My first volunteer!

The day after the farm warming, my first farm volunteer, Minh, arrived for a 10 day stay. She’s working on a research project that requires interviewing new farmers, so in exchange for being interviewed and seeing how the farm works, she helps out!

She helped me with mulching the tomato plants, rock picking in the field (now the entire field is ready for rototilling!), planting out all the winter and summer squash, and setting up pest cover for my direct seedings of Asian greens and cucumbers. My cucumber seedlings never really germinated in their soil blocks, so I’m going to see how this direct seeding goes. I’m not sure if the soil blocks were too fertile for the seeds to germinate, or if a pest ate the shoots just as they were coming up. The pest cover should take care of the pests, and planting directly into the field which hasn’t had any compost added (unlike the soil blocks) should hopefully germinate the seeds. I should know in about a week if the effort of putting up row cover is worth it.

Minh also took lots of pictures while at the farm, which was really great as I never seem to get around to doing that.

The freshly straw mulched tomato plants on a foggy and wet day.

Me, rototilling the next stretch of field to be used for planting.

Watering newly planted winter squash.

Minh even persuaded me to get dressed up and take some ‘portrait’ shots which turned out surprisingly well.

On top of the part of the barn that I want to fix into a barn top terrace since there’s such an amazing view of the countryside from there.

Minh told me to jump, so I did… I didn’t know I could get that far off the ground!

My first farm volunteer experience was definitely a good one. She’s moved on to the next farm on her list now (she’s visiting around 10 farms over the course of the summer) and I’m sure will be a great help there too.