Beardsley Community Farm

Farm Fest Photos!

2008-05-15T13:11:00.000-07:00

Thanks so much to Tracy Jackson for taking these wonderful photos!

Cedar Bluff class visits

2008-05-14T06:49:00.000-07:00

We've been so busy over here are Beardsley Farm that we've completely fallen behind on our blogging! In the next few posts, we're going to catch you up on what's been happening at the farm.

First order of business: Cedar Bluff field trips. We had a whirlwind of first and second grade classes at the farm two weeks ago! Every day for a week, we had two classes come out to the farm with their teachers and parents. We split the classes up into groups, and gave each group a very fun day!

First, Ben read How Groundhog's Garden Grew by Lynne Cherry. The book is filled with beautiful illustrations and is very informative and helpful for young gardeners. After the story everyone learned about pollination and took a look at some of our perennial berry patches (strawberry, blueberry, blackberries and raspberries). They talked about our honey bees and the transformation of a flower into a fruit or vegetable.

Next, Frank gave a dazzling farm tour, telling the children about the farm's water catchment system and our composting operation. Each kid got to feel and smell a handful of compost, and we talked about how worms and microscopic organisms help make rich soil. Frank explained that harvesting rainwater and making our own compost are sustainable ways to grow food. Then everyone got to see our vegetable beds. They discussed the difference between root vegetables and leafy vegetables. Every group of children contained someone who could positively identify spinach!

Last, Marie talked about things you find on a farm and showed the kids the chicken run. The kids then got to feed the chickens ryegrass and weeds. Although the chickens got a little overwhelmed with all the newfound attention, the kids definitely had a good time chasing and petting them. Then, Beth showed the kids the chicken coop. Everyone was quick to notice the newly-laid eggs and the stinky stench of the coop. It's a good thing they learned about how good chicken poop is for compost! They also got to see our pond and watch the bees get some water.

After that, the classes went to eat lunch in Malcolm Martin Park. Everyone had a lovely time at the farm, and many children got to learn about brand new ways to become environmental stewards. It was quite a success!

Quick post-Farm Fest check-in

2008-05-12T07:46:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody,

Wow, Farm Fest 2008 was a fantastic success. We had over 250 visitors to the farm! There was beautiful artwork from local vendors, lovely music and delicious food. Also, Frank gave a fantastic farm tour and lots of people won prizes in our raffle and silent auction (We've made phone calls to those winners--don't forget to pick up your prizes!). The children's games were a hit too--kids were having a ball getting their face painted and making seed art. Thank you to everyone who helped out at the event, everyone who donated and everyone who participated in Farm Fest! You all made this the most successful Farm Fest ever. We hope you had as much fun on the farm as we do every day. We'll post pictures of the event soon.

If you enjoyed Farm Fest (or if you didn't get to go), come by the farm this Saturday! We're having our Third Saturday Work Day on Saturday May 17th from 10am - 1pm. We'll be working in our butterfly garden, so be sure to wear close-toed shoes. We will provide snacks, but don't forget your water! This will be lots of fun for those who want to learn what we do at Beardsley Farm.

Come by on Saturday, and we'll see you soon!
Beardsley Farm Team

Farm Fest!

2008-05-06T10:36:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

We would like to formally invite you to our biggest event of the year: Farm Fest 2008! The event will be on Saturday, May 10th, 2008 between 10:00am and 2:00pm.

Farm Fest is a chance for you to see the farm and celebrate with us! It is a completely FREE EVENT, so it's guaranteed to be a fun day with your friends and neighbors. We are going to have live music, free food featuring local ingredients (including salad picked right from the farm!), door prizes, children's activities, a silent auction, vendors, farm tours and informational booths. This is a great family activity, so bring your loved ones and come visit the farm!

Check down at the bottom of this page for a map to the farm.

We'll see you on Saturday!
Beardsley Farm Team

We're featured in the Metropulse!

2008-04-18T11:48:00.001-07:00

Hey folks,

Just wanted to remind you to pick up this week's Metropulse. There's a fantastic article on page 24 about Beardsley Community Farm. Here is a link to the full article online:
http://www.metropulse.com/news/2008/apr/16/seeds-change/

We were also featured in the Knoxville Voice's latest issue, but they haven't updated their site yet with our info. Look for the "Green Guide" section and you'll see us.

We're very excited for all the press we're getting, and we hope it'll lead to a great turn-out at our upcoming events. We hope to see tons of community members at our work day tomorrow (4/19) at 10:00am-1pm and also at our annual Farm Fest on May 10th from 10:00am-2pm. Be sure to save the dates!

Beardsley Farm Team

Work continues on the Malcolm Martin Butterfly Garden

2008-03-19T13:12:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, March 18^th, an almost miraculous convergence of good weather, good spirits and volunteer labor led to one of the most productive and enjoyable work days in recent memory. In addition to getting ALL of the paths in the butterfly garden defined, we:

Saw first hand how human strength and cooperation can often be superior to power driven machines
Extended our reach just a bit further into our community
Inspired yet another potential Farm Team member for next year.

I couldn't stop smiling all day long.

The success of the day was welcomed, as many of our recent projects (including our first "official" Third Saturday Work Day) have been scuttled by bad weather. In fact, the day's activity was not exactly planned. The cancellation of our work day by rain left a major project hanging and in need of some reevaluation. The decision to turn our attention to the butterfly garden was only arrived at late on Monday afternoon. The team fully expected at least two days of HARD labor. With more rain threatening for mid week, we were anxious to get as much accomplished on Tuesday as possible.

I arrived at work to find a few of our regular volunteers ready for a long day of work. After a bit of coffee talk we loaded up the barrows with shovels and rakes and headed into the field. The first task was to define paths, which we did with a pointed hoe and spray paint.

While some of us worked on defining paths, others began to pull aside the top soil with rakes and shovels in preparation for the tamper.

A short while later Ben showed up with the tamper. The tool itself is about the size of a walk behind lawn mower. It weighs maybe 150 pounds, most of which is the steel plate which is supposed to compress the earth. The idea is that, once stripped of top soil, the bare red clay would be compressed into a hard, smooth surface suitable for eventual mulching. These measures, it is hoped, should frustrate the encroachment of weeds and growing things into the walking paths. The machine was both a disappointment and an inspiration.

Above we see Ben shaking out an apparent cramp in his hand. The machine is set in place by dragging it to the place you would like to begin. This is a difficult task even when the machine is off. Once started, you let it sit for a minute or so until the area beneath the plate is smooth and hard. To move the machine you have to "walk" it, pulling one side forward, then the other. When you pull, the weight of the machine digs into your fingers and the vibration spreads through your body until your eyeballs literally vibrate making everything in your visual field jitter in a somewhat alarming fashion. After nearly an hour of this, the group as a whole decided that the machine was more trouble than it was worth and that it should be returned before the rental fees mounted any higher.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew was accomplishing great things with shovels and muscle:

The procedure was simple. After most of the top soil was raked from the path, we would take shovels and scrape the remaining layer down to bare clay. We threw, or sometimes wheel barrowed this soil atop the areas we intend to plant. This gives us an even deeper layer of top soil in which to plant the shrubs and flowers that will eventually populate this garden. Once the paths were clear we simply ran and stomped through them. This was nearly as effective and considerably more fun than the tamper.

There was much talk among the crew as we worked about how often we end up serving our machines more than they serve us. It is easy to forget just how much a number of well motivated people, working together, can accomplish. The rest of the day was spent in convivial shared labor.

In about six hours we went from this:

to this:

We would like to thank these people for all their hard work and good spirits. A few of those who helped are not in this picture but they appear above.

One more thing worth mentioning. After we finished cleaning up tools and most of the volunteers left, Ben told me about a conversation he had with one of our neighbors. Apparently a gentleman from the Ridgebrook Homes (which is right behind the farm) stopped to ask what we were up to. Ben told him about the butterfly garden and the overall efforts at park beautification. He got very excited about the potential benefit to the community and asked about volunteering on future projects. One of our biggest challenges has been getting the neighboring community involved. I think our expansion into the park is going to present more opportunities to make organic connections with our neighbors.

And now, here is a little video of some of the crew after a long day of work.

Peace
Frank

Building a new chicken fence

2008-02-27T08:15:00.001-08:00

Poor chickens! They have lived for so long with a sub-par fence, a rotting old piece of chicken wire that is folded over and flimsy. This week, we decided to build our beautiful chickens a whole new fence, complete with a shaded area for the hottest days of summer.

First, we slammed in metal fence posts to define the new border. Then, we attached the fencing to the posts using zip ties. We used pea fencing with approximately 2” holes, which is much sturdier than the chicken wire. Last, we moved the entrance gate so that the little chickens can have some shade. We think they’re really enjoying the addition of approximately two hundred square feet of space.

Compost bin

2008-02-22T08:08:00.000-08:00

Beardsley farm is dedicated to sustainability and renewing our resources. One way we accomplish increased sustainability is by collecting compost from a variety of places around Knoxville. Each week, we collect approximately 25 to 30 five-gallon buckets from The Golden Roast Espresso Café, Tomato Head and La Costa restaurants and the Love Kitchen food pantry. Recently, however, we were feeling overwhelmed with kitchen scraps. We had three existing compost bins, none of which were satisfactory to work with.

One day we were so fed up that we threw our buckets down and used our noggins. We decided to use our grant money to build the most ideal and functional compost bin EVER.

For materials we used composite lumber and carpenters’ cloth (a sturdy metal grid with squares approximately ½ inch in size), as opposed to our old compost bins that use wooden pallets or two by fours and larger metal mesh. Despite its higher cost, the composite lumber is preferable to the wood or pallets because it resists rotting and is practically indestructible.

The entire compost bin is composed of three compartments, each 4’ by 4’. The sides of each bin are lined with the carpenters’ cloth and securely fashioned to the lumber with screws and washers. The carpenters’ cloth allows for increased airflow through the compost bin, which promotes healthy decomposition of the compost. The fronts of each compartment consist of several 4” slats sitting on top of each other. These boards easily slide in and out of a track along the inside edge of the bins, which allows us to gradually fill and empty the bins without disturbing the whole pile.

So far, we have been thoroughly impressed with our craftsmanship! The compost pile is heating up to a temperature of 150 degrees, which means it is decomposing quickly and killing off pathogens and weed seeds that we do not want introduced to the garden.

Building raised beds

2008-02-19T08:01:00.000-08:00

As part of the Rohm and Haas grant we received in January, we are building raised beds all over the farm and community plots. We are going to use a variety of methods, but our first bed was made of composite lumber made from recycled materials. Boy, did the construction take a long time!

The entire process took two weeks, including about a week off due to inclement weather. As our first raised bed, we learned an awful lot about what not to do when building a raised bed. First, we cut and pre-drilled the pieces of lumber (the pre-drilling turned out to be a bad idea). Next, we assembled the end pieces and dug post-holes to insert them into the ground. We decided that, in the future, it’s a better idea to start in the middle and work outward—it’s much easier to deal with miscalculations this way. Using the clay from the holes we dug, we cemented the end posts into place. Then, we briefly attached the sideboards to make sure they fit, and then removed them to dig the post-holes along the sides of the bed. These posts provide support to the sideboards. We had to use a level and a carpenter’s square to make sure that all the posts and boards were level and straight before attaching anything together. Once all the holes were dug, we cemented them into place using the clay and attached the sideboards. Then, we caulked all the gaps in the boards. Last, we filled up the bed with organic material. Hooray!

Zoo Doo

2008-02-06T07:45:00.000-08:00

Beardsley Farm is cultivating a new area of land to turn into a butterfly garden. The final dimensions of the garden will be 60’ by 70’ and the space will also include walking paths, benches and a small pond. Our first step was to till up the ground to make the soil workable. Next we needed to amend the soil by adding organic matter such as compost and manure. These additions provide essential nutrients for the plants’ health.

We contacted the Knoxville Zoo and they agreed to deliver 30 cubic yards of “Zoo doo” to the butterfly garden. The manure is from a variety of herbivorous animals such as elephants and rhinos. The amendment was delivered in a huge dump truck and the smell was unmistakable.

What do you do with 30 cubic yards of Zoo doo? Call together your best of friends to help you shovel, wheelbarrow, rake and spread the enormous steaming mass of poo into an even 4-inch layer across the cultivated surface. With nine totally dedicated and soon stinky people, it took us 3 hours to maneuver the manure. We sure did the doo that day! It took many days of air-drying or thorough washing to get the stench out of our clothing and hair.

The next step toward the completion of the butterfly garden is to till the manure into the soil and then define the paths with metal edging. The paths will then be tamped down and lined and graveled before we start planting the native flowers, shrubs and trees to attract butterflies.

Beardsley Farm members attends Southern SAWG

2008-01-22T07:43:00.000-08:00

We journeyed to Louisville, KY to become more educated in the field of sustainable agriculture. We attended the annual Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Conference held January 16-19. We were enlightened by the various courses and seminars offered at the conference. Ben, Frank, Marie, and myself were educated by many successful small-scale farmers about vegetable production, ways to enhance your soil, and the alternatives to chemical use. Topics included organic vegetable production, cut flower production, hoop house production, organizational development, multi-species grazing, permaculture, and sustainable weed management. These courses will help us educate the community to practice sustainable gardening.

Besides encountering a multitude of people that share our vision of urban gardening, we were given the opportunity to hear Wendell Berry and Joel Salatin speak. These two gentlemen are considered pioneers in sustainable farming, and they shared wisdom from personal life experiences. By the end of the conference we felt inspired to go out and make a difference in our community.

Jeff

Raspberries

2007-12-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

Outside our fence, some raspberries were planted a number of years ago. No one tended them and the entire planting area was allowed to grow up. We thought it was a shame, so we began the arduous process of reclaiming that area. Here's what it looked like at first:

You can see some crosses in all of that brush. Those were spread about twenty feet apart and were connected with four long wires. The wires, stretched above the planting bed, were meant to serve as trellising. A trellis is a structure that gives extra support to plants that need help standing straight up on their own. Roses, blackberries and raspberries are thorny shrubs called brambles. Brambles usually need to be grown on a trellis. We decided to keep the trellises but to remove everything else growing in the bed. It was a fairly lengthy process getting everything out of the bed. There were a small number of old raspberries but we couldn't save them. We cut everything back to the ground using pruning shears. Then we went through with pick axes and large mattocks and removed the root mass everything living in the bed. Unbelievably, we found a mulberry tree growing in the middle of the bed. That took a little extra work. With four people working on it, and a decent amount of water breaks, it took us a full day to get most of the bed clean.

We've had some really beautiful work days recently. Clearing the planting area was the easiest portion of the work. We took all of the roots and branches and thorns and grasses that we collected from the bed and dropped them off with the Natural Resource Recovery facility at Solway. You can call 865-215-JUNK(5865) for more information on how to dispose of your "green waste". Once the soil was weed/root/tree-free, we started working on a border for the bed. It is not necessary to border all raspberry beds, but we thought it would be a good defense against weeds and grasses. It's always a good idea to overprotect things that might not get enough attention for one reason or another. These raspberries are going to be outside the fence and outside our normal tending zone, so we wanted a sturdy border. We used shovels to dig a little trench on each side of the bed. The trench was deep and wide enough to fit an Everlast timber. We have a large number of them around the farm being used for this purpose. Everlast was either discontinued or bought out and is now called XPotential. Once the sides of the bed were in place, we could bring in some amendments. Raspberries like well drained soil, so we added some sand.

And then we added some manure.

Before we knew it, we were almost done. We used some shovels to turn the soil so that everything was evenly mixed. We restrung the trellis wires. Now all we need is some raspberries from the nursery. We'll get them in January. Be sure to come and pick some berries this summer!

Nutrient Recycling

2007-12-04T06:03:00.000-08:00

Food scraps and yard waste form the second largest portion of what we throw away. Like us, plants "are what they eat". This means soil nutrients. Composting, viewed as nutrient reclamation, conserves a precious resource, the fertility of our soil.

Beardsley farm places a high priority on composting as a way of insuring the highest quality produce for our community and the future fertility of depleted urban soil. We have partnered with a number of local restaurants in this effort.

For well over a year we have collected coffee grounds from The Golden Roast Espresso Cafe on UT campus. Coffee grounds are one of the best things you can put in a compost pile. They have a nearly perfect carbon to nitrogen ratio which creates a favorable environment for the micro organisms which do most of the chemistry of composting.

Recently, La Costa on Market Square have been providing us with vegetable scraps. David (one of La Costa's kitchen staff) is seen here placing a few scraps of vegetable wast into one of their compost containers. The vegetables we receive from La Costa as well as the Tomato Head help us to create a nitrogen rich environment which helps micro-organisms build and multiply their bodies.

Carbon and nitrogen: these are the basics of life, for plants and for us. Carbon is fuel for biological processes, nitrogen is life's building materials. A good balance of these is essential for soil fertility. Since the microbes which do most of the work in decomposition require vastly more carbon than nitrogen it is important to be careful in the management of compost heaps. Too little carbon (which comes mostly from cellulose in plants, the stuff that gives them their structure and strength) and the pile goes "cold". A healthy pile can become surprisingly hot. At 120 degrees our pile enters its most biologically active phase. We have been able to maintain temperatures in excess of 140 degrees for days at a time. During such hot periods, microbes are busily eating and multiplying. As a by product they produce heat, (killing harmful microbes and seeds from yard waste), and most importantly, a great deal of free carbon and nitrogen which builds and fuels plants.

We are interested in teaching the public about the importance of composting. Recently, I visited the ecology club at West High School. The club are considering the possibility of composting at lunch at least one day a week. We talked about the technical and logistical considerations and I hope that they will succeed in starting a program by this spring.

Other educational institutions in the Knoxville area are already composting. The Earth Flag program teaches about recycling in many Knox County public schools. We collect finished compost from one of these-Pond Gap Elementary. Pond Gap does a great job composting well over 250 Lbs of cafeteria waste each week. Enough to fertilize their on site garden and to share with us, and thereby, with the greater community. We would like to extend appreciation to Pond Gap as their compost well established compost piles have provided us with much needed insect life. Insects also do a great deal of work in the compost pile by digesting bulkier materials and transforming them into usable nutrients.

If you are interested in learning more about composting or starting a pile please visit us here at Beardsley Farm.

Peace
Frank

Cloches and Cold Frames

2007-11-27T07:08:00.000-08:00

It's getting cold outside, finally. Our extended summer and mild fall have allowed us to continue growing some mild season crops. We've got pole beans and beets and radishes and lots of greens.
Now, though, the nights are getting cooler and the temperature is in danger of dropping below zero. That means frost. A transplanted Lamb's Ear is really beautiful covered in frost.

But our other plants would hate it. Their leaves would wilt, their growth would be stunted and ... they could DIE! We couldn't have that. So we made some protection for our plants. There are two simple types of cold weather protection for plants. One is a cold frame. A cold frame is any transparent-roofed structure to protect plants from cold weather.

You can build a box and top it with a window on hinges: The top is hinged so that the box can be opened in the day time. Otherwise, the interior would get too hot. It also helps to angle the window-roof slightly so that it can face south and get more sun. That takes a lot of time and materials. Plus, it would have to be a pretty big box to fit along our rows of crops. We made a number of cloches over our rows, instead. A cloche (French for bell) is a plastic tent that can be placed over vegetables to protect them from the nighttime frost.

We drove metal poles into the ground, along the long edge of our planting rows. The poles are spaced about five feet apart. Then we used a flexible plastic tube to connect the poles together and form an arch over the bed. When we know the temperature is going to drop below freezing over night, we just drape long sheets of plastic over the arches and secure them to the ground with bricks or rocks.

Now our plants are happy and protected.

Ben

Boys and Girls Club Update

2007-11-15T08:22:00.000-08:00

Hello again,

As it's getting colder these days, Marie and I are going to temporarily say goodbye to our Boys and Girls Garden Club group. We have really had a fun year with these kids.

In August, we all introduced ourselves and played a game of 'Guess the Vegetable' when Marie showed the kids what we have been growing on the farm. We also pulled weeds and prepared our bed for planting. Then we began to plant our rows with peas, carrots, radishes, collards and kale and we all got a chance to water what was growing. Next, Marie and I taught about the importance of cover cropping and we all took turns throwing clover and rye seeds on the beds we hadn't planted anything in.

As that has grown, we have gotten to do some other fun activities. One day, we all walked down to the farm to see what was growing. Each of the kids took a turn to harvest some lettuce and try it straight from the ground. Everybody loved it! A few weeks later, it was the kids' turn to try what they've grown themselves--we ate salad from the collards and kale that was growing in their plot with some ranch dressing. The next week, we introduced the kids to some other salad toppings, like apple chunks, raisins, cheese and sunflower seeds. Needless to say, everyone had a great time. We all love salad!

Overall, it was very nice to hang out with the kids at our neighboring Boys and Girls Club. We share practically the same parking lot but hardly ever see each other, so it was nice to meet some kids that are genuinely excited about growing food. Their enthusiasm was truly heartwarming. I know that the kids are proud of what they've grown, and I can't wait to see what they do with their little plot next Spring.

Beth

Rainwater Harvesting

2007-11-08T05:13:00.000-08:00

On Monday night we had some long awaited rain. A good shower yielded nearly 150 gallons of water in our new rainwater catchment system.

Rainwater harvesting is one more way in which Beardsley Community Farm strives for greater sustainability. Tennessee, like much of the southeast, has experienced one of the driest years on record in 2007. The drought has been hard on gardeners and the environment. The need to keep our crops irrigated forces us to use large amounts of costly municipal water. This drives up the cost of food production while putting stress on local water supplies. Our solution:

This 900-gallon catchment collects water from half of our barn roof. A 1000-gallon system (soon to be installed) will collect water from the other side giving us 1900 gallons of storage capacity. We expect to be able to completely fill this through the winter with only half the average rainfall for Knoxville. This will give us a great head start on watering next spring. We hope to reduce our dependence on Knoxville’s city water supply by at least 50% (in a good year the reduction will be much greater).

We constructed this system using three 300-gallon and four 250-gallon plastic tanks that we got from Advanced Polymer Recycling. Ben and I gave the tanks a good scrub with detergent and borax, using a power washer.

We got our fittings and tubing from Industrial Plastic Works and Davis Hose and Supply. Davis Hose were very helpful with figuring out exactly what parts we needed to make the thing work.

On Thursday afternoon, Marie and Beth used our first "harvest" of rainwater to establish some winter rye.

Rainwater harvesting is the beginning of what we hope will be a comprehensive water management plan for Beardsley Farm. Eventually we would like to have some kind of drip irrigation in place using a human powered pump. It will feel good to be off the grid with such an important resource.

Peace
Frank

Head Start kids visit

2007-11-04T07:54:00.000-08:00

Hey folks!

On Tuesday, October 23rd, we had a special group of visitors at the farm. A group of four-year-old Head Start children and their families came to Beardsley to check us out, and it was tons of fun.

First, we all gathered in the greenhouse and Ben read a story about vegetables. The kids really got into it. After that, we broke up into groups and visited different parts of the farm. The kids checked out what was growing on the farm, fed our chickens and even helped us harvest.

Overall, we had a group of thirty-eight visitors to the farm, including children and parents, and everyone had a great time. Having classes and group tours at the farm is really wonderful. It's great to see kids learning and having fun in the outdoors.

From top to bottom: Little boy showing a pepper that was growing on Beardsley Farm. Feeding the chickens. Weighing the radishes that we harvested. Group of kids around a basket of radishes.

Until next time,

Beth

Finished Keyhole Beds; Great Volunteers; Bee Medicating

2007-10-29T11:17:00.000-07:00

It's a beautiful Monday afternoon on the farm. We got a lot of work done last week.

Just as we'd hoped, the key hole beds were finished on Tuesday. We turned the soil and added manure, compost, paper shreds and straw. All of these things will break down over the winter and the soil will be filled with lots of good organic material for the plants we'll grow in spring. Worms really like paper shreds. We'll see, in the spring, if the bed on the left contains more or less worms than the bed on the right.

Here you can see (from left to right) Beth, Frank and Marie. They put in a lot of hard work and it shows. Eventually we'd like to add a third keyhole bed. It might look something like an upside down three leaf clover. That project was a lot of fun. It only took a week!

On Wednesday we medicated our bees. Briahn helped me open the hives up. We put on our suits. The "smoker" was filled with straw, which was set aflame. It burns slow and produces a lot of smoke. I'm told that the smoke tricks the bees into believing there is a fire. They retreat into the hive to gorge themselves on honey. I'd probably do the same thing if I thought my house was on fire.

The medication comes in a gel form. It contains a number of different oils which are repellent to hive beetles and mites. There are other forms of medication but the one we use is supposed to be ecologically friendly: botanical oils and such. We just open the package and lay it in the bottom of the hive. Then we put all the supers back on top. ("Super" is what we call the box things that contain the trays full of bees and honey.)

In four weeks we'll remove the medication and our bees should be in good shape until next year.
You can see in the pictures some of the crimson clover we planted around the bee area. It will keep the bermuda grass back and feed the bees over the winter. I love that lush green color. It's soft too. mmmmm.

On Thursday we had four people from UT's Orthodox Christian Fellowship join us in the afternoon for some much needed volunteer labor. Father Justin showed up with three of his "team" members. They were stupendous. In two hours, they completed a task which would have taken our team two days to do. They were vibrant and curious and diligent and talkative: pretty much everything we could hope for in a group of volunteers.

Guess which one is Father Justin.

That's it for now
Ben

New "Keyhole" Beds

2007-10-22T10:30:00.000-07:00

Last week we cleared out the farthest beds where some of the basil and tomatoes were planted.

Upon inspection, we noticed that both of the beds were mostly clay.

So we decided to do a little experimenting.

If the beds were mostly clay and the path in between was clay, then we had a blank canvas with which to try something new on the farm. I had heard about keyhole beds and their advantages. They make better use of the space given by reducing walking area and increasing arable area. Plus, they look nice. We thought that turning the two long rectangles into two big ovals would probably suit our purposes just fine.

Frank measured the beds and the path. He then made a rough sketch of what our new oval keyhole beds would look like.
Frank found that, "with the current beds our arable planting area [was] 154 sq. ft. The “keyhole” beds [would] have a total area of 208.2 sq. ft. The beds [would need to be] slightly ovoid. This seemed the best way to make use of the available space."

We could increase our bed size and make them more appealing! I love how stuff works out some times!

So we got to work.
We removed the rest of the grass from the path and the rest of the weeds from both of the beds. This is a process we're becoming more and more familiar with. It takes a lot of time and a lot of patience. But we're getting better at it and we know that it'll pay off in the end.Frank marked out the border of both ovals with orange flags and Briahn (our wonderful new "intern" from UTK's sociology department) lined the ovals with cardboard and woodchips to keep the future bermuda grass from possibly coming back.

I personally REALLY REALLY HOPE that this method of bermuda-grass-prevention works. Even if we have to do it every three years or so.

The beds were really beginning to take shape.

Once we had the outer edges defined, then we could outline the inner path (with flags again) and get to the soil-preparation.

1. We used shovels to break up the clay as much as possible.
2. Mattocks (picks) worked well to disintegrate the clods of clay even further.
3. Straw, compost and a little hay were brought in and put down on top of the churned clay.
The straw and compost will help with drainage in the future and give the clay some much needed organic material.
4. We used shovels and forks to turn all of these ingredients together.
5. Added some delicious looking horse manure from Clover Creek Stables and turned that in as well.
6. Finally we topped off the whole thing with a little more manure to make it look nice.
7. Filled in the center of the keyhole bed with cardboard and woodchips.
8. And finally piled a little more woodchips around the edge of the bed. (It had begun to get pretty high with all the added material. The woodchips will work as a kind of bowl for everything to rest in.
...
...
And voila!

We have one beautiful keyhole bed.

We'll be working to finish the other one by this Tuesday hopefully.

ben