SustAg FARM during Remote Learning

Hello RHS SustAg Community!

The SustAg Blog has been diminished a bit this year.  Instead of weekly posts, there will only be periodic check-ins.  Instead of required weekly blogs, students will instead have choice regarding their community outreach.  Sometimes, students may choose to blog, but no promises.  Honestly, the blog hasn’t been a huge hit.  If you are looking for current information about the farm or the course, I suppose my website is probably the best bet.

That said, students are working at the farm after school in Covid-safe pods, with facemarks, and at 6’ distance.  We wear gloves and sanitize our tools.  We have been able to get a lot done, prepping and planting about 40 beds in September, with hopes of selling at the SR Civic Center Farmer’s Market on a Sunday in October or November.

Here are some pictures of what we have been doing.  Be well.

Mr. Stewart

Weeding and prep:

Beds prepped!

Planted!

What I'm Doing

Elena Mesker

25 May 2020

What I'm doing:

Working alongside my mom and stepdad, we compiled a total of almost 3,000 lbs of compost. This extremely rich soil came from West Marin Compost (http://westmarincompost.org/drop-off). The stable where we board our horses, compiles massive amounts of manure and every three weeks it's loaded into a  truck and dumped at the Nicasio center. Here, they create enormous amounts of rich soil that's made from manure and other leftover vegetation and debris. My stepdad loaded his truck bed full of this rich soil and we shoveled it into wheelbarrows and out to our garden and some flower pots. Once the dirt was separated and dispersed, we planted. Here are some of the things we planted, and in some cases, harvested. 

How does it promote sustainability:

We are already educated and aware about the benefits of compost and recycling and the West Marin Compost Center in Nicasio, CA combines both practices. This eliminates the need for synthetic fertilizers that are commonly used but often toxic for the natural environment. It creates a space for no longer needed plant debri and gives it a new chance at life. By recycling natural materials such as animal manure and plant matter, microorganisms are flourishing by composting and creating an extremely rich soil chalk full of microbes.

How can we implement this in the Farm:

Two Ideas: First, I think we should either donate some of our compost to the West Marin Compost Center to support their business or receive a certain amount of their rich compost and conduct a study where we focus on which seems to be favored by plants and microorganisms. Second, I think we should work harder to maximize our compost intake and export into the beds. What I mean by this is to get a head start at the beginning of the year of planting compost crops and adding manure from the chicken and outside sources such as horses and cows. 

All Photos Below

You, too, can garden!

Since the Shelter in place order was put in place, I know many families and students have started their own home projects that include building a garden at their home! My family and I created a garden in our yard too. I took what I learned with me this year in sustainable agriculture and built an 8 foot by 4 foot garden bed with many other pots around it. We put a fence around it to keep deer, racoon, etc away. In the bed we planted dinosaur kale, lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, artichoke, basil, and broccoli. We have already made 3 delicious salads! I used the HTGMV textbook to implement proper spacing. Along with the garden I started a new beehive in my yard next to the garden to continue practicing sustainable agriculture. As well as set up a bait hive next to it to attract a wild swarm to fill the other bee box.

Giselle Zirpoli

Farm revival

The SustAg farm has been able to revive itself a bit over the last week in the middle of our shelter in place. We are very thankful to the Indian Valley Campus (College of Marin) Organic Farm for donating a station-wagon-full of starters to us! 

Over the last few days, volunteers have planted seven rows of tomatoes, squash, eggplant, beans, onions, and more. See the pictures below. We also managed to do some onion and garlic harvesting.

We will be donating much of what we grow to local organizations in need, like Whistlestop Wheels.

Thank you to all the volunteers who helped this week! Come volunteer to work on your student bed! Sign up at Google Classroom (find the link to the spreadsheet sign-up).  — Mr Stew

Car full of starters:

Weeding done √

Tomatoes and squash planted √

Hoop house weeded √

Some harvest, despite being away for two months!

Bonus pic: Mr. Stewart's goat

Supporting local farms

Bella

Due to COVID-19, the restaurant industry has not been needing anywhere near as much supply.
So my family has been buying fresh vegetables from Star Route Farms CSA, one of Bolinas’s
oldest farms. The farm has created delivery days and are selling directly to the public, and
deliver to Tiburon on Tuesdays between 10-11am. You pre-purchase your veggie box the week
before, they park in the City Hall parking lot, and have a drive-through touchless system where
customers can pick up their orders. You remain in your vehicle, you tell them your name, they
locate your order number, and then deposit a large bag of produce in your trunk without any
human contact. Everyone wears masks and gloves and the box is $30. Today, our box contained
2 bunches of carrots, 5 green little gems, 1 red butter lettuce, 1 head of frisee, 1 bunch of chard,
1 lb. of fava beans, 1 bag of wild arugula, 1 bag of mesclun, and 1 bunch of thyme. It is the
highlight of our week! They are the most delicious farm vegetables, from one of our favorite
restaurant’s (Watershed, Mill Valley) most beloved suppliers.

Home Garden Pest Management

As the shelter in place continues in Marin and the US, my family and I have been working on our own home garden to continue the sustainable practices I learned at the Redwood Farm this past year. But one of the problems we were having was pests. We planted seedlings of lettuce and tomatoes and the next day they were eaten by rats. This happened a few times before we decided to research and come up with a sustainable solution to the problem. 

So, what we did was encase the seedlings with wire mesh and pvc pipe. We constructed a cage for the crops to keep the rodents out so they can grow without disruption. We still water through the mesh, and it can be taken off to weed or observe the plants. This solution was hard to implement and it took a while to get the materials, but so far we have observed our crops being able to grow without rodents taking over.

Sarah Y

Bee Blog

Hello everyone!

This past Tuesday Redwood's bees were ready for pickup in Tennessee Valley. Our bees were purchased from a local beekeeper named Jennifer Berry. On Tuesday morning, I set the bees up in their hive on campus. I have gone back to visit them twice since then, and they seem very happy and busy making honey. Until our bees fill up the base box with honey, they will have access to a feeder to ensure that they have enough food to keep strong. To keep insects out of the hive, a downward facing metal layer has been placed in between the foundation box and the hive itself. Keep your fingers crossed for an abundance of RHS honey next year at the SustAg farmers markets!

Sincerely,

Elsa Davis