We put a fish by every seed!

Disclaimer - A lot of the detailed agronomy that I refer to in this post is way over my head. Ben is really the expert, and I try my best not to mess up the information. Please show grace if I made any mistakes, but do kindly point them out so I can be sure to correct it.

As a crop farmer, people always ask Ben what he does during the winter. He is always surprised that their tone implies they don't think he does much of anything. I'll be honest, crop farming makes for a much more relaxed winter than livestock/dairy farming. Really though, he goes from a double-time (or more) work schedule to a single-time work schedule. It's not like he sits around doing nothing for several months of the year.

The huge project this winter has been re-working their entire crop nutrient system. It's a pretty big overhaul from what they've always done. You know how people always tell young children that plants just need sun, soil and water to grow? Wrong. If only it were that simple. One really important thing is that plants need macro-nutrients and micro-nutrient, similar to us. Our protein, carbohydrates and fats (macro-nutrients) are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium to plants. It's also called N-P-K. Who knows why...? Any hands up...? Correct, because those are their symbols on the periodic table of elements. Micro-nutrients for us would be all the various vitamins - basically just read the bottle of your preferred multi-vitamin and you can see all of them there. Plants also have a big list of micro-nutrients. (Little aside here - some agronomists think that micro-nutrients will be the next big breakthrough in taking crop yields to the next level.)

So crop nutrients are a VERY good thing. There are a lot of natural ways we can get these important nutrients into the soil. A big way is to allow as much of the crop "waste" to stay back on the field after harvest. The stem/stalk of the plant contains a lot of the nutrients, so they go back into the soil when it decomposes. (Note - this isn't always possible because some farms need to use it for bedding, etc.) Crop rotation helps this even more because certain crops can "fix" nitrogen from the air, so they are naturally creating the nutrient that is later added to the soil through decomposition. Reducing soil erosion is also important to preventing phosphorus to run off since it binds itself with soil.

Even with all this, it still really helps to give the crops a carefully measured amount of these nutrients at the best times. If you really pay attention during the summer, you can notice some fields of corn look yellow-ish if they are lacking nitrogen and then a week or so after the farmer applies some it turns a darker green.

This is the part that Ben and his dad re-worked all winter. About two years ago they started to sense they would benefit from changing their nutrient management process. So they actively researched methods for applying these nutrients - wet, dry, in fall after harvest, at planting time, right after planting. They based their decision on what seemed like it would be the best for the plant. Then they identified all the equipment they would need to get/change to accommodate the new process. Rather than spend a huge amount of money buying the equipment that is meant for this process, they decided to use what they currently have and modify it. I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say that it was a very big undertaking to design and fabricate everything.

After months worth of working on it, last week was the day of reckoning with the new equipment. The weather and soil temperature was all right for getting seeds in the ground. All those hours, days, weeks and months of creating it, and then at the step of testing it there's a urgency that it needs to work. And it did! Just a day of calibrating and some very minor adjustments, and they were "full speed ahead" (which is like 4.5 mph for planting corn!).

Now we wait half a year to see what the final result will be. Lots of patience and prayer!

http://www.manyhoops.com/children-s-recipes.html

As Ben was doing all this, he said that the Native Americans used to put dead fish next to each corn plant. He looked up how much N-P-K is in a dead fish (apparently there are websites where you can look up the elements in a whole bunch of things). He found out that it's almost identical to what they had planned to apply. Pretty cool! They constructed two wagons to transport the fertilizer, and they thought about painting on the side of them, "We put a fish by every seed!"

Five reasons why you should plant a garden THIS year.

It’s not too late! I highly recommend that everyone plant a garden. Anyone who knows me will probably laugh at that, because I am probably the last person they’d call a gardener.

That’s right, no green thumb on this girl. I could blame it on any number of things (too busy, too hard with a baby, we never did it while I was growing up, etc.). Truth is, I’m really just not that into it. I do have a couple past experiences that have left me with a bad taste in my mouth, but they are funny to recount. 

Story #1 - First was when I took the initiative to plant my own garden during junior high. Except, planting it was about all I did. The weeds took over and I don’t think I ever ate a single thing from it. I still feel guilty over all the wasted potential of those poor little seeds.

Story #2 - The second memorable experience was the COMPLETE opposite. It was our first full summer in our house. Ben LOVES to plant and grow things. He also likes to do nearly every project to an extreme measure. I should have known I needed to reign in this new “project.” He prepared the area with humungous tractor and a moldboard plow, which means it was a huge area. And we filled up the whole thing. We were in way over our heads. Then it came time to harvest, and we were swimming in produce. The biggest irony is that Ben doesn’t eat ANY vegetables, so he just kept saying we should put a “free pick-your-own produce” sign out by the road. That’s when I made him promise that we would only maintain our fruit from then on (apple, peach, pear trees, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, etc.). 

LOTS of salsa from Story #2.

Did you know there's a "Sneak some zucchini onto your neighbor's porch day?" Plant some and you'll find out why!

I am learning to like it though. I've hesitantly agreed to do a garden again this year. And for all these reasons, I encourage you to plant a garden of some kind.

1. Therapeutic – Hobbies are so enjoyable and really enrich one’s life. Gardening is a great hobby that also provides delicious and nutritious benefits. If you live in Wisconsin like me, you’ve just been stuck up in the house for a nasty winter. What better way to replenish your Vitamin D.
   
   
2. Social/Family Activity – We are always looking for things that are fun for Rose (4 years) but do-able with Molly (8 months). I think it's going to be a fun activity for us this summer. When it comes time to harvest the produce, any canning or other preservation is much more fun to do with friends. 
   
   
3. Appreciation/Understanding – Nurturing plants is a great way to gain appreciation and understanding for the world we live in. Selfishly, I also think it creates a better sense of appreciation of full-scale farms, because they are gardening but on a much, much larger scale. When you see how the drought weeks of July stress out your lettuce, how ridiculously persistent the weeds are, or how devastating an untreated potato bug infestation can be on all your hard work, you’ll get a glimpse of what is happening across every single farm field.
   
   
4. Tasty – There’s something to be said about learning when the ideal time is to pick produce and eat it that very same day. Nothing compares.
   
   
5. No harm done – Don’t let gardening failure get you down, like it did to me. Just learn from it so you can do better next time. I learned that smaller is better, so we prioritize what would be a good to plant versus something we don’t really care to eat. Yes, it does feel sad to let the plants get choked out by weeds or let the produce be wasted because you can’t even get it to a food pantry in time, but it’s even beneficial as compost. So there’s really no harm.  

No excuses. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time if you want to do a really small little plot or even an herb garden. The seeds come with planting instructions on the back. Just give it a shot and see what happens.