Thinking Ahead

On Monday Gales Meadow Farm had the extreme pleasure of hosting the Big Green Bus.  Hailing from Dartmouth, these young people have set off on a summer-long whirl-wind tour of the United States in a “grease bus” (powered by re-used vegetable oil) to raise awareness about issues of sustainability and to do good in local communities.  Awesome.  Here on the farm they helped us transplant our winter greens!

Early last week we began this process by preparing the rows from which we just harvested hundreds of pounds of garlic by weeding them, tilling them, adding organic amendments to the soil (chicken poo, compost, calcium carbonate) and then tilling once more.  The rows were then watered to encourage weed germination and finally, they were hoed right before planting to disrupt any weed that might be thinking about pulling down roots.  The team then began transplanting the baby plants into Mother Earth. 

In order to facilitate this process, I spent the morning running around setting up drip tape (to irrigate the rows), flush it out, staple it down, bring out tools, move people along, etc.  A wise teacher once (not long ago) emphasized to me the importance of thinking ahead.  In order to allow a large group of people working together to move forward in a task, one must think two steps ahead.  It felt good to be that individual.

On a related note, one of my favorite things about farming is thinking about all the systems that are in play.  I believe that the ability to synthesize information and think creatively is extremely under-valued and I appreciate that my job encourages this type of intelligence with a healthy dose of physical labor to balance it out.  The practical aspects of farming never cease to challenge me.  That said, back to work!