Last week's journal

This week in SustAg, we were unfortunately unable to spend as much time as we usually do on the farm because of rain and our mid term! However, spring is an important time on the farm and we worked very hard last week planting seedlings and transplants so that we will have producing crops soon. The soil is saturated with water and the sun hopefully is warming up our beds, making for ideal planting and growing conditions (http://www.ufseeds.com/). While the weather wasn't awesome this past week, we kept busy and working off the farm by discussing ways to improve our current farm.

In the "Sustainable Redwood Design" activity, we explored how sustainable the Redwood SustAg Farm would be if we fed all Redwood students lunch every school day (which we can!). Additionally, we brainstormed improvements and ways to make the farm better than it already is. For example, to conserve water, we can use dry soil tillage and create a rain water saving device. Dry soil tillage utilizes water from past seasons during an especially dry one by protecting the surface, and growing plants adapted to drought. To expand the Farm without using more on-campus land, we could experiment with living roofs or vertical gardens. These would increase the area in which we grow without having to expand our farm limits. There are many other ways we can improve our farm but for now we are focused on a successful spring season and are looking forward to when we can harvest next!

Audrey