Winter's Edge

Last Saturday, when the temperatures reached the high fifties, I made it a mission to get to the Beach Farm. I hadn't been in three months. The snow was still high in spots, bare ground in others. It was fun to think of how the wind and rain and objects colluded to mold the snow that had fallen.

Here, snow over a foot deep, sits in layers, a story of our winter's weather, a glacier on the rise.

And everywhere signs of November-planted garlic.

In the cool blue shadows, Allium sativum.

Where the sun has done its work, early garlic is proud.

Scanning the mounds and valleys, a pattern emerges.

Everywhere, garlic surmounts the crunchy snow.

 Upon quick inspection the crocus looked so neat, so orderly. Why?

Huh? Frost bitten? No.

Rabbits! Trimmed every set of leaves to the exact same height. Never even gave it any thought, the little buggers. Crocus sativus, tasty to rabbits with little to eat in the cold of winter. Good for rabbits, but not so much for next autumn's saffron.

Crocus Minus

Not so much saffron this season. Why? Maybe because I moved them from the farm in Amagansett. I also missed a number of the blooms because I couldn't make it to the beach farm. It's ok, next year.

These threads came from the blooms I was able to harvest. Looking forward to using them, but how?

Field Hands

The farm is at the beginning of full summer swing. All around tomatoes and peppers and eggplant are being planted, tractors are buzzing, and I well believe that there is an implement that vacuums up Colorado Potato Beetles. It has been running nonstop. We have been knocking ours into a cup.

The farm isn't much to look at these days. My white clover has become a central strip of billowing mounds of green. Crabgrass is the predominate weed, particularly at the base of each garlic plant. Meanwhile, Smartweed, Lambsquarters, Dogbane, Sorrel, and a variety of unknown grasses grow an inch an hour.

The peas are high, tasty, abundant. We eat what we can.

I was able to finagle a tractor to disc the cut rye and field pea cover crop. It must be done again, but I was happy to get this project moving. This is the field that will be planted in November and I am determined to have it in better shape than the current field. I picked up an additional twenty bags of lime (for a total of sixty 40lb bags) which I hope to get spread this week. Finally, I also picked up my order of 50 pounds Buckwheat seed, which I also hope to get in this week. The Buckwheat will be turned in August.

Betsy has not been to the farm and probably for good reason. When she does come by there will be much weeding to do. I did the general clearing and soil loosening with our small, sharp hoe and she followed with hands and knees. It takes two people about one hour to clear each forty by three foot row. The work is tedious, yet I cannot be too sure at what point you can let the weeds go. If the garlic will be harvested within 10 days and the weeds are below six inches, I leave them, otherwise they must be pulled. Visiting one day a week from mid May through June is hardly enough to keep a field this size weeded. There will need to be a new weeding paradigm next season.

 My farming neighbor brought a flame weeder. While it didn't seem all that productive for row crops, it did make some sense for the rapidly filling Saffron bed. The Crocus are dormant, so I could flame the weeds without harming (I hope) the corms under the ground. The weeds were do moist from all the rain we had been having that torching the row took longer than I thought. Not only that, it appears to me the grasses will be right back in a week or so. Ultimately, flame weeding does not appear to be a productive weeding practice.

Ocean side gin and tonics in classy plastic cups after a long days work completely justified.

Now that the weeding is done we move onto harvesting over the next three weeks. We've already harvested the Turban and Asiatic varieties. The shallots are completely ready and have been for at least a week (I was waiting for them to lodge -it never happened). They will be harvested this coming Thursday or Friday.  After those will be the Artichoke strains.

Rain Date

This post describes my June sixth trip to the garlic farm in anticipation of the heavy rains from Tropical Storm Andrea.

I went to Agway to pick up another load of lime and to place my buckwheat order, changing my normal path to route 24 through Flanders. Long Island's famous Big Duck was moved along this road sometime during my adult life, but I remember it moving several times since I was a kid. Long Island was known for potatoes and duck farms, two industries not as common around here these days. Our duck was built in the 1930s and its moniker became architectural terminology to those in the field -a building in the shape of its product is known as a 'duck.'

The trees in the area have finally come into their summer greens and the field grass is just beginning to reach upwards.

The crop  is looking a little better than weeks prior, a general greening up, with the Silverskin strain showing the most improvement. I do not know if this is because I fed them with a calcium-magnesium and Fertrell 3 mix, because it was warming up and drying out, or all of the above. However, the Turban and Asiatic strains generally look poor, making it difficult to identify when to harvest. They are browning down now, but the bulbs are not up to size, nor have fully developed cloves. Given the proximity to harvest, the coming rains will not be all that welcome.

This is the saffron crocus, from green to brown in a month's time. Soon the weeds will completely conceal the crocus and I have no time to hand and knee this plot. These crocus require dry, or at best well-drained, summers and they are not going to get that here. I made this choice when I was under the impression that the Trust would rent Hudson Clove land on the North Fork where there is quick-draining sandy soil. The soil here, Bridgehampton Silt Loam, is a nearly powder fine silt loam that holds water moderately well if not nearly as much as clay. I think for the crocus to survive, I will need to affect the soil drainage significantly. I will also look into digging them up for summer storage and then replanting in late September.

Working a field requires the skill of observation. I have that in droves, but I'm now trained on signs of standing water like never before. Earlier on I had seen indications of moving water, puddles in walking rows, and the tell-tale smoothing of soil where water had stood. In other words, I had seen the micro, the after-effects, but not the big picture, the macro. It wasn't until Cornell had suggested soggy soil as a factor in my unhealthy garlic that I began to notice how thin the cover cropping was adjacent my center rows. The low weed count in this area became another obvious indicator of standing water. Then the contour of the land revealed itself as a pronounced 'bowl'. A new problem, or rather an old one, that now needs to be addressed.

Knowing that rain was on its way, and being early June, I pestered my farming neighbor to mow the cover crops planted last December. The grass was going to seed and the peas were in flower. We were probably a week or two late on this, but it is easy to lose focus when so much else needs to be done. Apparently this pea cover should be mowed down by late May because that is when it has fixed the most nitrogen in the soil. As for the rye, just cut it before it sets seed for added organic matter. Sometime next week, my neighbor will disc it in.

This was the radar while we were out in the field. Hudson Clove's first season on Long Island was book-ended by two tropical storms -Sandy at the start and Andrea toward the finish. How rare on both ends.

I wrapped it up a little earlier than usual, although only ten rows were weeded, as the rain clouds approached. I left before dark.

Sunday Farmer

Last Sunday I made my March trip out to the farm. I restrict these trips, costly as they are in time and gas dollars, and I would go more often if it were, say, outside my back door. This trip was necessary because there was work to be done, it was a beautiful day and the farm can be restorative.

My first task, a task that could have been accomplished on my last visit were I ready for the work, was to hoe a 6 x 120 foot row between the beds. This is a utility path and I have no desire to keep it bare soil. I was dreading the physical labor, but my new soil rake made short work of it -I finished in 20 minutes!

After leveling with an ordinary rake, I used a hand-held spreader to distribute White Dutch Clover, Trifolium repens. Won't grow too high, adds nitrogen, can tolerate foot and vehicular traffic. Go go clover cover crop.

Afterward, I inspected the rows more closely. The Saffron Crocus, Crocus sativus, appears to be doing quite well despite its already sprouting, two months late planting. There will be locally grown saffron come autumn.

If you are a regular reader, it's no surprise to hear from me that wind is one of the biggest challenges to growing near the ocean. The evidence laid bare on my rows, the prevailing winter wind's direction is marked on the soil by northwest to southeast striations.

But! What's this pale emergence? None other than December's very late planted cover crop on my other 60 percent. With luck this cover should be vigorous and dark green before June. Then we'll till it under to plant summer's cover.

My last visit, during the bluster of February, revealed much freeze burn on the eagerly growing Turban strains, but they are beginning to look better. Above is Thai Purple, with a good amount of raw heat, an early harvest and one of the earliest cured garlic strains to market.

Here we have Burgundy, one of three Creole strains I am growing this season. I'm expecting much from this strain -attractive crimson skins, sweet, and a very long shelf life, nearly as long as the Silver Skin strains. 

The smartest garlic I have in the field -Italian Purple, a Rocambole strain. I got my seed from Keith Stewart of Union Square Greenmarket fame, so these are the most local, most acclimated of any seed garlic I have planted. Despite its cold-weather intelligence, these have had quite a bit of late season heaving. In the photo you will see two phenomena -the cracked soil at the back and the soil lump just under the emergent leaf. To my mind this is the evidence of frost heaving of the planted cloves, not the other explanation, which was rapidly growing roots pushing the lightweight clove toward the surface. All my cloves were planted at least two inches below the soil line, yet many are now at or above the soil line. It's a big problem, and it can't happen again. Next season's planting requires much deeper tilling and planting in this soil. No cloves forced their way to the surface in last season's upstate farm.

Alfalfa meal has become this season's source for nitrogen and organic matter, both of which are lacking in my field. The cost of shipping blood meal and goose-eaten corn gluten meal had me resist both of these nitrogen-rich fertilizers. I need four times as much alfalfa meal as the two others (3 % vs. 12% available nitrogen), but Agway ordered it for me at $22 per 50lb sack and no shipping costs, which combined made it competitive with blood meal, with the added benefit of alfalfa's organic matter. 

Alfalfa meal is dusty, like most fertilizers, so you want to wear a mask if you're pouring a lot. All fertilizers have peculiar odors, but this one smells like a clean horse stall, which in my book ain't all that bad. The down side to alfalfa meal is the increase in quantity needing to be spread. There'll be four times as much spreading as corn or blood.

Into the hopper of my five dollar, used, elderly, Earthway drop spreader. A better deal there has never been. The rows were spaced such that I could walk the spreader over two rows at a time, although I may just make a spreader good for a four rows at a time, sometime down the line. Alfalfa's light weight and consistency make it easy going in a drop spreader, but I don't think I would try it in a broadcaster (lawn people know what I'm talking about).

Something about the alfalfa brought out the bees.

I made several passes over each row until I used 150 pounds on the entire plot. Given the wind and other concerns, I couldn't just leave the meal sitting on top of the soil. Tedious, yes, but I passed over each row of garlic with a leaf rake to stir up the soil and provide lodging for blown fertilizer. I also timed the spreading to be just before the coming rain, which came the next morning and not long after the wind had died down. 

I have another 150 pounds to spread before early May, considerably more difficult as the leaves will be much taller than the axle of my spreader. I don't like scraping the soil with the rake either. This must be given more thought for next season. In fact, I have a gallon of kelp and another of fish to spread with a pump sprayer and that may be the best way to go during the active growing season.

Preparing to leave, I headed to the van, blindly walking into a cloud of midges. You do know that nothing says spring like a swarm of mating midges, don't you?

The Sophomore

I made my way out to the farm Monday morning to collect 300 pounds of alfalfa meal from the Riverhead Agway. They had expected me two weeks prior, but given the nature of the storm, Nemo, I declined. Rounding Quail Hill Farm near 10 am, I was greeted by a road block. A massive snow-blowing truck was throwing snow 50 feet to the south. After ten minutes, I was tempted to run the van over the farm road, but I didn't, probably wisely.

After a potholed, rutted journey over a road that could only have been devised to keep traffic out, I made it around to the private road. It's a road to grandiose, stony facade and column, poolhouse and pond, and I parked because farmer has me feeling more entitled than artist ever has. 

Blocking the road, yes, but wouldn't a friendly farmer's wave do, a wave from he who toils on the land, provides the stony facade and column a vision of the pastoral, reassures him and her that agriculture is not peasantry, but all the more pleasantry? So, yes, I parked on the private road, and from here a simple wave to just over there could rouse me to unblock their passage. But then nothing much came of it.

The farm road was covered in snow of variable depth, impassable by minivan or rather the promise of digging out was just as great an impasse, so that I hiked in.

Easy enough on old snow, frozen then melted, rained on and refrozen, now crusty.

Enter the farm from the eastern gate and we first notice the saffron patch, which I thought appeared remarkably sound given recent weather. A surprising amount of growth put on since the studio-bound sprouting, early November planting, and December flowering - a full two months late.

This hardly looks like a farm in winter, but a farm in drought. The decision not to mulch was a difficult one, born of cost and wind. I still cannot determine a mulch that will stay put in the face of so much daily scouring.

If you look closely at the field, orderly, pale greenery emerges. Bare soil warms rapidly under the strong February sun. A month ago most rows had no emergence, but the warmth of just a few days last week and the bare soil have given the eager varieties (notably the soft-stemmed and variable hard-stemmed varieties) the signal to push up. Rocambole, Pocelain, and Purple Stripe varieties appear to have the will to stay put, a botanical mind for the mild bipolarity of winter. This wasn't an issue in the cold zone farming upstate, but as my experience at the beach farm bore out last season, Long Island's coastal warming contributes to the early growth. But it's just that warming that allows us to grow every variety. All I can do is prepare better next season, plant a little deeper, and be mindful of the higher amplitude climate patterns offered by the warming arctic.

I had hoped that all the snow of the last month would provide a protective blanket for the crop, but the heavy winds removed most of the snow just as quickly as it had accumulated. In fact, the reason for the road closure was that much of the snow that had fallen two days prior to my visit had blown off the fields and onto the road.

The most eager growth belongs to the Turban variety. Above, to the right, is the strain 'Thai Purple' and to the left is 'Tuscan.' Several 'Tuscan' had begun to sprout before planting time, recalling now how planting was delayed by lease issues and our tropical friend Sandy.

During Long Island winters like the kind we've been having for years now, temperatures rarely dip below twenty degrees F, especially this close to the ocean. Extreme jet stream events brought extraordinary cold to the region this January, delivering occasional nights with single digit temperatures, fierce winds and damage to the eager strains. While garlic is a tough plant, energy will be lost to regrowth and stress will create opportunity for disease.

Another problem has been heaved cloves. By a long shot, not nearly as much as the other farmers' garlic, but enough to make me pissy. Every clove lost to something like this is a bulb lost to market. Pulling them out is incredibly tough, made all the harder by frozen soil just below the sun-warmed surface. The first dozen or so came up in January, while the soil was still soft as recently tilled, and those were tough to remove, their roots so firmly embedded in the ground. This visit, a month later, revealed another dozen or so. I'm not completely convinced that this is caused by rapid, intense root growth pushing the clove two, three or four inches up above ground. Maybe it's frost heave, given the moisture, the freeze thaw, the patterned cracks in the beds. Next year there will be deeper tilling, deeper planting, bed firming, and possibly some mulch because this problem is unacceptable.

To the left of the signs you see rows of minor hills running perpendicular to the garlic beds. This was the cover crop planted in December, back when warmer days seemed the norm. Nothing has sprouted there, and honestly I have no idea if it should. A cover crop in winter could help with another vexing problem.

The soil conservationist's nightmare. The snow that remains puts in stark relief all the blowing farm soil. If it weren't for this display, an untrained eye would hardly realize that any soil was being lost to the wind. I don't like it, not one bit. I have winter clover to plant around March one for my main walking row, an area roughly 1200 square feet. I have no equipment to roughen the soil compacted by our feet, nothing but a new, five pound, six-inch rake to break the soil. That will be a long day.

From here, my whole acre, the larger parcel intended for next year's crop. Despite crankiness about my sophomoric missteps and a blustery, incessant wind, I thoroughly enjoyed walking the rows. Spring approaches, and early summer's work beyond understanding, winter's rest and the warm, strengthening sun are solace.

As I hiked out, down the curving road toward the wood and van parked on the private road, the sun behind me lit the trees brilliantly. These trees on the south prong of Long Island's fork glow in the sun and are toned evenly under clouds. They are unlike any I've seen. The species, yes -white oak, aspen, beech, but the brilliance of the bark across species appears different here and I wonder if it has to do with the lichen and the ocean.

Snow For The Farm

The minor snow that has fallen on eastern Long Island will be helpful at the farm during the colder days and nights ahead. The turban varieties, ever eager to grow, were the first to sprout in early December and will benefit from a layer of insulating snow. The rest still underground, but not too deeply thanks to light soil and vigorous root growth, will also benefit from the 32 degree blanket. It wouldn't take much time to bring freezing temperatures several inches below ground with several days of hard freezing temperatures and no snow cover. Garlic is tough, however, and regularly survives much lower than the twenties and teens. Although, surviving it isn't exactly needing it, so I'll take the snow.

December Farms

Two Sundays back I threw business to the wind. I drove out to the farm, I spent the money, I saw what's what. The radar told me that, despite the clouds, rain would be limited at most, and the thermometer was nothing less than a balm. I was concerned about weather stations reporting a lack of rain; less than a 1/16th in over a month. I was troubled by my inaction as it came to mulching the rows. I had little purpose, but a desire to get out to the farm.

It had rained, and by my unofficial gauge (a mixing pail) it had rained nearly an inch. I was quite surprised by the puddles in the walking rows, too, as it reveals a soil less porous than expected. The tilled beds were quite well drained, however, and I will work to keep water moving in the wet rows.

My single bale of straw, provided gratis by Larry of J&L Nursery, had since Black Friday to prove its field worthiness. It failed. Light to moderate winds had scattered sixty percent of the straw. On my way out to the farm, I stopped at a roadside nursery, now briskly selling trees and wreaths, but had been scouted for straw bales in early October. I decided not to purchase any, as they appeared quite seedy, some sprouting grass, and the evidence in the field left me feeling vindicated.

Several 'Tuscan' bulbs had sprouted above soil. This isn't a surprise. Some were sprouting at planting time, one month ago, so they've just continued on given the mild temperatures. I worry that we'll have another winter like the last, a winter where cold tolerant plants simply continue to grow, then get shocked by sudden dips to 20 degrees. This farm location favors the warm-tolerant garlic varieties -Turban, Creole, Silverskin, Artichoke, yet I do hope we find a balanced winter, with enough freezing air masses moving over the area to treat the other varieties to some cold. My prediction? It's unlikely.

I had planted the French Grey shallots first, in early November. I checked them several times since, and was quite surprised to see a number of them poking out of the ground, including this one -completely out. Shallots are planted shallowly so that their tips align with the soil surface. Many had risen to half or more an inch above the soil. What was going on? A nosy fox or crow? Geese? I saw little in the way of foot prints. I walked the rows to ensure that each had enough soil to cover them.

Afterward, I took to my neighbor's field where I had witnessed him planting a crop of garlic the weekend before Thanksgiving. Many of his planted garlic were up above the soil line, as if planted carelessly. I wondered what had happened here -giant white cloves lay sideways along each row.

I had hoped, but was one week too late, that I would be able to cut some saffron to take home. Benefiting from the warm and moist days, Crocus sativus has had time to sprout leaves and grow roots despite having sprouted in the studio before setting roots in soil. This forty foot row of three hundred will be uprooted late next summer and replanted in a new location, all part of the circumstance of a small acre and required cover cropping.

After lunch, I had little left to do, but attach a few of my remaining row markers. I took advantage of this gracious lull by walking the acreage -something I had been timid about previously, but then, I was also so busy planting. The blue pipes are new, our future irrigation system, and I followed them across the acres. I was lucky- my acre cornered at one of these heads. 

There was much to see in the other farmer's fields -cover crops like oats, greens and kale, brussels and cabbages. My favorite were the corpses of gourds, shattered and filled with rain water.

My journey terminated here, where black compost met a new cover crop. As I approached the compost piles, a tractor made its way over to me. It was Scott, the farmer (and writer -new book just out) who manages the adjacent farm. We chatted about this and that, particularly the problem with his garlic. What's that? Whole rows of garlic have popped up from the soil? Apparently the roots grew so vigorously over the last month, with the soil dry and loose, that those roots pushed the lightweight cloves right out of the soil! 

I was lucky though, wasn't I, for planting more deeply than most. Only my shallow-planted shallots had come up. It's wise to roll the beds (if one has that equipment) so that it uniformly firms the soil over the clove. I do not have this equipment, and hope that my garlic stays put! It may be a while, too long really, before my next visit to the farm in late January.

Surprise

Crocus sativus. They sprouted in the studio. I didn't know if it was flower or leaf that was shooting every which way from each corm. They were the first crop planted when I arrived two weeks ago to begin working the farm.

Beautiful. A nice surprise.

Now, why didn't I harvest the saffron?