This week at the farm it was another light day of 21 trays of 120 seedling blocks. One of the seeders brought some children whose voices could be heard while they played with the farm dogs most of the time I was there.
My tray of kale in the greenhouse is ready to plant. The ground isn’t ready so I left it behind for a week. Space in the greenhouse is at a premium so planning where to plant needs to happen. I planted from seed:
Bell Peppers:
Snapper, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 62 days green/82 days red.
Hot Peppers:
El Eden (Guajillo), Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 65 days green/85 days red.
Baron (Ancho), Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 65 days green/85 days red.
Serrano, Ferry — Morse, 73 days.
Jalapeno — Mild, Ferry — Morse, 72 days.
Jalapeno — Early, Burpee, 72 days.
Red Flame, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 60 days green/80 days red.
Red Rocket, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 55 days green/75 Days red.
Long Thin Cayenne, Ferry — Morse, 72 days.
Bangkok, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 75 days green/95 days red.
Except for the rosemary, everything planted previously germinated. I now have 720 seedlings in the greenhouse.
The intent of many varieties of hot peppers is to have a single patch of two or three rows with a couple plants of each kind. Serrano and Jalapeno are for eating fresh. I’ll pickle some jalapenos. I’m experimenting with El Eden (Guajillo) and Baron (Ancho) for drying and using in chili sauce, so I may plant a separate row of those two. Everything else is to dry and use as red pepper flakes or chili powder.
The cold, wet spring is making the coming week a crunch time to get started planting.
Saturday was the first spring day with temperatures in the low 70s.
I spent a few hours raking and using the chainsaw, beginning yard clean up. More clean up remains but I’ve learned to take it easy until returning to better physical shape through the work.
I relished being outside at work so much. Excited to deploy the chainsaw, I forgot hearing protection until I was almost finished.
Neighbors hailed me from their yards and in passing by. The whole neighborhood seemed outside and alive. There was ice below matted leaves yet everything else indicated spring had definitely arrived.
Saturday had begun Friday by covering mixed beans with tap water to soak overnight.
Before sunrise I cooked the beans in homemade vegetable broth, then added carrots, celery, onion and bay leaves. The broth reduced so I added more — four quarts in all. It simmered all day yielding a deep brown color by supper time. A cup of soup with toasted bread, a small plate of cheese and pickles, and a glass of milk made the meal.
A week into April and nothing is planted in the ground. I surveyed the garden plots for a spot to plant peas and carrots and have ideas but no plan. I’m getting better with garden layout each year because of a shift from whimsically filling space to consideration of which plants go where and why. After yesterday there’s a lot of wood to cut for a burn pile, such cutting making space to think about sunlight, shade, soil health, animal traffic and mulch.
On Monday I inspected the garden plots and the ground remained too cold and wet.
Later in the week I made the first dig and the soil was clean of frost the 10-inch length of the divot. There were earthworms too. We’re getting close.
I finished pruning the apple trees and began to make a burn pile.
Everything planted in the greenhouse has germinated, except the parsley.
Summary: Total of five trays in the greenhouse and all appear to be doing well. The ground should be ready for digging a row of earlies (lettuce, carrots, turnips and beets) this week.
The first spadeful of garden soil revealed an absence of frost the length of the 10-inch divot — and plenty of earthworms.
It’s time to plant peas, lettuce, turnips — the early, albeit late vegetables.
It’s also pretty exciting. Like most people in my life I’m tired of indoors and ready to do more outside in moderate temperatures.
I rose at 4 a.m. and fell into a pattern of making coffee, heading to my work space and writing.
I read newspapers and checked social media. I wrote correspondence, emails and texts. I have three different blog posts started. Sometimes I finish a post before leaving the house. Sometimes a topic requires development so I’ll sketch an outline and work on it a few days. In any case, writing is a primary creative outlet and I value the work the first few hours of each day.
It’s only a fraction of the time and that’s where cooking, gardening and outside work comes in.
I made a two egg cheese omelet for breakfast. I’ve been viewing Julia Child’s French Chef videos about omelet-making and it made a difference in technique. Using high heat, slight agitation of the egg mixture as it’s cooking, and when to add ingredients to create the finished product. I hadn’t really considered those aspects of it before. It was a fine start to the day.
Outside I started making a burn pile, finished pruning the apple trees, and parked my car outside to leave garage space for spring. I cut back the sprouted trees in the flower bed to allow early bulbs to be seen. Spring is running late, but it’s coming fast. There will be plenty to fill my days going forward.
At the home, farm and auto supply store spring shipments arrive daily. On Thursday I unloaded truckloads of bagged dirt, large bundles of wooden fence posts, and an extra load of general freight from the centralized distribution center. It felt good to be outside in 50-degree temperatures.
I found a three-ring binder with brief writing about books I owned or read in the mid-1970s. From an entry on Dec. 2, 1975:
With reluctance I must admit my pursuit of literature outside my job has been minimal. I really haven’t been spending time at home reading. So, for the present, I am going to try a month, half a month anyway, with no poets. The daily reading is what is suffering most.
What I didn’t realize then was there would be a pivot point in life where I stopped pursuit of literature and started living it, where I read less poetry and started writing. This spring day is a reminder of that, made clear by the absence of frost in soil teeming with life and begging for something to grow.
A flock of wild turkeys took flight from the field on the east side of our lane, and a bald eagle was picking at a deer carcass along 120th Street.
These emblematic birds inspire me every time I see them. It was a great start to a day of soil blocking.
I planted:
Rosemary: Ferry – Morse, 85 Days.
Cilantro: Ferry – Morse, 45-75 Days.
Genovese Basil: Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 68 Days.
It was an easy day in the germination shed as there were only 20 trays to block. 21 counting mine. The farmer spent time during the week playing catch up from a cold winter and the greenhouse is full. That feels great!
Summary: Kale, broccoli and leeks have germinated. Parsley and celery have not. I’m waiting a bit longer before turning soil in the garden.
I was first to break the snow on 120th Street while driving east to the farm for a soil blocking shift. There were a lot of people in the germination shed participating in a complex bartering situation. I’m not sure any money would ever change hands.
I planted:
Parsley:
Extra Triple Curled, Ferry – Morse, 75 days.
Broccoli:
Blue Wind, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 49 days.
The kale uniformly germinated since last week. I should have plenty of starts to cull, plant, and give away. No apparent action on the leeks and celery. They take longer to germinate.
I got out into the garden briefly this week. There is the usual spring week to do. The ground remains hard, even with the recent rain. Planting is a while away. Lettuce seeds are ready to go in.
Summary: Recent rain melted most of the old snow but it ran off because the ground is still frozen. New snow fell last night. We’re running behind and so is everyone. I was asked what’s new in my garden this year. I have guajillo chilies and tomatillos planned. A Mexican food sub plot. Tacos and more tacos.
There is nothing magical about 40 acres in the 21st Century. Today’s American farmers can make a living on much less, largely because of crop diversification, technology, and emerging markets for locally grown food.
For a beginning specialty-crop farmer, 40 acres might be too much to handle.
“40 acres and a mule” entered the vernacular as a way of dealing with the question of what to do with newly freed slaves during and after the Civil War. Give them 40 acres and a mule to get started as free men, or so the line of thinking went.
In 1865, William Tecumseh Sherman provided for confiscation of 400,000 acres of land in South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, to redistribute in 40-acres parcels to formerly enslaved farmers. The arrangement did not persist, although even today, presidential candidates posit the United States should pay reparations for slavery.
While specialty crop farmers work hard, long days to make ends meet and sometimes take a job in town to provide enough household cash, they increasingly seek to own their future. To a person, that means buying land. In Iowa good farmland is expensive.
For farmers, the desire to create a farm on less than 40 acres has to do with start up capital. To make a go of it as a specialty farmer on 40 acres, that means $350,000 or more for land, another $100,000 or more for an on-farm dwelling, and more for at least one barn, a couple tractors, and other equipment for cultivation, mowing, tilling, fencing and general operations. Finding a banker to finance such an operation is difficult without collateral other than the land. There is also the hurdle of what to do with all that land. While a small farm can grow into 40 acres with success and over time, a beginning farmer has much to learn and the scale can be intimidating.
Shouldn’t there be opportunities to start a farm on less than 40 acres? The county board of supervisors said no. Couldn’t you move to another county? The market is in urban centers.
In Iowa farms have an agricultural zoning exemption. Beginning farmers seek the ag exemption in order to make ends meet on narrow gross margins. To be defined as a farm in our county, and get the exemption, 40 acres is required. Some of my farmer friends have been asking for accommodation of smaller farms for many years and none has been forthcoming from the county board. The future belongs to the young and they will not be stopped.
That brings us to House Study Bill 239, an act relating to the county zoning exemption for property used for agricultural purposes. Farms are defined as follows:
The bill provides that property is used for agricultural purposes if at least 51 percent of the annual gross revenue derived from the property comes from the growing, harvesting, or selling of crops and livestock raised and produced on the property or brought to the property and not more than 49 percent of the annual gross revenue derived from the property comes from the sale of agricultural experiences and other farm-related activities.
The number of acres defining a farm becomes irrelevant should the measure pass the legislature and be signed by the governor.
This bill amounts to an end run around the county board of supervisors. While it didn’t clear the state government committee this session, it remains eligible for consideration and debate next year in the second session of the 88th Iowa General Assembly.
A representative from our county made it to the bill’s subcommittee hearing on March 5. In what was described as a long, arrogant speech, the official characterized rural residents who had been working with the county board of supervisors as “loud complainers.” Not a good look for anyone, especially a county official.
Today was a great day of spring-like weather. We can feel it in the air as farmers prepare equipment, tend livestock, and prepare for another crop. Whether on 40 acres or 4,000 there are many common threads running through farming. Whether they will be defined according to the same standard is an open question. It’s time to see if the legislature can resolve the issue for beginning farmers, since the county won’t.
Megaton, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 90 days.
King Richard, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, 75 days.
American Flag, Ferry-Morse, 150 days.
The garden continues to be snow covered. According to the National Weather Service, frost in the region is estimated to be 24 to 36 inches in the ground. Needless to say, until I can see the ground, I can’t dig in it.
Summary: The garden is running behind, the greenhouse is chilly, and the soil is frozen. Planting in the ground will be delayed until the soil can be worked. Hopefully the greenhouse starts will be successful. Garden work has begun.
The store manager from the home, farm and auto supply store phoned Sunday afternoon to ask me to work on Monday. The colleague who assumed my full time job last spring was visiting family in Nebraska and bad weather closed roads across the state, including Interstate 80. She couldn’t make it back in time for her shift.
In Iowa, helping out is part of our culture. I said yes I’d work and rearranged my plans so I could.
In addition, the farmer decided the weather was bad enough she didn’t want people venturing out to the farm. The roads were iced over and the wind howled at 30 miles per hour all day. Her sister, the shepherdess, posted social media photos of installing a new anemometer and weather station. Its LED panel displayed the digital message, “hold onto your hat!”
As I was settling in last night, the Washington Post put up an article about White House plans to form an “ad hoc group of select federal scientists to reassess the government’s analysis of climate science and counter conclusions that the continued burning of fossil fuels is harming the planet.”
In other words, the Fourth National Climate Assessment told the story of how dire our future could be without climate action. Rather than doing something, the administration is arguing with their own scientists that global warming is not caused by burning fossil fuels. These are times that will fry men’s souls.
Which part of yesterday’s howling wind was an amplification caused by global warming? The answer doesn’t matter because it’s the wrong question. We know the deleterious effect of burning fossil fuels. We also know thawing permafrost, agriculture, methane releases during oil production, building construction, manufacturing processes, air transport, deforestation, landfill decomposition and other human activities contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. We can’t get bogged down in details when the bigger picture is we have an obstructionist government led by Republicans and their conservative, dark-moneyed think tanks who would interpret the howling wind as something else. The better question is when will voters do something to fix this?
Yesterday’s wind was the kind that calls for hunkering down until it ends. Eventually we will have a calm, sunny day and the opportunity to work as normal. Or maybe it is something else, as Bob Dylan sang in the 1970s,
Idiot wind, blowing like a circle around my skull
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth
You’re an idiot, babe
It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.
More than at any previous time I feel a goal line was crossed when I left full time work last spring.
So what’s next?
I don’t anticipate buying a fancy television with new, matching easy chairs to put in front of it.
My late aunt and uncle had that. When we visited their Alabama home our conversations turned to the evangelical Christianity their family had undertaken. It was a distance from the socialist and Catholic household in which she grew up with her brothers and sisters. I suspect aunt and uncle watched FOX News, although we talked the entire visit without turning on the T.V. Dinner was a tuna-noodle casserole taking me back to a time I hardly remembered. Mom never made tuna-noodle casserole at home. My uncle died shortly after we left them and she died soon after that. All that’s left are memories.
My fear is if we had a digital television I’d sit back in an easy chair, watch too much, and my mind would succumb to the blather that invades people’s lives from cable news. I’d spend the rest of this life talking about, to and at the television.
There is only one answer to the question, and that’s to stay active physically, emotionally and mentally. That’s really a lie. There are plenty of answers, although doing these three things can form a foundation upon which an answer can be built. Maybe that’s what I’ll do.
Birds eat from the feeder and a freezing rain falls on the county. Snow melt is filling the ditches and running toward the lake. Soon there will be floods in Iowa as the crazy weather continues.
Tomorrow I return to the farm for the first round of soil blocking. They already started seeds in the house, but these will go into the greenhouse despite the coming cold spell. I’m waiting another week to plant celery. At 120 days, celery has the longest plant to pick cycle.
Will farm work bring catharsis to my search for truth and meaning? I don’t know, but I’ll be spending time with friends again and that means something.
I’ll get to see the lambs, those sad but cute creatures destined for someone’s dinner table. I’ll be careful not to get attached but new life is always a pleasure. That’s what I need in the rainy, snowy, flooded Iowa I call home as the cycle of the growing season begins anew.
Moving the goal posts once they are set is not a good option in retirement. We may only get one chance for new goals and it’s important to be sure. I’ll be thinking about that as I make the soil blocks tomorrow morning. I’m looking forward to getting started.
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