Sunol AgPark Experience Week 2

Hey guys!

        I hope you enjoy the little spin-off from my previous post. I try to write a more concise one. Let's go♪

June 29, 2015 Monday 8 am - 12 pm.

The Agpark Farm

     I return to the farm and met Joanna again with her boyfriend.  I then continued to weed out the Amaranthus talk with her boyfriend as he used a tool to uproot weeds in the furrows. He showed me a weed named Purslane or Portulaca Oleracea, which has Omega-3  fatty acid (has ALA, DHA  and EPA specifically) , vitamin E, Magnesium, Riboflavin, Vitamin C, Potassium and Phosphorus. Plus it tastes good. 

After I weeded and ate the Purslane, I helped Joanna planted some Mexican sunflowers and marigolds from her planter trays. I also took some of the leftovers home and to the MSJ Garden to plant, obviously with Joanna's permission. But I never imagine that I would working outside for so long today. Six hours or more is a long time.

Questions: Where can I get the Purslane seeds? And what types of soil are available and best for the plants? I saw Joanna have some volcanic, gypsum soil at her farm. Cool.

Cloudy day over the fields

Break Place

June 30, 2015 Tuesday I had to skip because of my family's timing.

July 1, 2015 Wednesday 8:00 am. to 12:00 pm.

       Since Joanna was coming later in the day, I worked with one of the interns Desiree on Stephanie and Aaron's farm. They needed an extra hand of harvesting some of their crops for the weekly CSA (Community Support Agriculture). You should definitely sign up to receive some organic sweet veggies from them! Over a few hours we harvested some Curly kale, Lacianto lettuce, spinach and basil and tied a bundle of ten of each kind with a rubber band. As we harvested, we removed some of the dying, pest-ridden leaves from the plants. Aaron told Desiree and me that sometimes these plants send out chemical signals to pests to eat their leaves away because the plants needed more room to grow. It's the farmers' job to harvest the plants to encourage more growth 

       Also we learned about hybridization when we picked the lettuce with its colorful stems. Some of the lettuce have yellow, yellow-white, orange, red-orange ,etc. stems caused by their phenotype expression. It's interesting to see how plants can create such variety. After we picked up the veggies and herbs and tied them up with rubber bands, we then washed them in a water tub and place them in cleaned baskets, which later had a wet potato sack covering each basket. With all this hard work, everyone decided to take a break and have some sweet plums and peaches that Stephanie and Aaron brought. Yummy. As we relaxed, Desiree and I told each other stories about how we found about the farm and what we have done on the farm as our shift ended. And it's a beautiful day to chill and make new friends.

Questions: How does the CSA program work? What are some ways of keeping a plant healthy?

Sunol

 Sunol

July 2, 2015 Thursday 9:00 am. to 1:00 pm.

          Today I got to hang out with Emily, whom I already met when I was working with Matt at the Happy Acre Farm. It turns out their farms are right next to each other. Anyway, I walked over to the greenhouse where I talked with Emily and saw Joanna again. They were both watering their plants an getting ready to plant them in. After Joanna walked back to her farm, Emily then showed me her farm and what she had stored for us: planting eggplants, weeding and making bouquets for fun. Afterwards, we went back to the greenhouse to pick up some eggplant sprouts and planted them in the bed. Meanwhile two of Emily's friends came over to help out weeding and planting. As Emily and I planted the eggplants, we talked about why we chose to farm and some interesting facts about ourselves like college, interests, plans for the Fourth of July, etc. After we finished planting the eggplants, she showed me her vegetable-flower farm. Since I'm interested in flowers, I asked her for some of the flowers she grown. She grows Zinnias, Celosia, Sunflowers, Gomphrend, Dahlia, Rudbeckia, Statze, Marigolds, Clarikia, Yarrow, Ammi, Nigella/love in a mist, Ruplurum, and Cosmos.

          She should me some of the beds that she started weeding while one of her friends worked on weeding out the bed with the dahlias. So Emily and I worked on the opposite side and we all worked towards the middle. As we weeded, Emily told me that usually on Thursday she won't be working this hard because she has work at 1:30pm. But with me here today, she feels more motivated. So having a buddy work along with you helps! And it's more fun too. And while we weed, she told me that even though weeding takes a long time, it's rewarding to see how much you progress. After we were done weeding the bed, we took a lunch break and exchange more stories. Plus I learned I like pesto, the dip she had on her sandwich. After our break, she then took me over to the farm to pick out flowers for to make a bouquet. So we each carried a bucket of water to keep the cut flowers turgid. Later she cut the plants and telling me which one is the filler and the main spotlight to put on a bouquet. Like it's best to not have the leaves on the flower stalks especially near the bottom because they can rot and affect the rest of the flowers. And that you have to be careful handling the plant of else the stem might break. For the sunflowers, if you grow them closer to each other, they have smaller heads and that it's best to cut them before they're fully open. Let them last longer and make more people smile when they see them. And I really like making the bouquets and the flowers all look so beautiful. I should have take a pic of them, but the feeling still remains in my memory. FUN!

And Emily said I could go to Johnny's selective seeds to order a free catalog request. And that she gets her seeds from Geoeed.

Questions: May I make another bouquet again? What are some ways to make sure the flowers last longer?

Water temple Mural

Water Temple



Road View

Philosophy: Don't let anyone hurt you; you have the power to stop them.