more on the farm

Most of the summer help for the research farm is finished, which means I will be driving out to the farm from the campus by myself quite a bit. In the fleet vehicle, which is a big pick-up truck. I got by so many years without driving regularly at all, never having a car or driver's license. And now I have to drive a truck around.

The first part of my research project is pretty much planned. I'll be looking at cover crops in a reduced-till organic system (only the rows themselves will be tilled, with a deep-zone tiller--it goes very deep). We will compare timing and seeding rate (when and how much is planted) to see how much biomass (hopefully resulting in weed suppression) is created under the various circumstances.

Being out on the farm makes it so hard to ignore how awful conventional agriculture is, and how organic really isn't enough. Organic just means poisons aren't being put into the ground. You can still have monoculture, heavy tillage, heavy organic chemical use, lots of machinery (lots of gasoline) and other harmful practices. Organic is just a starting point. Permaculture has to be a goal.

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I saw a family today with two small children that were trilingual. Mom spoke Spanish, Dad spoke German, and living here, they spoke English. Wow.