Farm News, Dec 3rd

Great News this week! At long last we have signed a contract with the City of Lake Oswego to continue farming at Luscher Farm for another 3 years. Many of you worked tirelessly for months to make this happen and we will all continue to enjoy bountiful baskets of beautiful veggies thanks to your efforts! In pursuit of this goal the Friends of Farming group was formed and in addition to helping secure the lease, they have several other initiatives in the works. The group has actively engaged the other partners at the farm and is working increase the number and scope of educational opportunities available at Luscher. It would be great to see more kids there! They have also started work on a Sustainability Plan for the farm. If you are interested in helping with either of these projects feel free to contact me.

Our newly formed Farm Sustainability Team went to the The Natural Step breakfast with Josh Hinerfeld, CEO of Organically Grown Company (OGC) this week and it was a very interesting and informative event. Should be an interesting conversation about how organic farms and distributors are working towards true sustainability.

Last week we were able to finish seeding the last of the cover crops for the winter. I bought a disc this fall and used that to prep the soil. The action of the discs is less invasive than the rorotiller, but still stirs up the soil enough to uproot most of the weeds and incorporate some of crop residue. It worked great on crops that were already starting to break down and didn’t have much residue. It did NOT work as well on the winter squash field and I spent quite a bit of time trying to pull partially disked unripe pumpkins, hubbard, and other very hard skinned squash out of the equipment. Live and learn.