You know it's spring when....
Posted 3/21/2009 4:06pm by Lyndon Hartz.
Life on the Farm - March 21st
You know it's spring when.....
a report from GEFA farm Appleton Hollow Family Garden Foods
A few years back, the arrival of spring to me meant flocks of robins making their debut in neighborhood trees or crocuses disguising themselves as blades of grass before their colorful explosion into full bloom. Now that we live in the country, spring takes on a whole different meaning.
Worms. Before learning how to grow food the chemical-free way, worms held little significance in my life. This morning, however, as I stabbed my pitchfork into the old compost heap and pulled up the rich, dark...well, stuff underneath, I felt a surge of exhilaration every time I happened upon a wiggler. "Worms are key to good soil," says Good Earth Food Alliance grower, Lawrence Meyer, a USDA certified organic grower. I heard Lawrence's words as I dug deeper and heaved up larger portions of the pile, no longer aiming to simply stir the mixture but more bent on racking up worm points.
Speaking of worms, next on my to-do list was to help my daughter, Carli, harvest frass from her worm composter, a project she took to the 4-H show last summer. Not that you really wanted to know, but the worms in a worm composter are different from the ones found in the garden soil, and "never the twain shall meet." Red wigglers are not actually found in soil but are happy as larks in a bin full of soggy table scraps, peat moss, shredded newspaper, and egg shells. However, it was spring cleaning time for these little guys so we dumped the entire bin, filled it with fresh bedding, and, ever so gently, placed them all back in. One by one. All 275. Ahhhhhhh, spring! New items found on the Good Earth Food Alliance website this week:
- a short, but amazingly interesting bio from Kate Potter, a GEFA producer who raises free-range chickens for eggs.
- Weekly Half Share added as a new CSA product.
- Full color downloadable pdf of Good Earth Food Alliance available for passing along to others.