| Opening Week at the PEAS Farm: Plastic and Dirt |
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| Written by Heather McKee | |
| Thursday, 28 February 2008 | |
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Holy crap, it’s February in Montana, and we’re already revving up the farm. We do have a lot of people counting on us – from the folks at the Missoula Food Bank to the eighty families who are members of our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA.) So slap on your Carhartt coveralls, grab your pitchfork and a notebook, and join us here at Envirovore as we work our way from sprout to harvest on the PEAS Farm in Missoula. As you might imagine, we've got a pretty skimpy growing season here in the Northern Rocky Mountains, so we’re getting ready for it while we still have snow on the ground and negative temperatures on the horizon. This week, a handful of other students and I are tackling the farm’s seven-hundred square foot greenhouse, where we will give many of the crops of the farm a head start on the season.
Today, we pulled up the dried out remains of last fall's tomatoes and peppers from the dirt floor, and then untangled and spread out twenty-five or so old wooden seedling tables. We replaced warped or rotted planks, and then leveled each table as it was set in the dirt, to prevent pooling when the seedlings were watered.
We will only be planting onions and leeks this week, because they take the longest to mature, and so we won’t be using the whole greenhouse right away. The propane heater (which the farm manager, Josh, says is only slightly more efficient than burning piles of $20 bills) got turned on today in the greenhouse, so to conserve heat and help cut energy use, we hung a massive tarp to portion off the quarter of the greenhouse that we were using.
Josh quoted a friend today, “Spring is all about dirt and plastic on the farm.” So far, so good.
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  written by Amy, February 28, 2008
So have you looked into doing heat sinks like the It's Not Easy Being Green family did. I realize your temps are much lower and size much bigger, but if you had enough of them strategically placed they might allow you to cut back on the propane a bit. Just a thought!
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It's true what our moms said...we are what we eat. In fact, it's truer than they thought. What I eat doesn't just affect me anymore, it affects all of us.
Unfortunately, the story of food can sometimes be complicated. But envirovores help each other out...which is why this blog will be bringing you news, tips, and information about food and the environment every step of the way.
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