We recently posted on our sister site about going to a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Fair to join a farm. That post can be found at CSA’s on Long Island: Photos from a NOFA event. We joined a local CSA named Biophilia.
By joining a CSA, you pay for a share which entitles you to a portion of the vegetables harvested during a season. Many CSA’s, including the one we joined, are organic. It is a way to support local farmers directly and get fresh produce.
Many CSA’s take the “community” part very seriously by having events throughout the growing season for the members to participate. At Biophilia, we helped out at the opening of the greenhouse by planting seed flats.
The farmer had mentioned that the name Biophilia was taken from a book by Edward O. Wilson, but Susannna had noticed that the farm’s name had the farmer’s name in the middle of it. Coincidence?
We got to choose what vegetable we wanted to plant. Farmer Phil made the mistake of asking my favorite food. I said “brownies” which is what another member brought to the opening to share. After the farmer laughed, he specified what is my favorite vegetable. Here is the list of vegetables we were planting in flats:
I chose Habernero Peppers. This surprised the farmer since he had me pegged as a lettuce and kale kind of guy. It also amused me that it is the name of one of the producers on WUSB 90.1 FM.
The planting process is decidedly high-tech 🙂 We poke a hole in the center of each seed bed with a pencil. I told the farmer the old story about NASA spending a $1,000,000 to invent a pen that writes in space. The Soviets used a pencil. He chuckled.
Notice in the photo above that each flat had a marker to say what kind of vegetable was planted in it.
You were only supposed to put 1 or 2 seeds in each hole. We used seed holders that you tapped to get the individual seeds in each hole.
Notice my hole-making pencil on the side of the photo above.
Susanna takes a turn planting.
After the tray is planted, we used the watering can in the corner of the photo above to douse the flat. Altogether during the day, about a dozen people helped out, and a lot of flats were planted.
The day ended around 5pm, when folks got hungry for dinner.
You can find the rest of the greenhouse pictures on our Flickr account.
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