One job we like to do while the interns are still here is to convert our pick-up room back into a woodshed by putting the divider wall back in place and filling it up with wood. The potting soil is also being mixed up ready for the greenhouse transplants. It is sort of like making a big cake…sifting the pails, instead of cups, and them mixing them together. One of the requirements for organic production is to have potting soil with out chemical fertilizer. We use compost to add nutrients to the mix with a recipe adapted from Eliot Coleman’s book The New Organic Grower.
Early October and garlic planting always coincides with the end of the internships on the farm. We have to wait for dry weather and the golden October sun usually makes for a fun filled day. The interns are always pleasantly surprised at how easy and fun it is to plant our garlic. We prepare the ground during the summer and plant it to a cover crop of oats and peas in early September. The oats and peas cover the ground and grow into the late fall. They then winter kill and the garlic can grow up through the cover crop mulch in the spring. We open up a furrow with a row cultivator. The garlic cloves are placed 6 inches apart and then the furrow is closed in with a disc hiller pulled by the horses. We planted 5950 cloves of garlic in about 2 1/2 hours this morning with the help of our Suffolk Punch Horses.

We are very grateful for all the efforts of the apprentices throughout the season and wish them well with their future endeavours.