Category Archives: victory garden

It Gets Better

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I have been receiving an overwhelming response to the blog as of late, which is nice.  I’ve kept it for three years or so now and it has always done ok, but like I said, lately, WOW.  Thanks!  I just approved a comment this morning from a reader in India, complimenting me on my herbs and such.  This person also keeps a blog so I clicked on it.  If you want to see some stunning imagery, you should check out this link to Jugnoo farms.

In other news, we received two extra WWOOF’ers yesterday, Shannon and Alex from York Pennsylvania.  They are only staying through today and leaving tomorrow morning.  They arrived about 5pm yesterday, just enough time to take the tour and get ready for dinner.  We all shared a lovely meal of soup and salad under the moon.  The weather was just perfect for dinning outside.  Our WWOOF’er Jason, from Brooklyn, surprised us all by making a lovely salad dressing.  I was surprised because he doesn’t say much, so it was pleasant that he made it and like Santa Claus in the night this present was left on the dinner table.  Thank you Jason.

A Photo Essay

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There has been so much tat has happened, so, I’m posting pictures…Come visit! I need more volunteers!

January-ish, possibly early February, greenhouse and gorilla(s).

Snow and freezing temps outside, almost 70 inside AND it’s not even insulated yet!

Inside Hoop house, snow on the ground outside.

See.

Lettuce on the inside.

A team of tree cutters came through and cut down a bunch of trees lining the driveway because they interfered with the power lines.  This is a group of neighbors helping to clean up the mess that the tree guys left.

Back side of the greenhouse.

Paul and intern Johnathon putting up a gutter on the hen house to catch water for them to drink.

Rose, the first place volunteer in our ever-expanding group of volunteers and Grace, one of our latest WWOOFers getting rid of the lettuce in the hoop.

Courtney, WWOOFer #2, keeping it real, building potato beds in Carharts.  And to all of my Humboldt homies, she’s wearing a “Drive thru Tree” hat from Leggett California.

Johnathon, Grace, Courtney, Amanda making potato beds.

Courtney and Grace stayed for a month volunteering for us.

Stuccoing the Greenhouse was part of the agenda.

Ike took this picture.

 

Lettuce out, potatoes in.

Plantin’ ain’t easy.

MORE POTATOES!!!!

John and another guy, I don’t know his name.  But, he came for a day to volunteer.

Tractor came to plow it up.

MORE POTATOES!

Zack.  Says he’s “WWOOFing”, but I’m not so sure.  He has a strong back, but if he could only get up before 2.

More tractor action.

This is Courtney and I getting ready for 26 high school students to come and volunteer.  We’re straight up bustin’.

These students were from all of the area high schools.  They are a part of a program called “Upward Bound”.  Their supervisors found our farm through a volunteer list serve via the University of Arkansas.  I was worried that these kids wouldn’t be into it, but was pleasantly surprised at how into it they were.

So we are turning over the dirt that the tractor plowed, to get rid of the grass and roots.

I gave them a greenhouse tour.  See the girl in the blue?  She was the only one who was not into this farming thing.  She picked at the same clump of roots for two hours.  It’s cool girl, that’s why you’re in that program…you’re a somebody who has options.  Farming isn’t for everybody.

We had them plant potatoes too.  We have about 2000 sq. ft. planted.

The girl with the sunglasses on told us her sister was “impregnated”.  It was random, and funny, but that’s Arkansas for you.

This patch was tilled up to eventually plant sweet potatoes but for now, it will be an irish potato patch…because the theme of this photo essay is POTATO.

This is Alyssa, she visited us from Ohio for her spring break.

Here’s a better picture of Alyssa.  Thanks for your help girl, it was fun having you.

Here’s some community garden action happening.  The group dug a trench and is laying pipe for water spigots throughout the garden.

GO TEAM!

And this was this morning, when Grace and Courtney were leaving.  They are off to Texas, continuing their farm tour of America, and we are keeping on here on the farm.  Best of luck Ladies, you were an awesome help!

 

Again…2010 Workshops

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Click on this to view our upcoming 2010 workshops!

The Farm will be hosting a series of workshops that are all coming up for the Fall season.  You don’t have to live here in Northwest Arkansas to attend.  Tell your friends!

OA workshop flyer

WWOOF

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Paul signed our farm up with an organization called: World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, or WWOOF.  I added the link on the side of the page so you can check out the details.  Today, Paul i going to pick up our first WWOOF volunteer, Franchy.  Should be interesting.  He will work 4-5 hours a day for us, which if it works out will be HUGE!  There is so much going on right now.  Even though we have had the most awesome volunteer base, there are still chores to be done.  With our shift in focus to planting fall crops, there is the issue of pulling out summer crops and prepping those spaces for planting.  It is such hard work, I thank my volunteers with my whole heart.  And I have a mess of chores for you come tomorrow.  Please check out the WWOOF link, it’s a really great organization.  I first read about it in Mother Earth News, then was told about it again by a young woman in the organic gardening club on campus.  Now, a bite, Franchy will be here today.  It’s exciting.

Excuse me, where are my manners

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We have had a wave of exceptional help lately that has been a positive force in this whole circus.  I can say “Thank you” until I’m blue in the face at them, I still don’t think it would do justice to the amount of appreciation that Paul and I have.  Thank you again though, for good measure.

Everybody, meet Rose.

She has been a tremendous help for us these past few weeks.

This particular day we harvested the seeds from my spring cilantro and seeded a new bed with them.

Everybody, meet Beth.

Also a big help.  Beth is interning on the farm.

Everybody, meet our county fair Grand Champion!

Everybody, meet our first place winner!

Now in this picture are more volunteers, Jason and Jen.  I don’t have better pictures of them, sorry Jen and Jason.  They too are a great help.  This is a picture of the work party today.

Community Garden shots and Beyond

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During the dry spell, I also took photos of the state of the Community Garden and our North beds.

Entry, south side.

Path, overgrown, but still there.  These next pictures are examples of what’s going on in the community garden as of two weeks ago, give or take a few days.  These examples show the effects of the heat and the lack of water.

Our neighbor Cliff planted Zinnias amongst his tomatoes, they were beautiful.  Even in this “on the way out” thing they had going on.

These next pictures are of the North beds.

Arkansas Travelers.

Weepy Okra.

Overgrown, dead, raspberries.

Cherry tomatoes.

“Rachel” peppers.

Watermelons, that never got any water.

Example of the heat.  Dead grass.

Cherokee Purples.

Brandywine, heirloom.

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