Good Life Farm- Summer 2011 Quarterly Update

Greetings! Your Good Life Farmers here, thankful that even hot summers give us those “leaping tongue(s) of bloom” immortalized by Robert Frost in the poem “The Tuft of Flowers”. This poem truly does encapsulate the best of summer, down to specific tools used here at GLF.

Briefly, in the course of this summer, young animals arrived and matured; luscious cover crops were sown, grew and were mown; high tunnel vegetable crops got planted and harvested; trees received nurture and great decisions were made; and even, some things were NOT undertaken. As in every year so far for the young Good Life Farm, many large changes occur throughout summer, but this year we were also able to decide to wait, and redo some of our farm design before digging our enormous pond, planned for the western and highest end of the farm.

 

 Meanwhile, Highlights from the Summer:

• Doing our own BROODING of baby poultry--- which led to an explosion of ducks, geese, guineas and turkeys on the farm.
• Super Volunteers Aaron Nichols and Stephen Snyder helped make things really happen. Our gratitude is boundless! Many thanks to you both.
• High Tunnels swung back into prolific summer production with sweet bell peppers, hot peppers and GINGER! We are trying ginger in two tunnels (of 5) this summer, and will be selling fresh young ginger at the end of September and through October.
• Orchard health increased following a challenging and wet spring. In particular, we had a mighty case of peach leaf curl after May, and chose to strip all fruit and diseased leaves in hopes of removing some disease pressure. June and July followed with drying and heat, and our peaches
look spectacular. Here’s to a good crop next year (our first)!
• Garrett’s parents move in! Meg Jastran and Chris Vogt have fully joined us on the farm in their newly finished snazzy house.
• Animal power… each year we learn more and more about getting our farming done with animals. Obvious examples are our draft horses, but additionally, we are playing with the way we move and house poultry to provide ecosystem services, our orchard dog management is getting smooth and we are thinking of what our next big animal power will be...?