Things have been dry on the farm, though a cold, then a warm front came through in the last week left some rain. So we've gotten a lot tilled and some radishes, beets, clover, and greens planted, and hopefully the rain will get those germinated. We've ordered some bees to replace the ones that died this winter, and are looking to expand our fruit sections by a bit. Our rotations and planting plans are still in the process of final set up, but we should have an idea of what space there is for things after we've planted our onions and potatoes, which will take up a good amount of space.

Mid February, I believe.

and here's the graft.

The farm is starting to have more activity. I went out there with Chantal on Friday to graft a peach tree that had been girdled, and then yesterday i went out there with Alice and checked out the beehives (both dead, unfortunately, my theory is one died of cold, one of starvation), talked to the neighbors, and then we went back to Alice's house and talking about rotations and planting plans.

So I'm back in Ames, for my last semester as an undergrad at Iowa State. So far, I've learned that robins don't technically migrate, they just follow food, so it isn't unusual to see them during the winter in certain microclimates. I also learned alot in Mexico, see pictures of that after the jump.

In farm news, we´re working on applying for a NRCS-SARE grant to do some research on cover crops and clover intercropping with the ISU Student Organic Farm and maybe some other people.

Here's the one onion flower that our farm produced, I've been told by Alice that she cut it down when she harvested the first round of onions.
I've uploaded this and pictures of the last few months onto facebook, you can see them here.

This is kindof my pet project for the summer. The plan is to grow, and then plant seedlings directly into a cover crop, avoiding tillage in the spring when we're most likely to have major water erosion. In this case, we planted winter rye last fall, and then this spring we scythed it down and planted various brassica seedlings (broccoli, kohlrabi, cabbage, brussell sprouts) into it. A big picture of the test area is shown above.