carrots

Looking Back and Moving Forward

A student sits calmly in the rows of strawberry plants

As the weather grows cooler and the days shorten, Rural Studio Farm is preparing for the cold wet winter when most of the field operation will rest as cover crops replace food crops. It has been a busy year of growing and expanding what we do.

In the spring, we hosted our 2nd Annual Spring Farm Dinner along with friends and consultants Brad Hart and Johanna Gilligan. It was a beautiful outdoor evening of sharing an excellent meal—prepared by Brad using farm produce—with our neighbors and friends.

Now that Patriece’s Home has been completed, Laurel Holloway has left Hale County and her two-year role as assistant farm manager. While we are sorry to see Laurel go, she has been replaced by Jake Buell from Austin, Texas, who is part of the team designing and building the 18×18 House. Jake has joined Ambar Ashraf (Rural Studio Bathhouse), and now they are scheming to bring chickens back to Rural Studio Farm. We also welcomed our Project Horseshoe Farm volunteer fellow, Jenna, to the team.

We introduced two new crops to our regular rotation: strawberries and microgreens. Over the course of the summer, we produced around 200 pounds of fresh delicious strawberries—so good that many berries were eaten in the field. The microgreens are our first hydroponically produced crop, and they have been a welcome addition to the salad bar.

Several students and volunteers are gathering and spreading handfuls of microgreen seeds across wetted burlap in a large PVC tray this part of the hydroponic system for growing microgreens

During the summer, Rural Studio Farm hosted kids who were participating in Project Horseshoe Farm’s Summer Youth Program. The students had fun picking cherry tomatoes, digging up potatoes, and pulling cabbages.

Looking ahead to 2024, we are planning on introducing ginger, turmeric, and Jerusalem artichokes to the Farm. We are also changing some of our accessory flower and herb growing spaces to specifically support pollinators, as well as developing a sensory garden which will be filled with plants of varied textures, colors, aromas, and growth habits. Finally, we are planning on reintroducing both honeybees and chickens back to Rural Studio Farm. It’s going to be a great year!

All about carrots

One of our biggest crops at Rural Studio Farm is carrots.

A heap of freshly washed purple and orange carrots sits on the wash table

We can grow these tasty taproots in the field or the greenhouse during both spring and autumn. They are also cold-hardy, so they can be overwintered in the field for harvests throughout winter, just as we are doing right now.

Carrots are a member of the Umbelliferae family. Umbellula means umbrella in Latin, and many members of this family have umbrella-shaped flower clusters. This plant family also includes dill, parsley, caraway, cumin, fennel, parsnips, cilantro, celery, angelica, and Queen Anne’s lace. Carrots most likely originated in present-day Afghanistan, and the earliest records of their domestication are from Persia. Originally, all carrots were either white or purple until a mutation resulted in a chance yellow carrot. The yellow pigment—as well as reds and oranges—are from a class of chemicals called carotenoids, which are common in many of the fruits we eat, such as bell peppers, oranges, mangoes, melons, avocados and tomatoes. They also form the vibrant dark green of many leafy vegetables like kale, spinach, and broccoli. Nutritionally, carotenoids act as antioxidants, which neutralize free radicals, and are broken down in the body to form vitamin A.

Functionally, plants use carotenoids to aid in photosynthesis, so it is unusual that an underground plant part, like a carrot taproot, would express this color. The modern orange carrot emerged from cultivation of the chance yellow carrot strain. These new orange carrots were widely cultivated by the Dutch—supposedly as a tribute to William of Orange who led the fight for Dutch independence—and then popularized by the French. We still grow mostly orange carrots at RS Farm, but we also grow red, orange, purple, and yellow ones. They add a bright pop of color and each has their own differing flavor profiles.

Carrots are one of the few crops that we do not start as transplants because the taproots do not respond well to being disturbed. Instead, we spread the seed with a push seeder, which shallowly deposits seed at set intervals. Carrots can be planted close together and do not always have very even germination, so the seeder saves a lot of time. Keeping the soil moist is the best way to improve germination. It is also important to keep the soil moist as the roots grow, since uneven watering can cause the roots to split or crack.

While the tops of carrots are edible and can be used for making things like vegetable stock or pesto, we grow carrots for the roots. Farm-fresh carrots have much more flavor than supermarket carrots, and we love them fresh in our salads. Most carrots, however, will be frozen for future meals to be enjoyed even when they are not in season.  

A closeup of carrot foliage in the greenhouse

The new RS Farm turns four

January means a new year, and it also marks the beginning of the fourth year of production on the redesigned Rural Studio Farm.

Two students start seeds in 72-cell seedling trays

With each successive year, we refine our techniques and continue to add more to the farm. In 2021, we raised our total production from 5,701 pounds to 6,352 pounds. But we didn’t just produce more, we produced smarter by growing more of what we needed and thereby reduced waste.

We also added several crops to our rotation, most notably sweet corn and sweet potatoes—both of which made it to our top ten list for the year.

Top ten crop list for 2021 (pounds)

  1. summer squash and zucchini           654.1
  2. Asian and Italian eggplant                 519.2
  3. tomatoes and cherry tomatoes         492.9
  4. lettuces                                             485.6
  5. kale                                                   415
  6. mustard greens                                 403.9
  7. sweet potatoes                                 374.8
  8. turnips                                               369.5
  9. sweet corn                                        264.2
  10. carrots                                              257.3

In 2021, we also expanded our growing space by adding new permanent raised beds in an area of campus that was previously difficult to manage.

Finally, we planted numerous fruit trees and berry bushes: blueberries, kiwiberries, Asian pears, crabapples, figs, elderberries, and mayhaw.

Looking ahead to this year, we want to further diversify the crops that we grow to increase resilience and biodiversity on the farm. We also want to continue to add more long-term crops—like fruit trees—which will have big payoffs in the future. Speaking of which, this will be the first year when we can begin to harvest asparagus, so stay tuned!

Autumn On The Farm

Autumn at Rural Studio Farm is in full swing.

A student uses a sprayer to apply foliar fertilizer to growing plants with a good view of the farm

Some of the lingering warmer season crops are still yielding, like eggplant, peanuts, and bell peppers.

Mostly we have been busy planting seeds into soil blocks and direct-sowing with the push seeder. These crops are lettuces, mustard greens, baby brassica greens, carrots, beets, chard, collard greens, rutabagas, broccoli, radishes, spinach, hakurei (salad) turnips, and turnips.

Once the seedlings are ready, we prepare the beds and transplant out all the crops.

We have been reaping great harvests of many of these crops too, with all of Rural Studio’s daily green salads coming straight off the farm.

Now that the weather is beginning to cool, we have also been preparing for winter by sowing fall cover crops to leave in the field for overwintering. This ensures that there is always something growing in the beds, which helps with drainage and compaction and overall soil health. In the spring, these crops will be mowed down, adding good organic matter back into the soil.

Finally, we are also preparing the greenhouse for production over the winter, which is where most of Rural Studio’s food is grown in deep winter.

Crop Cycles

This week was marked with large harvests, which were the endings of some spring crop cycles, and seed starting in the seed house, the beginning of new crop cycles.

A close-up of harvested and washed carrots, both purple and orange

Thankfully, teaching faculty, Mary English, Steve Long, Emily McGlohn, and Xavier Vendrell all graciously volunteered their time to help farm manager Eric during this busy period.

Harvested spring crops included lettuces, carrots, collard greens, kale, cutting celery, turnips, arugula, beets, and scallions, as well as herbs like spearmint, dill, thyme, and oregano. Many of these commodities were eaten fresh, but the rest were given to the kitchen where chef Cat processed and stored large quantities for future meals once students have returned.

At the same time, Eric and Emily started seeds for late spring and summer. These future crops were zucchini and summer squash, determinate tomatoes for the field, eggplants, red and orange bell peppers, spicy peppers, and butternut squash.

Eric also planted seeds for various beneficial insect-attracting flowering plants, culinary and medicinal herbs, and perennial ornamentals. While many of these accessory plants do not yield tangible crops, they do confer other benefits on the farm, such as bringing pollinators, deterring pest insects, and aesthetic compensation. It is also a key feature of Rural Studio Farm to use a polyculture model, planting a wide diversity of different crops and flowering plants.