As some of you may know, we do try to implement a fair amount of permaculture design over here on the farm. Permaculture can look like a lot of different things on a lot of different farms or operations. At Ridge to Reef we utilize permaculture design principles in how we plant our fields.
The goal of permaculture is to create regenerative, sustainable situations that can benefit the environment and surrounding community. This can be interpreted in many different ways. When planning our fields and plots, we try to think about how we can disrupt the soil as little as possible to promote soil health. In order to do this you need to plant in layers. Thinking about how to maximize your field space by planting a mix of long, medium and short term crops can be a good way to accomplish this. In the image above you can see this in action. On the far left we have a clump of banana trees that were planted many years ago and will continue to produce fruit for years to come. Moving to the right of that we have a section of the field where we interplanted pineapple and cucumber. Pineapple is a long term crop while cucumber is a medium term crop. We planted these two together because the pineapple plants will deter deer from interfering with our cucumber production, and once these plants reach the end of their lifecycle, the pineapples will take over the plot. On the right side of the image we have a few rows of cut greens. These are a short term crop that we intentionally planted outside of the fence because these greens in particular will not get eaten by deer. These greens will die back before the cucumbers and pineapples and we can use that space to plant something new while we still have the field working. Implementing permaculture design can be easy, especially in the tropics where we have a continuous growing season and the ability to grow a wide range of crops.
I'm done geeking out now and I'll use the rest of my space here to get you all excited about the shares this week! Watermelon are coming in heavy so those will be a big item this week. This variety is fun because I thought they were supposed to be miniature but they instead they are very large and range from around 14-20 lbs each. That being said, the watermelon will be sliced into 3-4 lb portions because putting a 20 lb watermelon in your box would be kind of ridiculous, no matter how much you think you love watermelon. We also have more broccoli this week, lots more bunches of carrot available, and more of that gorgeous large leaf rainbow chard. I had a blast running around the farm this morning with Bosco and Andy checking out everything that's coming in, and I hope you all enjoy your boxes this week as much as I did creating the inventory. Have a great week everyone, we look forward to seeing you Saturday.
Elizabeth and the Farm Crew
