When the weeds keep growing

There are a couple key things that make organic growing different from other forms of agriculture. The biggest thing is that organic farmers don't use chemicals on their produce. So the question that I have run into is then "since you can't spray what do you do?," and that's why the organic farmer is valued. The care that goes into organic produce is more intensive. You have to watch your crop and look for all the faulty pieces about it. So instead of spraying the weeds, the weed control starts from the very beginning of the growing season before anything is planted by "tilling" the earth. Really, it is important to break up the soil. Then, when the plant is in the soil you can sometimes take heavy machinery through the crop, but on most occasions you spend your time hand-weeding, wheel-hoeing, and hoeing the crops. 

This is how I spend a lot of my time on the farm, or at least right now. When I first arrived I spent my first day hand-weeding a bed of carrots. One of the also recent arrivals told me that farming can become kind of dull and monotonous. This is very true. Last week a bed of beets took me and two other interns all morning to hand weed. The intern that told me that it was monotonous very shortly after brought out a radio and turned on MPR (Minnesota Public Radio). Other people listen to their ipods while they are working. At first I thought that it would be a good idea to bring my ipod into the field with me, but the other day when I was wheel-hoeing dandelion greens I decided that sometimes no-music isn't so bad. I enjoyed digging my toes into the soil and listening to the birds chirping, the cows grazing, and the wind moving the grass back and forth. It is almost freeing to be there, looking over the miles of fields that cover the land and think about the grand things of creation.