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May Farm Tour Photos / Farm Work Day Info

December 2, 2007

Herb Garden in the Making

Herb Garden in the Making
5 December 2007

My brother Freeman put on his farmer hat just long enough to order five different types of herb plants and pick a spot next to the house that could be transformed into a good place to plant them. He ordered rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano and peppermint; which showed up last week.

Next to the barn there was a slightly abandon orchard of old apricot and plum trees which seemed like a good place to plant them. Ricardo and two of his guys pulled out the old trees with the tractor and moved them to a big pile where they will get cut into firewood. Ricardo then brought in his Caterpillar tractor and completed two passes with the stubble disk, ripped the soil eighteen inches deep with the ripper then completed two passes with the finishing disk.

It is amazing how the combination of metal, equipment and diesel fuel can change the state of ground. When he started the ground was so hard you couldn’t dig a hole with a shovel eighteen inches deep without blistering your hands and now you could do it with a trowel. Before the tractor work the clods were the size of soccer balls now they are the size of marbles. I wonder how many hours of work it would take humans to complete that same job with hand tools. It is baffling to me than in most countries it would be cheaper to complete that job with a crew of people than it would to complete it with the equipment we used. This is the difference between a capitol rich economy compared to a labor rich economy.

The last step was to pull in the new beds and now the ground is ready to receive the little herb transplants. Hopefully by next spring the garden will be large enough so that every box will contain a mixture of some fresh herbs. There are still a few details between now and then, like setting up and irrigation system and being ready to send hand crews through on a regular basis to clean up the weeds that will invade the little plants. Once the little plants get more established they will be better competition with the weeds and the main focus of the garden will be to harvest it – which is always the most fun part.

It is not common that in December the ground is still dry enough to be able to get tractor work done, but that is what this year has been. The cold weather is moving in, it has been freezing at night leaving a thick layer of frost on all the plants in the morning. This is what kills most summer crops but winter crops are able to handle it. The one problem with the frost is that you cannot harvest any greens when they have ice on them because they turn black and wilt within the day. So the crews have been waiting until all the ice melts from the plants before harvesting, which has been at about 9 am.

Enjoy your boxes this week - Thaddeus

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