The Sustainable Agriculture Farm's Pond

By: Jack Finnegan

Before you are greeted by the dozens of neatly spaced beds, each containing various crops that are grown organically and through biointensive methods, you are welcomed by our small, self sustaining pond. This pond is home to a handful of small goldfish. These omnivores eat the plants, insects, zooplankton, and the detritus that is found in the pond. Due to the algae and plants in the pond, along with being instinctively scared of predators that hover above them (birds or racoons) these little fish are hard to find on most days, however when you are able to see them you can see that their small, 2-4cm body is covered in bright orange scales that shimmer in the sun. The plants in the pond do not just provide a pleasing visual aesthetic to the farm, but also, with the help of algae that is also found in the pond, provide dissolved oxygen for the ponds grilled inhabitants. The pond is a great addition to our farm for a couple reasons. Besides it being nice visual aesthetic and offering something unique to our farm, it also promotes biodiversity in and around the farm, along with providing residential birds and animals with a source of freshwater. This pond was created by one of Sustainable Agricultures own students, Owen Henderson, who is a fishing enthusiast and an outspoken person in regards to sustainability and conservation of our land, food, and our marine and terrestrial species. He is now studying fisheries biology at Louisiana State University. 

Iron Chef #1

Iron Chef #1

This past week in Sustainable Agriculture we performed our first Iron Chef competition. The theme of the challenge was "Fall Herbs" due to the plentiful supply of these plants on our farm. Rosemary, basil, mint, and chives were common herbs used among the four groups. Each group had roughly eight members as the classroom only has the capacity for four cooking/prepping stations. We were told about this assignment a few days before in case anyone wanted to bring in any produce or food that wasn't available to us from the farm. On the day of the competition, Mr. Stewart gave us time to harvest and record any produce that we wanted to use for our dish. Aside from the herbs, lemons and other fruits such as strawberries and apples were popular additions to each group's dish, providing a good aide on the presentation aspect of this assignment. Each of the four dishes were tasted by Mr. Stewart and graded based on their taste, presentation, sustainability, preparation, and cleanup. In the classroom, each group was given a hot plate, a few knives, a plate, a mixing bowl, and access to their own sink. Only two people from each group were allowed to be using the hot at a time so the rest of the members either helped clean up or prepare other parts of the dish. We had roughly 40 minutes to prepare our meals, and I was pretty impressed with what each team was able to make. In the end, one team was crowned the winner for their excellent and thorough use of "Fall Herbs" and were awarded a few extra credit points for their victory.

By: Ryan Carlson

Iron Chef!

This week in sustainable agriculture we got to mix it up a bit with a super fun activity we do periodically throughout the year called Iron Chef! If you have seen the show before you know the appeal. We first split off into groups of 8 the day before and planned out our meal. Each iron chef competition has a different focus, this one was based on seasoning and herbs found out on the farm. Ideas were being thrown out all over the room until each group individually decided what to make. The next step was planning what we would source from the farm and what we would have to buy or find somewhere else. We were told to pay attention to where the items not from the farm were coming from, for example: were they from a students garden? A local farm? Or less desirable... were they packaged and processed? That day after class ended we all went home excited for the following day to come. My group talked all evening about what our game plan was until finally the next day arrived. We started Wednesday's class by meeting out in the redwood sustag farm (our very interactive classroom) and we were given intrusions to only pick what we would use and not extra to go with our main focus on the farm which is sustainability. From there the groups went off grabbing what they would need for the iron chef challenge. Once the groups were done with getting their ingredients we walked up to the classroom and Mr. Stewart briefed us on safety. Then it was off to the races with 40 minutes on the clock! The groups began to construct their dishes with the hot plate, spatula, 2 knifes, cutting board and plate they were given to display the food on (plus whatever else was needed from home). After each group completes their dish they bring it up to the front judging table where Mr. Stewart, accompanied by his TA for the period judge on presentation, taste, creativity, and use of the farm ingredients. Our class had a very wide variety of dishes with people making hash browns with brussel sprouts and topped with a fried egg, omelets with farm tomatoes and other ingredients, smashed seasoned potatoes, mint, strawberry, and lemon verbena lemonade, and toasted bread with bruschetta and farm grown tomatoes. Not too shortly after Mr. Stewart completes his judging do we get to do our own taste test accompanied with a presentation by a few of the group members. Slightly hesitant but intrigued we all tried each others food and with that the class period came to an end and a winner was announced. The winner of this weeks challenge was the group that made hash browns with brussel sprouts and a fried egg. Overall this was a super fun way to interact with what our farm produces and I think we can all agree that we can't wait for next time!
-Annika Geissberger

Last Week

Last week in Sustainable Agriculture, we started the process of aerating our soil in order to produce good soil structure and create looseness of the soil. We did this by using a spading fork and cultivators, a small version of a spading fork, in order to aerate the soil. At first, it was quite difficult to aerate the soil because it was old soil but as the process moved on it got easier. Finally, on Friday, we began the process of planting. We planted potatoes, garlic, and beans. In order to plant potatoes, we cut the potatoes into multiple pieces with each piece having two eyes at the very least. We used a trowel to dig out a hole in the soil and then we put a piece of potato into the hole as deep as the height of the potato. We then covered the potato with the soil we had dug out and used an 8-inch stick to mark the next hole and we did this in a triangular pattern to maximize bed space. For the garlic, we took the cloves and used the same process to plant them but this time 4-inches apart. For the beans, the same process was repeated and we planted them 6-inches apart in a triangular pattern. On Wednesday of this week, we planted lettuce, kale, and beets. Mr. Stewart bought starters from the garden store so we used a trowel to create small holes in the ground and then we put the starters in the ground and covered them with the excess soil. Every day, we come in to water our plants because it's very important for the plants to be watered in the first 2 weeks after sowing. We are excited to plant more plants in the future weeks and sell them at the market! - Claudia Holland

Water

Water today is an essential ingredient to life and has been for thousands of years. The Earth is made up of 71% water, mainly that being 96.5% of ocean water. Understanding Sustainable Agriculture, you will need to understand how to appropriately use water to help The Farm grow correctly and not accidentally drown the plants with too much water or incorrectly distribute it. The classes that work out on the farm are separated into groups to work on specific functions of The Farm, and one is the water irrigation group that monitors the water being distributed throughout the pipes and lines placed all around The Farm, mainly located on each of the beds. With the help of the water irrigation group they monitor the water distribution and fix any problems, like leaks, with the lines. But there won't always be a prefect distribution of water and it will be required to water your groups whole bed. However long your bed is, there is a way to distribute water evenly with measuring the amount of water you currently have by gallons and the area of the bed with surface feet. Plants within The Farm's beds should be with overall 10 gallons of water per day every 100 square feet. It should take around 2 minutes per day to supply enough water to your bed and also others if you feel like helping out there bed so there plants don't die as well. In this community though, Marin receives around 300 gallons of water, so the water must be disrupted properly so it's not wasted. To safe the limited amount of water supplied, conserving the beds is a great option. Do this by choosing drought resistant plants so you are taking care of plants that won't dry up very easily, and use close spacing to maintain shady microclimates for your plants, so they don't absorb too much sunlight. Following these steps with show you soon enough that it will help your beds properly grow healthy and nutritional plants. 

Kaiden Houghton

My Farm Bed

This week we have seen a significant change to our beds. Most beds have had all the plants previously growing in them removed along with hopefully all weeds. In my groups, bed B7, we had to be particularly thorough removing an invasive grass. More seemed to appear every time we aerated the soil with spading forks. When we were sure we had removed all the weeds, we began planting beet seedlings and potato eyes. Making sure to handle the seedlings gently, we spaced them in a triangular/hexagonal shape to maximize the 60 square feet area of our bed. We have planted about one third of our bed so far and I am looking forward to planting the rest and seeing how each bed grows over the next few months.  

Pictured above is my group's bed, B7, after the planting of the beets and potatoes. - Hobie

Beginning Our One Beds

These past few weeks we have started to cultivate our one beds on the farm. At first, the beds seemed to be very infested with weeds and overall a bit messy. As the first two weeks went by, our beds began to come together as less bermudagrass and catsear covered our soil. Weeding was the main job the first days on the farm because with fewer workers in the summer, a ton of weeds and other unwanted plants had sprung up in and around the beds. With 3 periods of Sustainable Agriculture classes at work, these weeds were eventually eradicated. Recently, we have aerated our one beds to ensure better soil quality for our seedlings we have been growing. We did this extensively using a spading fork to stick into the soil and lift up to break the soil into chunks and therefore aerating the soil. Additionally, we have been adding our 100% organic fertilizer into our beds to keep the nitrogen and potassium levels high in our soil. Soil is a very important part of farming sustainably, so at the Redwood Farm, we ensure to keep our soil nutritious and healthy for our plants. Last week and continuing into this week we have been working on deciding plans for our one beds. This includes deciding which plants to plant together depending on the season, type of nutrients it needs, and space it needs to grow. This season we are hoping to grow lots of crops including potatoes. Hopefully, our planning will lead us to obtain the greatest yields possible! So far Sustainable Agriculture has been a great class and we have done some great work to begin our planting for the fall season! 

By: Max Ross