I found a farm in the city this summer when I was walking through Tryon Park in Portland. There was a sign on the park's path where it nears the farm saying that they had open house days when people could help on the farm. I was immediately interested, but was nervous to jump head first into a community which I knew nothing about and I was pretty busy with work and crew and MiPL. This week I finally had the time, so I drove over (even though it was raining a little) and asked if I could help out!
What I did on the farm today:
- Greeted by students of a travelling university who told me where to find the main house and the person that was leading the work party.
- Entered the main house to members of the community eating, cooking, reading stories to the five children who live there, generally going about their day.
- Laura (a resident intern at the farm since Sept) grabbed her harvesting basket and gave me an informal tour of the gardens, the barn, the sweat lodge, the sauna, the chicken tractors, and finally the hoop house (green house)
- Harvested tomatoes, peppers, and other assorted greens
- Ate some mustard greens
- Pulled all plants from the ground and threw them into a compost (got to use machete to cut them up!!)
- Composted, fertilized, limed, and turned the soil of the hoop house
- Dug keystone paths for easier harvesting of future hoop house plants
- Weeded the leek beds
- Watched a spider wrap a bee up (this was over the course of my 4 hours there because the spider had a web on one end of the hoop house)
- Got my hand and clothes DIRTY!!
- Had fun!!!
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