Friday, November 13, 2009

Johnson's Backyard Garden

I had a full work day at Johnson's Backyard Garden yesterday. This is currently a 15 acre organic vegetable farm that has an 800 member CSA program. It started as a small personal garden in Brenton's backyard about 5 years ago, and is now the largest CSA in the southeastern United States. They have plans to expand and just recently purchased a new plot of land.
During my work day we separated garlic, sorted tomatoes and transplanted cabbage. To transplant we sat on a tractor attachment similar to this one with a rotor in front of us that we dropped the seedlings into. It was pretty bizarre. Pictured above are pipes for their irrigation system.

I brought home one of the seedlings that got left behind when we planted. I think this is a russian red kale.
The interns and several of the workers were twenty-something college graduates. They were listening to the Decemberists and other hipster music. The other workers were all Hispanic (most likely Mexican) men in the 30-50 age range.

This is the first time I have seen okra plants. They look a lot like hollyhocks, because they are both in the Mallow family.

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