Frost protection

Fruit blossoms can't take much frost.  Apple blossoms can take a couple of hours of temperature between 30-32.  Some will freeze, but some will just get frostbitten -- and perhaps the apple will have an odd deformity because of it.  Strawberry blossoms are similarly tender, but if they get bitten, you get nothing.

To protect the strawberries from frost, Farmer Bill runs sprinklers over the fields from the time the temperature hits about 33 until it comes back up above 33.  Anywhere from 3 to 10 hours.  I don't know the exact science, but essentially it's this: water creates heat as it freezes, so if you keep adding water to the plants, they stay heated enough not to freeze.  Or maybe it's this: the constant movement of the water doesn't allow it to freeze, so the blossoms can't freeze.  Whatever the reason, it works.  But having to run the sprinklers means a sleepless night, and getting sprayed with cold water in freezing temperatures.

In the day(s) leading up the a frost during blossom time, Farmer Bill sets up his irrigation system.  It's pretty ingenious, if labor intensive.  A large hose goes into the Straight River.  A pump is attached to the hose on the river bank, and the pump is powered by a tractor.  A series of 6-inch pipes leads from the pump across the farm -- originally this pipe was all underground.  In the middle of the farm, between the strawberry fields, risers are attached to the underground pipe, and smaller 3-inch, 30-foot long pipe goes from the risers across the aisles of the strawberries.  At the end of each 30-foot pipe is a sprinkler head.  It's a big job to get all of the pipes laid end-to-end and all of the sprinkler nozzles cleaned of debris.  Occasionally, the pipes burst apart.  Sometimes the nozzles insist on plugging over and over.  In the summer setting up the irrigation is not an unpleasant job because the river water is cool on a warm day.  In the spring it's a cold and wet job.

We have some tools that only come out during frost season.  A warning light -- that can be seen 1/4-mile or more away -- gets perched on a couple of milk crates in a low spot of a field.  This year, since we don't have to worry about the river field anymore, it will be easy to place the light where we can see it.  [In previous years, it was quite a trick to find a spot where we could see the light from the house, and it would still be in one of the lowest areas to give us the earliest possible warning.]  This light has been a wonderful thing.  It works very well, changing color from green (above 34), to white (34-32), to red (32-30), to flashing red (below 30).  Because it can be seen from the house, it means Farmer Bill doesn't have to get dressed and go outside to see a thermometer.  And it was much less expensive than a remote thermometer system that could read from the river field up to the house.  We just take the battery out and store it from spring to spring.  Another spring tool is a huge battery-powered lantern.  It shines a very bright light a long ways.  The light lets Farmer Bill see whether sprinklers are running without having to traipse up and down all of the rows of sprinklers.  Since I helped him do that traipsing the first year or two, I know how wonderful that light is...

Apple blossom time

The apple trees -- especially the early varieties -- are in full bloom.  I was sitting under them on Thursday morning, trying something called bridge grafting, and the bees were buzzing in and out of the blossoms: hundreds of blossoms.  The trees are definitely trying to make up for last year's poor crop by producing a large crop this year.

The apple orchard is my favorite part of the farm, I think.  I really like to eat apples, and I really like all of the varieties we grow -- for different reasons.  I even like to sell the apples -- but don't tell Farmer Bill I said that!  I'm not so fond of strawberries or raspberries -- although I like the jams I make, and I like sweetened fruit on angel food cake, and fruit pies, and fruit breads (I'm sure you're seeing the trend here).

Our Minnieska trees -- which will produce an apple called SweeTango -- are also covered with blossoms.  Because they're so young -- only planted last year -- we'll have to carefully thin them down to almost no apples per tree.  It's hard to do that, but important for the health and future growth of the trees.

I enjoy most of the work involved with the apples -- pruning (which Farmer Bill doesn't really like), shaping, mowing, harvesting; I just don't have much 'spare' time to give to those activities.  Farmer Bill takes care of the bug and disease treatments when necessary, but I check the traps & data logger each week and keep the tally that indicates which pests are at a threshold where we need to do something about them.  I've learned more about apple orchards than I ever imagined, and there's always more to learn.  I can't walk through the orchard and spot things from yards away, but then I don't walk through every day either.  Maybe if it quits raining this afternoon, I'll walk through the orchard today.  I noticed that the tent caterpillars are starting to hatch out, so I could knock down whatever nests I can find along my walk... lots cheaper and almost as easy as spraying.  I'll take the camera along and try to get some pictures.  I'm not a great photographer, and it's very hard to capture the loveliness of an apple orchard in bloom.  You really need to stand in the middle of one yourself.  Especially on a sunny, warm day, when the bees buzz, the birds flit, and the scent wafts around you.  But it's a short, fleeting time before the blossoms fall, so don't let it slip past without notice... apple blossom time.

Taking risks

Risk-taking thresholds vary from person to person.  And farmers must have the highest risk thresholds of anyone I've ever met.

The other day a colleague at work asked me how things were on the farm.  I told her they were as well as could be expected, given that we were having a very cold, slow spring this year.  We expect strawberry season to begin about 2 weeks later than 'normal' and if it doesn't warm up soon, it could be later than that.  She asked me "How do you do it, I couldn't stand the uncertainty."

If I weren't married to a farmer, I would never do anything like this.  I might plant a tomato and some green beans, or I might just shop at farmers' markets, or subscribe to a CSA.  The risks involved with farming -- the weather, the diseases, the insect pests, the animals (deer, racoons, birds) -- any one of which can destroy enough of your crop to ruin your income for the year -- are overwhelming for me.  Farmers seem to sort of thrive on the riskiness of their ventures.  They'll tell you that's not so, but I believe it is.

Of course, farmers also farm for a myriad of other reasons.  Growing food for people to eat is an honorable thing to do, and most farmers really enjoy that part of their profession. Farmers tend to be very independent, they like to be the boss & enjoy not being tied to a set work schedule.  Living in the country is also very nice (I often think it's the part I like best of all).  Our nearest neighbor is about 1/4 mile away & we can't see her lights most of the year.  And I imagine there are other reasons -- as many as there are farmers -- for why people farm.

As I type this, I can see Farmer Bill and a potential summer intern walking the farm on a tour.  They've walked past the hoop houses, out through the blueberries, the raspberries, the newly planted strawberry patch, and possibly a sweet corn field.  Now they're walking through the apple orchard, where the apple trees are ever-so-slowly waking up this year.  Last year by this time the orchard was almost finished blooming.  We'd had a hard frost on the blossoms just a few days past and we were waiting to see how much damage the frost had done (turned out it cut our apple crop to about 40% of normal).  This year, we haven't yet seen a single blossom on apples or strawberries yet.  And we've had rain a lot more days than we've had sun.  I'm not walking with them because I have a bad cold, and am just not up to walking the entire farm in the drizzling rain.  Sometimes the thought of all the work Farmer Bill has yet to do to get things ready this year makes my stomach hurt.  I am definitely not the risk taker in our family.

Farming and holidays

Although some of our modern holidays have a connection to the growing year, many do not.  Most modern farmers don't take many Sundays off during planting or harvesting season -- and Farmer Bill is no exception.  Mothers' Day, Fathers' Day, Independence Day, his birthday (August), and Labor Day are pretty much all work days for him.  We are often open for PYO during the morning of July 4th, and close for the afternoon.  But there's usually other work to be done if the weather is good, and always paperwork to catch up on if we can't be outside.  Farmer Bill isn't good at relaxing between April and November so we rarely go out to see fireworks.  We've sworn that 'one of these years' we'll go see the old-time threshing event in Dundas over the Labor Day weekend, but so far we've never made it.  Depending on what day of the week his birthday falls, I might be able to take him out to dinner that night.  Halloween hasn't been big since we moved to the country.  We never have visitors although I always have candy ready just in case... Farmer Bill & I always get to eat it ourselves and we don't mind a bit.

Time on his hands...

Our farming year starts in January when Farmer Bill has a little time on his hands and comes up with new schemes for spending money, er, expanding the farm.  This year he is opening up a small storefront on the farm to sell his produce & planted 800 blueberry bushes.  Last year he put up two hoop houses, using a low-interest loan available from the MN Dept. of Agriculture, and bought a plastic layer and a planter to plant through the plastic to expand his cantaloupe growing.  We started with 8 apple varieties and about 1900 trees.  We now have 12 apple varieties and about 2500 trees.  The original farm was 30 acres, but last year Farmer Bill finally talked the widow who owned an adjacent piece into selling it to him, so now we have about 50 acres.

A back bedroom was turned into a greenhouse last year & this, but I can definitely see Farmer Bill wanting to put up a 'real' greenhouse before too much longer.  He planted hundreds of tomatoes -- grape tomatoes as well as slicers, and will soon be starting some melons.  The first set of tomato plants went out into a hoop house weeks ago.  The next batch of tomato plants will go soon out to hang around in the hoop house until the frost danger is gone & will go in the ground outside after that.  Sugar-snap peas will go in the ground soon -- to be available during strawberry season -- they're quite popular with our PYO customers.