Our farm is underway.
Just about a year ago, Chris and I left San Francisco to begin our farming adventure. It amazes me to think of our mindset back then; we were sick and tired of working crappy jobs that barely paid the rent for our equally crappy basement apartment, so we took off. We had heard of WWOOF through several friends, and figured we’d travel around and do farm work just to get by.
At that point it seemed like something we could handle, and maybe even something we’d enjoy, but I don’t think either of us expected to be totally sucked in by it. But halfway through our first semester at Green String interns, before the winter was over, it became clear that farming was IT for us.
Since we finished our internships in May, we’ve been f’real farm employees, working long hours six or seven days a week, and fantasizing about having our own little farm someday. We’re living on one of our boss’s properties, and part of his offer to us was that we’d set up a little market garden here, and get a mini-incubator farm going. But between our long hours (and resulting exhaustion) and a couple broken rototillers, it just hasn’t happened.
Well, it *hadn’t* happened. Now…
Now it’s happening! I can’t tell you how excited I am. We picked out the garden spot (maybe about an acre out of the 110 of the property) almost as soon as we moved in, and Chris has been watering it ocassionally to soften up the hard soil.
We’re going to get the rototiller out here next week (finally!), but I’m also doing a little experiment. I’ve planted part of the space this week with turnips (Chinese red round, Japanese shogoin, and French navet des vertus marteau, ho ho) and Italian sugarloaf chicory, because I have it on good authority that turnips and chicory plants will not only thrive in hard soil, they’ll actually bust it up! I’m going to plant another section with cover-crop varieties of daikon radish and chicory, which will probably do a lot more work on the soil but also won’t be particularly edible. The remainder of the garden will be tilled and planted with non-experimental crops — lots of brassicas, greens, root veggies, and herbs — and we’ll go from there.
If all goes well, we’ll start showing up at the Sonoma farmers market on Friday mornings with some goodies to sell. If it goes really well, we may start up a CSA by spring. Whatever form our little garden takes, we’ll be calling it Lazy Fox Farm, in honor of the adorable little bastards who ate our roosters — and probably watch our every move from the shadows.
It’s difficult to find the time to work on our own project when we’re so immersed in our jobs, but heading out there at sunset to rake, seed, and water doesn’t feel like work. Right now, those 8 rows of seed sitting in our beautiful, sweet-smelling soil feel likes new world of possibilities.
