A Farm Girl Turns 7

Our daughter, Katie, celebrated her 7th birthday this week. In the photo she is reading a book she received from her mom and I. It is a gardening book for kids. Our hope is to involve our kids more in gardening this year.

The other places we'’ve lived before moving to Liberty Farm have lacked feelings of permanence for us. They were all stepping stones to where we are now. Because of this the gardens in our past have also not been permanent. This season we will be embarking on a long term quest for steadily improving soil fertility.

Ecology Action has been studying sustainable, biointensive gardening for thirty years in Willits, California. Their research has shown that 60% of the space in a vegetable garden should be devoted to growing dual-purpose seed and grain crops such as wheat, oats, amaranth and quinoa. These crops produce huge amounts of carbon for composting.

I have a three year plan going around in my head for reaching this point. It may take longer and we will have to be flexible going into our first full growing season here. I also need to be better at recording these plans in writing. In my weekday job I have to be very technical and keep lots of records so my tendency on the farm is to focus on the art rather than the science.

I'’ve recently forced myself to begin keeping better records regarding the care of my sheep and I'’ll need to do the same thing with the garden and the management of the pasture going into the green season. If anyone reads this and has some good ideas for this sort of record keeping please comment.

Weather today: 9°F/41°F partly cloudy

tags: biointensive, gardening, soil fertility, compost, Ecology Action