Towards the end of working my very first Saturday farmer’s market as a Horton Road apprentice, a young man asked me whether our farm had a plug planter. Brand new to farming, I had no idea what he was talking about so he explained that there are attachments for tractors that plant starts. I chuckled a bit and replied, “oh, my fellow apprentices and I are the plug planters at our farm…” As he walked away I wondered to myself how a machine could mimic the simple, yet fine-tuned choreography we call plant out.
Plant out generally takes place on Tuesday mornings and can last anywhere from 30 min to 3 hours depending on how much we are planting and how intensive each crop is. There are some crops that are planted using a tractor (carrots, beets, cilantro, spinach) or are specifically attended to by Lisa (baby spinach and beet greens) and Debra (salad greens), but the apprentice team hand plants a large amount of the crops that you’ll see and eat.
Head lettuce and baby lettuce, which you’ll find in the original and subtle salad mixes, are the most frequently planted crops. Head lettuce needs to be planted 12 inches apart and baby lettuce 6 inches apart. Thankfully, we are not expected to know these distances simply by sight or smell – we use the hole punch that literally punches holes in the ground that are 12 inches apart in all directions from each other. It takes two people pulling the hole punch to mark a full bed – the more synchronized the better – and provide us with our template for dropping and planting.
Next two people pick up trays of plants and drop them at roughly the appropriate distance along the rows. Behind them at least two other people follow planting the starts in their appropriate spots with a swift scoop of the dirt, firm placement of the plug and gentle tuck to ensure a stable foundation from which to grow from. Time is of the essence when planting because we don’t want to be planting crops in the direct heat or else they may struggle to take up water or wilt so it is critical that the whole team is constantly moving and flowing between tasks until the plant out is completed.
A tractor attachment that can do all that we do as a team of 4-5 people sure does sound nifty, and as we saw and learned at a field trip to a nearby farm it is essential for larger farms to get their crops in the ground in a reasonable timeframe. However, there is something pretty awesome about being able to look down a row of newly planted crops and know that you did your best to give those plants a good start and you did it with your bare hands.
Laura is a first year apprentice at Horton Road. This is her first time working on a farm and she loves the opportunity to work with her hands, to learn new skills and to spend so much time outside. She’s been tasked with helping manage plant outs and is sure glad Lisa and Bill don’t seem to mind answering her questions week after week.