Tuesday, May 26, 2009 |
Sowing seeds is the climax of the spring preparations. Cover crops are mown, tons of well-aged, biodynamic compost have been spread, the fields are plowed, rebroke and harrowed a few times, adequate rock minerals, like limestone, have been incorporated, and it’s finally time to plant. I like to say that most of the garden work happens before I plant, but I am simply implying how important it is to do those other jobs correctly.
We sow and transplant everything by hand. Furrows are usually made with the tractor. Or the very small seeds, we will make shallow furrows with a hoe. A seed is usually covered with soil about four times it’s own thickness. For instance, a half-inch long pumpkin seed would be planted two inches deep.
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