AH SPRING! A time of growth and birth. A time for waking up and coming alive! What a beautiful time of year!! Right???
If this is you… high five honey because our “spring prepping” is more like growing pains and labor! I mean…these…. ah… “opportunities for growth” are wonderful and I…love..them. Keep reading for a few laughs, maybe a bit of “me too” comfort (if you’ve ever gone through something similar) and a lot of hope for your future farming endeavors!
LOVE THY NEIGHBOR
Our first adventure this spring was working with a neighboring farmer! This particular farmer planted soybeans last year which need to dry to a certain water weight before they can be harvested. We waited, and waited, and waited for him to harvest, the end of his contract came… and went…. and still we waited. We watched the beans dry and told him when they were dry enough to harvest, but still we waited. You guys, we waited so long we actually BOUGHT an acre of soybeans from the man just so we could start prepping the land! We should have been prepping in November… we got the land in January. Praise and raise! So, as Jeff Foxworthy might say: If you’ve ever been on the raw end of a bad neighbor and come through the other side with your christianity still in-tact… you MIGHT be a farmer!
PRO TIP #1: Give good measure. This guy was really being persnickity and it would have been easy to write him off, or tell him off, or both, but we are christian farmers! So put the extra pound in the customer’s bag, put the extra head of lettuce in the CSA, and always remember to love each other– it’s what #farmwithpurpose is all about!
TRACTOR LOVE
I am a firm believer in a “no debt” kind of business starting, but sometimes that mentality comes with a lot of trouble shooting! For example, we run a 165 Massey Ferguson tractor my daddy’s daddy bought used sometime in BC 47.
It’s a root tootin booger when it wants to be, but if you sweet talk just right he’ll run fer ya fine! But some days it just decides that no amount of lovin’ is going to make it’s spark plugs fizzle, so on that day we ended up having to rent a tractor from our local Mahindra dealer to get the soil tilled in for spring. If you follow me on Instagram (thewildberryfarmtn) you’ll have seen why I ended up being the one to plow the field that day (and why I was NOT the woman for the job) but long story short… I drove… it broke… I was saved by my amazing husband who finished the tilling at 7 PM. (Thank you GOD for my wonderful man!)
PRO TIP #2: If you’re in a pinch and need equipment for the day, check out your local tractor dealers and ask to “demo” a particular item. This is a good way to get some work done, try equipment out, and see what items you may need for your farm all at once, without breaking the bank!
TARP IT UP
So, the soybeans were off the land, the ground was tilled up and we were finally, FINALLY ready to throw tarps down and get going!
The “tarps” are actually 24′ X 100′ plastic sheets, white on one side and black on the other. The concept is to lay these tarps black side up on moist soil about a month before you want to plant. The moisture and heat will make any weed seeds germinate and then they will smother under the hot tarps with no sunlight. Great idea… bad day to do it! With a storm blowing in and a wind tunnel at our backs we might as well have opened a redneck parasailing adventure…. it would have been more successful than laying tarps down, that’s for sure! Seventy five 30-pound sand bags, 2 hours, and a few cramping muscles later we had laid TWO– count them– TWO of the six tarps that needed to go down. At that point the baby got up and I used it as a good enough excuse to call it a day.
PRO TIP #3: If you are laying tarps on a particularly windy day, DON’T! But if you do… Just DON’T okay… Just DON’T.
Stay tuned for updates on how the tarps actually do with weed suppression!
At the end of the day, we caught a few bumps… ah “opportunities for growth” in the road but it’s like my dad keeps telling me: Hon, that’s farming! So, enjoy the spring-time adventures and as always:
Grow to Live: Farm with Purpose
The Wild Berry Farm 