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What is Nature Reflecting to You?
Published 12 days ago • 1 min read
Hello, Friend!
How's your summer going?
Is it like the wild and rapid growth of bean and cucumber vines, climbing higher every day? An empty garden bed that has been harvested and awaits new planting? A sweet potato vine, starting to find its way both above and below ground?
As we approach the middle of summer, it's a time of lush growth and increasing harvests. It's also a great opportunity to take stock. How is the plan created back in the chilly days of winter playing out? What lessons from last season have improved things this time around? What new discoveries have arisen?
For us, we're more on top of pest management this year within our main fenced area, but found it too much to manage the two hoop houses as well. So we pivoted, choosing to cover crop the hoop houses earlier than planned. Slugs were a problem again early on, so we used Sluggo. Then we learned that Sluggo is bad for earthworms, so we tried garlic spray, which didn't seem to work.
The cattle panel structures we installed this season for the tomatoes, peppers, beans, and luffa are so much better than our rinky-dink supports last year. We (and really I mean Cory) have made progress toward a closed-loop system on the farm by upping our compost game after reading The Humanure Handbook, and fertilizing with our own weed tea.
I guess if we were to characterize this summer on the farm, it might be a basil plant that got a bit eaten early on, but has been well tended -- we've plucked the flowers so that it keeps on going, and we're harvesting it with care, to help it bush out into a fuller plant.
Maybe that seems like a stretch. But it's a fun game. :) Nature can reflect a lot to us if we take a moment to look.
Farmer Cory, bringing in the harvest!
Next Community Day July 26th, 10am-1pm
We'll have plenty to harvest and share! Come out to get your hands dirty and enjoy a morning with friends on the farm.
Cultivating community and resilience through regenerative practices
Want to learn and grow with us? Curious about joining us on the farm in Marshall, NC for community days and workshops? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter!