Theme: spring

News from the Farm | April 21, 2014

April 21, 2014

Springtime at the Farm

Full Belly Farm is bustling with spring activities.  We’ve had plenty of warm weather and within a few days after the last rain, the ground was drying out and the fields were busy.  This is the time of year when the cottonwood trees along the creek start cottoning – so billows of the white fluff, full of cottonwood seeds, blow in the air and settle in every corner.

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News from the Farm | April 14, 2014

April 14, 2014

The Third Graders Are Coming!

Spring has always been my favorite time here on the farm. Most people enjoy the beautiful flowers popping up, the green rolling hills, and the birth of the myriad baby animals. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of the aforementioned changes that happen during this time of year, but it’s the arrival of the third graders here at our farm that brings me the most joy. Springtime for me means school group season, and it is my job to teach groups of rambunctious Waldorf third graders about farming.

I began working at Full Belly eight summers ago, when I was asked to be a camp counselor for the farm’s summer camp program. During the first summer I was simply a camp counselor. I loved being a camp counselor so much that the next summer I found myself back at the farm. Over the years I began to pick up more leadership roles during summer camp. I began teaching lessons, which meant others depended on my knowledge of the farm. Eventually, I could not be torn away from the farm. I would arrive weeks before camp started and would remain weeks after camp had ended working in the fields or the shop, helping with anything that needed doing. Half way through college, I decided that I wanted to return to Full Belly Farm after graduation. [Read more…]

News from the Farm | February 24, 2014

February 24, 2014

Signs of Spring!

Everywhere we look, Spring seems to be popping up!

photo 1We had the most beautiful baby pigs born at the farm last thursday. Our sow, Candy, was bred with a wild boar so the piglets were born with a wide array of colors and markings. They are as fast as can be, and some have almost doubled in weight since their birth!  [Read more…]

News From the Farm | May 13, 2013

May 13, 2013

Our crops are all a bit ahead of usual for early May. Here you can see that our first planting of sweet corn is already knee-high and growing fast.

corn

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News From the Farm | April 22, 2013

April 22, 2013

It might be time for a spring report on the activities that occupy our Full Belly days. The early year has been marked by both a lack of precipitation and warm weather that has had some significant impacts. We can attribute our abundant fruit set to the fact that with so little rain, there was less disease pressure on the fruit bloom. Peaches, plums, apricots, almonds and even early figs have passed the period of frost danger and we appear to be headed for a good fruit season.  Early tomatoes, corn and summer crops are on a timeline to come by mid-June and fill out our normal June doldrums when we usually finish our spring greens and await the summer crop push. 

The first spring potatoes will appear next week. Planted on our Valentines Day target date, beautiful lush potato growth has been accelerated by the mild days. In a couple of months we should have fresh potatoes. We are working to keep up with weeding, cultivating and the pest management that warm springs bring.  Aphids are difficult to control and it appears to be a banner year. We apologize if you found aphids in your produce and we are working to get the little buggers under control. Many of the fields have lines of flowering alyssum planted with the crops. Its white flowers attract beneficial insects that offer a counter army to go after the aphids. Lacewings, big eyed bugs, ladybugs and their offspring – aphid lions – offer some help, but are slower to build their numbers. The alyssum flowers offer these insect friends the pollen and nectar they need to settle in and start a family. We are working to get the timing right on our plantings and develop strategies to get the beneficials into the field sooner.

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News From the Farm | March 18, 2013

March 18, 2013

Saturday March 16 was a banner day at Full Belly Farm: one of the earliest days in recent years that we were able to plant our first tomatoes. A crew of 8 carefully transplanted the tomatoes from their warm safe spot in the greenhouse out into open fields. ‘Open fields’ except for the fact that the beds that the tomatoes went into were carefully covered with black plastic to warm up the soil, and also, were covered with a special cloth to protect them from cold night temperatures.

The wonderful warm, dry weather that we have been enjoying is a mixed blessing when it comes this early in the spring. The dry spell started back in the winter when it should have been raining and because it hasn’t rained in so long, we have been able to get a lot of work done very efficiently – planting, weeding, and mowing the orchards!  But we’ve also got the irrigation going already, trying to get water out to all the thirsty greens and cool-weather crops.

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