July 14, 2022
Market Gardeners gathered to talk shop and compare notes about production at Terra Firma and First Light Farms.
Jesse and Chris at First Light Farm are the masters of salad green succession planting and farm equipment and machinery for small-scale farms including weeding, cultivating and flail mowing. First Light’s wash/pack house is very efficient and designed immaculately.Â
Terra and Rob of First Light put a lot of resources towards building deep, fertile soil on marginal land with compost, cover crops and time. Rob is multi-talented and has a lot of experience with a mobile-greenhouses design and building. Terra is a crop succession and transplanter extraordinaire (almost every crop is transplanted as a strategy for weed management). Carrots are one of the only crops that are direct seeded every week, but only after mid-June to avoid carrot rust fly.
Market garden irrigation systems are fascinating as each farm has totally different sources and tools for distribution and each work for the unique land and source water in every situationÂ