Erika Takeo Abroad: Summer has begun: a week in photos

This week started off with a few days of rain but was followed by days of hot (90+) weather, which means everything in the ground is taking off. Here’s a selection of some activities from this past week.

Weeding: As I’ve mentioned, we spend the majority of our time trying to keep up on weeds. This week we weeded lettuce, tomatoes, beans, basil, cucumbers, and squash.

Here we are in the delicata squash.

Moving teenage chicks: The chicks that arrived in April are old enough to move to a bigger pen that is outside. In a few weeks they will move to the big chicken coop.

happy chickens

Changing tractor implements: We learned a bit about how to change tractor implements when we switched out the tiller for the mower on the back of the tractor.

removing tiller

attaching mower

Success!

Calendula flower harvest: In addition to smelling good, calendula is very good for the skin. We harvested the flowers so that they can be dried and then put into oil. The calendula-infused oil goes into some oils and salves that DBF sells at market.

cut flowers drying in the barn

Small lettuce seed harvest: We harvested lettuce seed from the greenhouse that will be planted as lettuce mix next year. It was a change for us to learn how lettuce seeds are harvested and cleaned before we begin harvesting the 8 varieties of lettuce that are currently being grown on the farm for seed.

lettuce that has gone to seed in the greenhouse

cleaning the seeds

clean seeds

Farm tour: We visited Lupine Knoll Farm on Saturday afternoon, where Jonathan Spero grows organic vegetable seeds and is working on developing new varieties of a few different vegetables. It was neat to learn about organic, open-pollinated plant breeding, especially of corn.

Jonathan is experimenting with growing quinoa.

Jonathan's Painted Hills corn

Rogue Farm Corps class: On some Sundays and Thursdays we have classes as part of the Rogue Farm Corps program. This week we had a really awesome class on bees with Bee Girl in Ashland. I’m really interested now in supporting more beekeepers and making use of bee products.