Working the Soil

I am happy to say that, in my first month at Oakville Grocery's Mount Veeder Farm, I have gotten my hands dirty. Tractor grease, soil, and compost have all declared war against soap from beneath my fingernails.

This is exciting because, with winter's rains subsided, the soil is now dry enough to dig in. Before literally digging in, however, my first task was to mow the cover crop off two of our four fields.

With this "green manure" freshly cut, it was time to turn it under. To do this, I used a spader, which is a tractor implement sporting a line of quickly rotating shovel-like blades. Picture a small delegation of furiously digging dwarves churning the topsoil inward and in exchange flinging up rocks of all sizes, which I then had to pick out of the field by hand.

We then received about 130 tons of composted grape pomace from Upper Valley Disposal and Recycling in Saint Helena. This nutrient-rich stuff was still steaming and sickly-sweet-smelling from its high-temperature decomposition process, as I used a Bobcat to spread 12 gargantuan piles of it.

Next, we turned the compost in with the spader and spread some organic fertilizer, which Omar then tilled in. After that, it was time for me to pick out even more rocks! 

All this work will eventually pay off - healthy soil grows healthy crops. Hence the adage, "don't treat your soil like dirt!"