This week brings a return of some rain and winter, and after some tenuous work in the sunny field last week, we’re delighted to welcome the precipitation! This year, we’ve expanded our fields on the farm and added young new crops. Working in a new vegetable plot is a somewhat confusing experience that demands a ride down Crop Memory Lane to recall what’s it’s like to work with soil that is less fertile than the one we know after years of organic cultivation. The drainage in the new plots is still deceiving, and at times can suddenly wash away some of the soil. The plot is not pliable and ventilated all the way down, unlike those where we’ve added compost each season and inserted parts of plants to be composted at the end of the seasons over many years of organic farming.
Which is why in the new plots, the growth is not as uniform and successful as we are accustomed to in the veteran plots: in some places, vegetables grow vigorous and healthy in one part of the plot, while right next door everything is stuck, hardly budging at all. We keep reminding ourselves that new plots are like that, and we shouldn’t be concerned because in the end, time, compost and organic cultivation do their thing.