2024 Vegetable Manufacturing on the Faculty Farm – Dickinson Faculty Natural Farm

Season Abstract

The vegetable facet of the Faculty Farm has loved a affluent and productive 2024 to date. The yr is marked with steadfast dedication to wonderful soil stewardship, impactful infrastructural enhancements, dialing in methods for environment friendly manufacturing, and a handful of yield data regardless of some very distinctive climate and pest challenges. Our perseverance within the face of these challenges is a testomony to the keenness of our group and the energy of our mannequin of diversified, local weather change mitigated agriculture.

In spring, we had sturdy greenhouse and transplant manufacturing season. We utilized our greenhouses to provide Eating Providers and Farm Works with recent greens and different merchandise for the spring semester. We additionally grew about 80,000 transplants that we later planted in our vegetable fields to develop into our crops. Getting them off to an optimum begin was crucial in closing crop efficiency.

In April, prematurely of the apprentices arriving, we eliminated the getting older covers of the yurts and put in new insulation and new covers. Physics main and longtime Farm Pupil Employee Gavin Frueh ’24 rebuilt the bottom to our root washer. The brand new arrange features a leveraged dumping characteristic that makes it a lot simpler and safer to scrub the tons of carrots we produce every year.

In Could, we invested time to ascertain a brand new, perennial herb backyard. We now have discovered that herbs are a really low-cost product that provides helpful selection to the CSA and farmer’s market choices. The herbs planted there ought to produce for a number of years with little extra work.

June is usually a really busy month on the Faculty Farm with onboarding, orienting, and coaching for the season. Often, irrigation isn’t an excessive amount of of a priority, however this June we discovered ourselves irrigating practically consistently along with our regular work. The extreme drought in June was uniquely difficult throughout all of our late spring and summer season crops. Spring broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage suffered significantly from drought stress and subsequent insect stress. It was very tough to ascertain our early summer season lettuces and greens that often flourish in June rains, in addition to our marquee foremost season crops like tomatoes, peppers, and candy potatoes.

The upside of a dry June was that the crew spent much less time pulling weeds by hand than we usually do. This surplus labor was leveraged throughout the farm in a number of impactful methods. First, the vegetable rising group assisted the livestock group in fence row cleansing in addition to the removing of particles and invasive plant species all through the pastures. We additionally rehabilitated the greenhouse that previously housed the biogas initiative’s pilot undertaking. This included eradicating the defunct infrastructure, re-grading the inside, and repurposing the home to extra effectively remedy the firewood that heats the yurts and bakes the farm pizzas. And lastly, we redoubled dedication to our groundhog initiative.

Because the summer season of 2023 the vegetable group on the Faculty Farm has been engaged in a calculated effort to fight groundhog herbivory in manufacturing fields. Our focus has been to destroy lengthy established groundhog habitat to discourage annual colonization of the farm. This contains trapping dwell hogs, collapsing the tunnel methods, filling these methods in, and reseeding the soil. The group spent a number of scorching days with weedwhackers, shovels, picks, rakes, and tractors to destroy dozens of tunnel methods in a 12-acre perennial pasture adjoining to manufacturing fields.

Vegetable Manufacturing:

This yr, we endeavored to develop eighty-three distinct recent product strains. Regardless of the challenges of the season, we loved report setting manufacturing in a number of key crops.

We’re happy with the yields outlined above however conscious that they don’t inform the entire story. Ever keen to enhance efficiency and effectivity, we attempt to gather vital knowledge and interpret that knowledge to make knowledgeable planting and gross sales selections.

One vital metric is yield per planting measurement. This provides an image of the general crop efficiency and is straightforward to check yields to different years, and different growers. Yield per planting may be tough to tease out for some crops as a result of the margin of information entry error turns into very excessive. However different crops which might be “one and accomplished” are a lot simpler to trace.

Instance:  Potatoes carried out extremely properly this yr. They shattered our earlier report of yield per row ft. We principally attribute that success to good soil stewardship within the discipline, an sooner than regular planting, and a brand new irrigation protocol this yr.

We additionally use this metric to guage selection efficiency. For many of our crops we develop multiple selection as a hedge towards underperformance of one of many varieties. It additionally affords us the chance to see which varieties develop greatest on our farm and inform future selection choice.

Instance:  Watermelon. We succeeded in controlling each illness and bugs the heat-loving watermelon crop by way of August. Because of this, we harvested greater than ever earlier than, over 5 tons of melons. We grew 4 varieties to hone down which of them do greatest for us. In fact, crucial metric of watermelons is taste. College students, apprentices, and farm workers took on the grueling job of evaluating the 4 varieties’ consuming high quality by way of a blind style check. With this knowledge, we are able to concentrate on the higher performing and higher tasting varieties subsequent yr.

On the conclusion of 2023, we recognized a couple of crops that we over-produced:  cucumbers, zucchini, summer season squash, and tomatoes. We deliberately grew much less of these crops this yr whereas nonetheless satisfying our present market demand.

Different crops that didn’t exceed 2023 manufacturing: 

• Cabbage: We’re nonetheless harvesting cabbage and can possible significantly exceed 2023 manufacturing by the top of the season.
• Carrots: We terminated a complete wave of carrots in June for poor germination on account of drought stress. About 10% of our fall carrot crop was washed out by the 8/9 deluge.
• Garlic: Garlic manufacturing is set by the quantity of seed garlic grown the yr earlier than. Seed garlic is a crucial income for the farm, and we withheld lower than regular for our personal planting final yr. Regardless of that, good plant care yielded a really wholesome, and huge bulbed crop of garlic this yr. In October of this yr, we planted 21,960 garlic seed cloves that ought to every yield a really marketable bulb subsequent July.
• Candy corn: As famous above, the candy corn harvest was sadly compromised by a heretofore unseen pest on the Faculty Farm. In any other case, we might’ve possible harvested much more candy corn this yr than final. We’re at the moment engaged on methods for deer administration subsequent rising season.

Additionally in 2023, we recognized strawberries as a manufacturing energy of the Faculty Farm. In August of 2023 we dedicated to doubling our planting of berries for manufacturing in 2024 (berries are a planted the yr earlier than harvest). That doubled planting yielded an enormous crop of berries for the yr throughout a wider than regular harvest window. This afforded us an vital income stream early within the season. This was so profitable, that in August of this yr, we planted much more berries for the 2025 manufacturing season.

Be part of our CSA or go to us at Farmers on the Sq. to see the outcomes of our manufacturing in 2025!