More Cabbage!

The cabbage is the most exciting crop right now, not just because it’s new to our farm, but also because while the rest of our farm has been resting all winter the cabbage has been growing and thriving!  So another photo Friday…and more cabbage!

It’s time to split the heads.  Which basically means, well…what it sounds like.  We use a tool to cut open the cabbage heads so that they will bolt (send up seed heads that we will harvest).  Not all of them will bolt on their own, or at the same time unless we nudge them along.

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So that’s what we are doing out there.  While it’s a muddy job this time of year, it’s the only way to make sure the cabbage creates seeds for us to harvest this summer.  And in other news…it’s coleslaw for lunch!

IMG_2874We have also had some sunshine here, crops will be starting to enjoy the warmer temperatures in the soil and spring to life soon.  So out to the swings it is for our little farm boy!

IMG_2856Happy Friday folks!

Mom and Farmer

Sometimes worlds collide.  The life of a farmer is constant.  Things are always on your mind, the crops are always at the back of your brain.  So when you become a mom, the room for thoughts, the room for crops…I guess I could say it gets a bit smaller.  (This is just my nice way of saying that between pregnancy and becoming a mom, my brain is mostly mush! haha!)

So the other day I was having a mom day with Hoot.  We had planned to take a trip to the farm for a visit but not for farming.  So I put on my not so farm appropriate shoes, because they looked cute with my outfit and we headed out the door.

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Little did I know that on my way there I would get a phone call to be asked to go walk a field to look at the grassy weeds we have growing.  Luckily I have a little farm girl in me and in the back seat were my muck boots, ready for mud.

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Hoot and I got the job done, put our nice canvas shoes back on, returned the mom hat so to speak and kept on our way to the farm.  It made me stop and think about how life isn’t always so simple black and white.  You always get grey areas and with farming and being a mom it’s no different.  My life blurs constantly, like when I have to ask if I can bring Hoot to a meeting because it was scheduled on one of my mom days.  It’s the art of multitasking and I can see why mom’s through history have always been so good at it!!

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Spraying Round-up

I don’t always get to do the spraying anymore.  Since Matt has started farming, usually the job lands in his lap instead of mine.  Most of the time it’s because you have to have the right conditions when spraying your fields.  And well, the weather doesn’t always go along with my schedule of farming and being a mom.  (I know the nerve of Mother Nature right?!)

But the other day he was off spreading some slug bait to try to save a field, and I got to jump on the sprayer.  The job for that day, spraying round-up.  We grow wheat on our farm, usually spring wheat.  Because of our rotation out of grass seed crops, we usually are able to follow a perennial field with spring wheat.  And we usually do this by using a no till system.  Which basically means that we don’t work the ground or use any tillage.  We plant the wheat straight into the old crop of grass.

This type of planting gives us many benefits.  For one it allows us to once again leave our soil to not be tilled for another season.  After a field of perennial this would mean that the field has gone through three seasons of not being tilled.  Which is good for worms, beetles and all sorts of other living things that inhabit our soil.  It also helps us save on fuel and labor.  It’s a win win for our farm.

But to do this you have to do it right.  Otherwise you will end up with a horrible wheat crop due to too much crop competition, and all your good work will go out the window in lost income due to a poor crop.  One of the major things you have to take care of is the old crop that is still growing on the ground.  This is where the round-up comes in.  Round-up can be sprayed on a field, and within a week or so you will it start to die down.  The previous crop will start to break down, and eventually it will get to a point when you can get into the field and plant the wheat straight into that field and dead grass.

IMG_2832It was pretty foggy this morning, so the photo isn’t very interesting.  Except to show how well the crop breaks down after being sprayed.  This will make for a great field to no-till plant wheat very soon!

Round-up is a great tool for us because it doesn’t have any residual.  Many of the other applications that we could make would either be cost prohibitive, or it could leave a residual that wouldn’t allow us to plant the wheat straight into the soil without tillage.  Also it might be interesting to know that on one acre I was only spraying about a pop can full of glyphosate, the active ingredient in round-up, along with 15 gallons of water.  So to give you a visual, imagine a football field.  Now take 15 gallons of water and a pop can full of chemical and spread to evenly all over all 100 yards.  Pretty precise if you ask me!

I hear so many negative things about the tool of round-up, so I thought I would add a story about a practical use of the product.  One that helps us do more with less, helps us keep our soil healthy, and helps us continue to rotate our land from crops to crops and year to year.