Wine & Grass Seed

  
Photo courtesy of Shelly Boshart Davis. 

It may not seem like a big deal, having a vineyard next to a grass seed field, but the challenges between these two crops have come to the fore front the past few years. 

This week I attended a tour that talked about the compromise and communication it requires to be successful when neighboring farms become more and more diverse in their cropping.   

Monday I will talk more about the issues and why many of us in both the grass seed and wine industry know that we can all be successful in Oregon as good farmers and neighbors.  

Border Spraying

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there are jobs in the farm that aren’t so great and one that I don’t look forward to the most is spraying borders. In the past I have compared it to bathroom toilet cleaning type of job. The one where you know it needs to get done and yet you look around and the only person standing in the shop available for the job…is yourself. 

So that’s what I’m out doing today. We need to keep the borders around our fields clean because when you grow crops for the seed it’s very important that weeds don’t creep into what you work so hard to grow. 

  
At this point all of our seed crops have been harvested and we are getting ready to plant for next year. So this is a great time to clean up any unwanted plants that grew while the crop was growing. We can control weeds with less concern over hurting crops. 

  
While it’s my least favorite task on the farm it is one that can be very satisfying, like pulling a weed out of the ground I know I’m only helping our crop for next year get a better start. 

Little Helper

Many times Hoot comes along on farming projects. We had him out in the field with us yesterday to mark out some new field boundaries. He was very helpful as you can imagine.

   

  

  

Hoot didn’t complain a bit though. He’s a great outdoor kid and can you blame him? I mean who needs a sand box when you can play in a 50 acre dirt box?!    

   Farm life is so good!