I want to know not only the amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (the NPK of the fertilizer labels), but also the micronutrients boron, manganese, zinc, copper, iron, and sulfur. In addition I’ll look at the soil pH and the amounts of calcium and magnesium which affect the availability of the other nutrients for uptake by the plants. The report gives other useful information that I won’t go into here.

If I were starting a home garden, particularly in an urban area, I would pay particular attention to the amount of lead reported by the testing lab. Leafy greens such as spinach are well known to take up lead & other heavy metals from the soil.

There is a strategy to taking a soil sample. You want your sample to be representative of the entire field and you want to sample where the roots are taking nutrients from the soil. You accomplish this by taking a dozen samples scattered across the field and blending all the samples together. All the samples are collected the same way and depth, in our case about 8 or 9 inches.

You can sample with a shovel, digging a dozen pits in your field, slicing out a slab, cutting out a vertical slice of each slab, and blending the 12 slices together. In your backyard, this is a reasonable thing to do. However, if you want to sample a number of fields, this can add up to a lot of work.

I chose to invest $100 in a tool that greatly reduces the workload, and also probably gives a more consistent sample than I could get using a shovel.

A soil sampling probe, a bucket, and a trowel are the kit for collecting soil samples for testing.

I bought my probe years ago, probably  from Peaceful Valley. This is something of a deluxe model, 3 foot long, with a foot step. Both reduce the effort and bending required to collect a sample. A bucket for collecting and carrying the samples and a trowel to break up and thoroughly mix the samples completes the kit. Sometimes I take along a screwdriver to help poke soil out of the probe tip. It is important the the tools be stainless steel or plastic. Rust rubbed off a rusty trowel will throw off the iron analysis.

In this closer view you can see the sample of the top eight inches of soil still held by the soil sampling probe.

With the probe, the sample collection goes quickly. Push the probe into the ground with a twist. Carefully pull the probe back out. Take a moment and examine the soil. Can you see different layers? Is there plenty of organic matter? Do samples from different areas look different? Dump the sample into your bucket and go on to the next spot.

I send my soil samples to the UMass Soil Lab for analysis. There are plenty of other testing labs that you can deal with. Due to variations in the test methods, there is apparently significant variation in exact details from lab to lab, although they should all give similar recommendations. If you do want monitor the effects of your management strategies by looking for trends from year to year, then it is important that you always use the same lab.

You can purchase do-it-yourself test kits for pH and for NPK. I don’t have any experience with soil test kits. The lab tests gives so much more information at a modest cost that I’m happy to wait for the lab to do the test for me.

I got my test results in the mail a few days ago. I sent them off to Walt, at Walt’s Organic Fertilizer in Ballard, for Walt’s suggestions for this year.

Every farm is different. The crops or livestock grown, soil type, climate, amount of cash available to invest, accessibility of water, farming style, zoning and other regulations associated with the land, attitude of neighbors, and many additional factors all affect the farmer’s choices. Even so, there are common themes and tasks, including planning and record keeping, planting, weeding, harvesting, animal care, maintenance, buildings, water, and crop sales. In this series I will look at our choices here at Dr. Maze’s Farm.

This is a good time for me to take on this series. I have been spending a lot of time recently contemplating just this question.

The year 2010 is a transition year for us personally. The partnership that owns the land and that has operated The South 47 Farm since 2000 has decided to step back from farming and make the land available to farmers to rent.

Since the partnership no longer needed me as a farm manager, I was left free to decide what exactly I wanted to do next. My wife Carol & I have grown a strong attachment to the farm and to the community working on and visiting and supporting The South 47 Farm. After much thinking and discussion, we decided in the end to take over some favorite projects of the many endeavors of The South 47 Farm and to continue them as our own venture, renting the necessary acreage at The South 47 Farm.

And so, Dr. Maze’s Farm was born as a brand-new family farm with a 10-year history.

We have spent much time thinking and planning the transition. Gradually the momentum of the new farming year has gathered. We are now starting the first farming activities of the new year. We have ordered and received three dozen varieties of pumpkin and winter squash seed. We have purchased tractors, hand tools, and endless other items. Chamomile is sprouting in the herb garden. Tomorrow I have two field workers coming in to help start weeding the herb plantings.

For this series on the tools of a farm I envision a series of small snippets, rather than trying to cover large areas at time. As the year progresses I’ll look at tasks such as planting or weeding. I’ll show how to create a corn maze and how to set a fencepost. I’ll show some photos and describe our equipment and why we made the choices we’ve made. I have some videos of equipment in action and I hope to put together and post a few videos. I am going to define “tools & techniques” rather loosely to include anything I find useful or necessary around the farm. We’ll see if I can keep writing when things get really busy on the farm.

I’d like to start out the series with two elements common to all farms, a farmer and soil.

A farmer's hand gets to know the soil.

Not really tools or techniques, I suppose, and perhaps it is obvious, but it is worthwhile to reflect that the person and the place both have tremendous impact on how the land is farmed. Organic or conventional? Bananas or boysenberries? Lamb or legumes? Wholesale or farm market? The list goes on. Just as the photo shows my hand, this series will reflect my own personal experiences and biases.

Here on The South 47 Farm this year there will be six farms-within-the-farm. Other renters include CSA farms, chefs, and farmers’ market sellers. All will be different. Different crops, different techniques, different styles, different ideas. How is it that Famai’s peas are always earlier than any one else’s? Will Brian’s experiments with paper sheet mulch and cover cropping between rows continue to prove effective? What refinements in tomato pruning with Claire come up with this year? I’ll be watching.

If I were to try farming elsewhere, I’d have to change my techniques. I might have to give up some favorite crops and try growing different things. How long should I go between waterings? When is the earliest I can expect to drive across the fields? How much heat can I expect in the summer? What crops will my neighbors want to buy from the farm?

I always try to put a photo or two into my blog entries, so when I decided on this theme I cast about for various ways to represent the farmer. The back & shoulders to represent work and perseverance? The brain for knowledge & curiosity? The eye or ear for the senses and information gathering? The mouth or ear for communication or enjoyment?

I was struck by how well the hand does at representing all these characteristics. Grabbing, holding, touching, hefting, lifting, nudging, typing, writing, waving, patting on the shoulder, patting on the back, shaking another hand, holding another hand; a hand does all of these.

I was also struck by how much easier it would be to photograph my hand than any of the other options I was considering to represent the farmer.

What then but to show the classic test for soil moisture, squeezing soil in the hand,  giving me the additional benefit of allowing me to show the soil and the farmer in the same photo. Camera in my right hand, grab some soil in the left, shoot a few different angles, and the job is done.

Efficient use of time and resources is another useful trait on the farm.

I’m looking forward to this year on the farm. I’d be pleased to have you along for the journey.

I had thought I would write next about tools for information gathering and record keeping, but I took a photo today of Famai’s tulips that has inspired me to write next about microclimate manipulation.

April is the month when the farm starts to wake up from winter. It is also a month of unforgiving deadlines. I will attempt in this entry to relay what it is like to work through April at the farm. Everyone works hard, but there are many things to enjoy while we wait the arrival of the fruits (and vegetables) of our labors.

Apple bud starting to leaf out

In winter, the farm is just not very photogenic. April is the month when the fresh new green comes back to the land. The buds at the tips of the apple tree branches open up. The blueberry leaf buds open and start to obscure the red stems. The raspberry canes catch the eye with their bright green leaves; while the deep green of the thornless blackberries leaves demand a closer look. The winter rye planted in the fields as a cover crop grows thicker and taller. Most of our transplanted vegetables are covered with rowcover for protection from the cold nights, but the peas sprout vibrant green in their rows. And the grass everywhere turns thick and tall. Actually, now that I think on it, I’m not all that keen on the idea of getting the mowers out once again.

Hawk on perch

The wildlife has been at the farm all winter, but since we are out and about more, we can pay more attention. The hawk perch we put up last year is now used frequently. I’m hoping the hawks are doing their part to control the farm pests. The photo of the hawk on the perch is not very sharp, but it is the best I have managed with my little camera at maximum zoom. There seems to be quite a few weasels on the farm. I’m happy to see the weasels, since they also do their share to catch rodents. Weasels have lived in the raspberry field for years, but there have also been signs and sightings around several different hoophouses and also at Chef Brian’s hoophouse. There are always crows around the farm. The little songbirds and robins are everywhere. Every time I take the tractor out and till a field, I pick up an entourage of crows hoping to find something tasty in the freshly turned soil.  In past years a heron has been a frequent day visitor at the farm. This year I haven’t seen yet seen one at the farm. The Canada geese population varies widely through the year, this month they are nesting. The one nest we were monitoring was raided – nothing but eggshells left. We figure a coyote ate the eggs. We have seen several different coyotes. I think they are mostly passing through, but coyotes are not an unusual sight, and they certainly are not particularly afraid of people.

 As usual at the farm this time of year, we have had to push hard to keep on schedule. It seems to me that April and May may be the two most critical months for as successful vegetable season at the farm. If things go off track in March, there is still time to reschedule or to do things over. If you can’t keep up in April and May, you may have to face abandoning crops for the year. Some crops, like lettuce, we plant every other week all summer, so we are just losing two week’s production. Other crops, like the onions, need to be planted by a certain date or we may as well not plant at all. The big planting push will end sometime in June when we plant the last of the pumpkins. By then we will be in weeding season.

Claire and Stewart planting seeds in flats

This year Claire Thomas of The Root Connection Farm next door is dedicating a significant amount of time to teaching us what she has learned about vegetable growing. We call Claire our Vegetable Guru. We plan to almost double our vegetable production this year, as well as producing plant starts for sale to home gardeners, and her advice will be essential to meeting our plans.

heirloom tomato plant starts

Rereading my April 2 entry, I see it was all about the seemingly endless rain this March. Since then the rainfall totals have tapered off, and the periods between rain events have lengthened. We do still have puddles in a few areas, but we have fields we can prepare for planting. We started out April a bit behind, but with a good shot at getting solidly back on schedule.

We spent a lot of time in the first part of April checking the soil moisture in the fields and scheming how to adjust the planting plans to use the fields that were nearest ready to work. Meanwhile, the greenhouses were filling up with plants rapidly approaching their planting dates. Even so, once we got past the March rains, we managed to adapt and to get the field spading, tilling, fertilizing, and plastic mulch spreading done ahead of the planting schedule. We finished hand-weeding the raspberries and thornless blackberries and gave the rows a spreading of compost mulch.

Spring is also prime time for equipment breakdown, since we are using the equipment constantly. We haven’t done too badly this year. I can remember two episodes with the John Deere tractor, one with the spading machine, and one with the compost spreader. Of course, the equipment breakdowns happen on sunny days when we are just finally getting some fieldwork done, not when it is raining and we can’t use it anyway.

This year, in addition to the inefficiencies of repeated change of plans and extra work due to the weather we have two additional new complications. We are opening the farmstand 4 weeks earlier this year (May 13), which pushes all the planting schedules four weeks earlier into a time when the weather is much less predictable, except that we can assume there will be more rain. We are also starting a new project this year of growing hundreds of vegetable and herb plants for sale to gardeners. This soaks up significant extra time and greenhouse space.

In the last week we did hire in some extra help in order to break the logjam of backed up planting. Dang and his crew came down to the farm after working for Claire this week and planted most of the onions. Monday or Tuesday they will plant out thousands of lettuces and other greens waiting in the starts hoophouse. With that completed, we are hoping we can keep on top of things. We were already planning to hire another crew member to start at the beginning of May.

Meanwhile, there’s lots of other work going on.

We finally got electricity out to the large starts hoophouse. We’ve done without for two years, but with perhaps undeserved luck. The exhaust fan and thermostat in the starts greenhouse should prevent the utter disaster of walking into the greenhouse to find thousands of plants baked to death because we missed opening the greenhouse up by hand. After reflection, I decided to do the same, a year ahead of schedule, in the hoophouse where we will keeping the heirloom tomato plants and other vegetable starts we hope to sell in May and June.

The greenhouses keep filling up. In addition to the greens Evert and Stewart have been starting since March, we are now getting into the summer crops. The first seedling flats of summer squash are up and will be ready to plant out soon. There are flats and flats of gourds and winter squash germinating, next week we will be starting our fancy pumpkins and larger winter squash.

Summer squash in the starts hoophouse

We have been working on our new Free Choice CSA program, and have started to sell the memberships.

Our new website design is up, thanks to Chris and to Andrea Rose, who did the site design. And I finally have a functioning home for this blog.

Cindi, who runs our education program, is getting ready for school tours the first week of May, and the first Farm Tots on May 13 when the farmstand opens.

Michelle and Peggy, who will be running the farmstand as a team, are working hard to prepare for opening day, as well as the Plant Sale and CSA tour events on Saturdays May 2 and 9, from 10 am to 2 pm.

Many, many more details, but I see I have already written plenty for now.

As a relief from all the detail, and as one last get-away before the farmstand season starts, Carol and I will be going to the World Tea Expo on May 3 & 4. Just a hint of what you may see at the farmstand sometime down the line.

For a couple of weeks now the urge to get out into the field has been growing stronger each day. We had almost two weeks with nothing more than a trace of rain, very unusual for February. Some of the fields started to look dry enough to start the spring fieldwork. Every day I watched the fields dry out some more and got the itch to get the tractor out. Every day I counseled myself to have patience. More rain and possibly even snow were sure to come. Since Sunday we have received almost 0.9 inches of rain (or snow melt), but the total for the month, 1.73 inches, is well under half of a normal February.

If we start when the fields are too wet, we compact the soil and it dries out in brick-like chunks. If we wait for things to be perfect, we probably won’t have time to get everything done before it is too late to plant. Spring fieldwork is a daily juggling act. Every day we check the field conditions against our list of the tasks we need to finish. There can be significant differences in conditions in different fields, so usually we can find some place we can move forward.

Finally, on Monday, we will be back on the ground at the farm. I talked with the guys yesterday and they are all ready to come back to work. Rob, Evert, Luis, and Juan will be here at 8 am. I have a list of tasks to accomplish while we watch for the right soil conditions for the fieldwork. Evert will be doing the greenhouse work again. We need to prune the blueberries. We’ll be preparing a couple of hoophouses for early greens production. We’ll be pulling out some old waterlines and setting up a new area for U-Pick vegetables. I’d like to expand the north animal paddock. We need to prepare for our new cooler. Other spring tasks include repairing the roads, turning the compost piles, and checking out the equipment. As soon as we can we’ll be spreading compost and lime on the fields so we can get to the tilling on time.

For the last few weeks now I’ve been watching the daffodils growing just outside my office. They haven’t bloomed yet, but they look just about ready.

Daffodil in bud

Officially, spring starts several weeks from now on March 20. This year I’m starting early.