Post date: Jul 11, 2012 5:20:44 PM
Working as an intern on the farm, my experience with gardening has changed tremendously. I was exposed to different kinds of sustainable agriculture - planting buckwheat to "renew" the nutrients in the soil, feeding the chickens weeds, turning compost, hunting down clever weeds, and working in a greenhouse. These past couple of weeks, I have been weeding a couple hours everyday, preparing soil beds for planting, and working on other jobs that could further improve the farm's quality and overall effectiveness, and in this time, I have learned that there are many, many aspects of farming that are interesting but yet to be thoroughly researched.
For example, Lucia, Kavin, and I often cringe when we encounter the evasive bineweed, which is "conveniently" engineered to sprout up roots everywhere it touches. Of course, for us farmers, this means that we have to go hunting for bineweed roots wherever we go. But what interests me is how has this bineweed root evolved to become so clever? How can it elude our best attempts to annihilate it from the farm completely? What characteristic does bineweed have that other weeds seem to lack? I plan on researching this topic later on in the month and hopefully propose a method that can more effectively eradicate this pest from our farm.
This experience has also exposed me to a different aspect of gardening - animal care. When I first started, Lucia showed me to the chickens - Amelia, Majesty, Sheriff, Ginko, and Odette. These ladies leave us eggs in the morning, and after trying them hard-boiled, I realized how deprived I was by buying company eggs! These eggs were delicious! Lately, the chickens have been producing a bunch of eggs and leaving them for us in the morning; Lucia says it's because they are happy, which has intrigued me to research another possible research topic - are the amount and quality of eggs that chickens produce affected by their happiness? How do eggs form in the chicken anyway? We put chicken manure into compost - what kind of processes and nutrients enriches the soil?
Last week, Lucia had assigned us readings to complete over the week. On Friday, we held an insightful discussion about those readings. After that discussion, I felt like I didn't know anything that was going on in the farming community. For example, I didn't know that the government pays farmers to overproduce, and then wastes the food so that the market's prices are "stable." This discussion was such an eye-opener for me, and it truly showed me that the public should be more educated on these matters and encouraged to buy from stores that directly profit farmers. There is so much debate about the ethics of farming - whether GMO's should be used or not, whether the government should be allowed to waste food in such a manner, and whether farmers should be forced to cultivate a variety of different foods (not just ones that are definite sellers).
This experience on the farm as truly been one of a kind. Hopefully, I will be able to effectively answer my burning questions through this experience. I am definitely looking forward to another month working here!