Carbon is getting allot of attention these days, seems a little strange, but it’s about time! Carbon is the building blocks of life! Unfortunately for carbon, it’s not being regarded very positively. We have determined that excess carbon is causing a coming global catastrophe of possibly cataclysmic result. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may not be the strongest greenhouse gas, but it definitely is being emitted in more quantity than any of the others.
If you’re a plant, you require carbon dioxide in order to survive and thrive, so this excess carbon dioxide is actually a boon to your existence! It is the responsibility of plants to convert carbon dioxide into many other forms carbon based compounds, which we harvest and send to you in your boxes. The nice thing is the majority of the carbon from the plant stays on the farm. If it’s a head of lettuce, the roots stay here, a tomato, the plant stays here, etc. So, in this way, plants really do sequester carbon into their tissues. The question then is whether or not that decomposing plant material will simply decompose, off gassing the majority of carbon back into the atmosphere, or will it be placed in such a way that it can become a food source for the soil microbial community. In this way, if properly managed, plants play a critical role in feeding atmospheric carbon to microbes which further become members of a stable soil aggregate which can self perpetuate bigger plants, more microbes, more carbon sequestered…. We need to have this biological system working for us, feeding us, all while aiding us on our quest to reduce carbon emissions.
Check out our video on Instagram of our daily sheep moving!
P.S. The potatoes in boxes this week represent our entire harvest this year. You may have read earlier of the flooding we experienced and potatoes were one of the affected crops (along with other fall and storage crops that we usually count on for the last weeks of boxes). The yields were so bad this year that we harvested half of the amount of potatoes we had planted. Usually we expect 10-20 times the yield of the amount planted! In contrast, the bumper greenhouse tomato and cucumber crops are about finished so you likely won’t be enjoying those again till next season. Stay tuned for details next week for the 2022 season!
