We are deep into the Spring season at Opal's Farm and you can see it on the farm. Our fields of winter pea and rye are seas of compost-rich topsoil with tiny melons poking their heads out into the world. Rows and rows of t-posts, cattle panels, and vibrant yellow nylon twine cover a third of an acre, supporting our ripening tomatoes. The biointensive field that was a diverse field of greens and colorful root crops only a couple of months ago is covered in cucumbers, beans, summer greens, and five hundred feet of blossoming okra. We are reminded that seasons and life go through massive changes at alarmingly quick rates, and we must be prepared to change with everything at the same quick rate. The effort to change for the upcoming seasons can involve so much mental and physical work that these two months are a blur. It wasn't until this last week in late May that I found myself once again moving slow and steady on the farm, observing more than working. As I stand up on the hill overlooking the fields we prepped, planted, and took care of, I breathe a sigh of relief that the long days we put in April and May have indeed paid off. We are in an excellent place to thrive in the upcoming months of spring and summer.
Our spring and summer preparation begins early in the year, during the coldest months of winter. January is a time to prepare beds and plant onions. These onions will grow through the rest of winter and most of spring before they can be harvested, usually early or mid-May.
Opal's onion ambitions were quite ambitious. At the end of January, we planted three thousand yellow and red onions. Most onions were planted in hand-prepared beds built with an exorbitant amount of nutrient-rich compost. Though time-consuming and labor-intensive, our onions grew quick and massive. At the end of April, we harvested our first bed of yellow onions with bulbs larger than my hand.
February was a rest time here on the farm. We would pay a tiny price for this in late April and early May. February is a great time to plant a last succession of winter crops like carrots, beets, collards, and kale so that you have some diversity to sell while you are still waiting on peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes to ripen up in May. Our last crop of these beautiful winter veggies was around mid to late April, oops! Hope everyone at the market liked salad mix, onions, and lots of peas, cause that's what we had.
March 19th was the last freeze of 2024. That last dip below thirty-three degrees is like a starter gun going off. We wait eagerly for the safety of warmer days before putting our long-growing summer vegetables in the ground. First came the tomatoes, six hundred to be exact. Planting took three days with the help of several volunteers. The farm needed help to complete such an enormous task. Since planting tomatoes, the pruning, trellising, weeding, more weeding, and irrigating have been constant, taking up more farm labor than any other crop we ever grow. The two months leading up to the first ripe tomato can make you wonder, "is this much labor and time really worth it"? When the bed of Greg's truck is filled with a mound of red tomatoes, and those three hundred pounds of tomatoes sell out by 10 am every Saturday at the market, the answer becomes a prominent "yes." Once again, we are reminded that doing hard things pays off. The farm will harvest tomatoes every week till late July, selling to markets, grocery stores, food distributors, and another local farm.
Waiting for all your spring and summer crops to begin producing is painful and exciting. Every day, we walk up and down the rows, looking at healthy plants getting healthier and larger without putting on blossoms or fruit, taking their sweet time. Those green tomatoes get fatter and fatter before glimpses of yellowing, okra leaves grow larger and larger before their gorgeous flowers appear, and cucumbers take over trellises before tiny pickling cukes poke their heads.
Once these slow-producing plants get going, they produce more than you can keep up with. We went from eighty pounds of tomatoes to over two hundred in one week. Each week, the beans, peas, cucumbers, and okra double in production. Late May is looking good on Opal's Farm.
There are many lessons to be learned from this growing season. A late succession of winter and early spring vegetables needs to be planted early to mid-March, ensuring the farm has greens and root crops to continue distributing while we wait for our summer boom to ignite.
April was dry, and several very young transplants of peppers and eggplants did not survive. Emphasizing irrigation during April, when everything is young and vulnerable, is a must.
Tomatoes take a lot of time and labor to grow and harvest. Ensuring we have a better plan and more help when planting, trellising, and pruning tomatoes will give us more time to plant our summer crops a few weeks earlier than we did. Zucchinis and squashes pop in the first weeks of June, but if we can have them producing by mid-May, that would be fantastic.
Of course, gratitude comes with all these "lessons learned." The first thanks goes to all the helpers who participated this past season. As always, we have volunteers who help get large projects done in a short period of time. Without those days of exceptional generosity, the farm would be weeks behind where we are in the season. These groups clean beds of pesky Bermuda grass, mulch hundreds of feet of furrows and footpaths, and help plant hundreds of transplants and thousands of seeds.
Farm hands and interns receive my biggest thanks. These individuals show up in harsh weather conditions to be told what to do and how to do it before fully knowing why the heck we even do it that way. These individuals become increasingly more skilled and reliable, doubling and then tripling productivity on the farm. They help with everything from hand weeding to operating heavy machinery, turning entire fields into thousands of feet of production beds in two days. The increasing comfort of being on the farm and the growing relationships with these individuals builds positive life on the farm. It is tough to work in those fields alone and solve problems on your own. Their presence and expertise make the work not just easier but more enjoyable.
The spring and summer season has been a good one. A lot of production has been put into the ground, and many hands have played a role in that work. The farm is a farm, meaning that we produce and distribute food. Still, the primary purpose is to build a healthy community through food production. This season has done that more than any other season I have been a part of. Numerous people who have never been to the farm and many who do not garden or farm have been introduced through positive experiences. Many past farm participants are beginning to show back up to the farm. Young children just now figuring out where their food comes from have come to learn and play. We have younger and older individuals who aspire to become future farmers, walk onto the farm, and contribute to the work. Relationships with other organizations have been furthered with exciting conversations about our futures. All of these interactions are reminders of why we do this work. The fall and winter can be incredibly isolating, focusing on production and dreaming of warmer days. That isolation is abruptly interrupted by all the work and relationships that seem to blossom each spring and summer. Thanks for this time; we look forward to the next one.
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