carrots

Looking Back and Moving Forward

November 27, 2023

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.

A student worker is hoeing in cover crop seed
A wide shot of the farm on a hot summer morning with ripening peppers, tall cornstalks, spreading summer squash, and verdant eggplant
Some kids and student workers are busy between the rows of different brassica greens: collards, kale, lettuces, and red mustard greens,
A large heap of moist, recently washed carrots with long skinny roots of yellow, purple, and orange
Students and a couple of kids spread garlic cloves across the soil in preparation to plant them
Two baby watermelons sit on the vine near a melon mound with the early summer sun's light shining across them
Two neat rows of enormous kohlrabi roots are on display
A student smiles exuberantly as she holds up a small French melon
Two orderly rows of bright green, savoyed Chinese cabbage with full tight heads
A closeup of emerging flower seedlings in their cells
A single long-stemmed sunflower is open with its yellow face against the backdrop of Morrisette house
A shot of many deep green, heavily savoyed leaves of lacinato or dinosaur kale
The storehouse is stocked with commodities harvested from the farm: garlic, potatoes, onions, and butternut squash
A student measures seeds in her hand as she prepares to plant out some trays of soil blocks
A grouping of various harvested vegetables and fruit: potatoes, basil, sage, parsley, banana peppers, butternut squash, cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, French melons, mint, and Seminole pumpkins
A closeup of several bicolored green-yellow summer squash ripening on the vine
An assistant manager spreads a thick layer of hay that is acting as mulch around the newly planted seed potatoes
A bunch of harvested flowers are resting in a blue harvest tub: gladiolas, zinnias, rudbeckia, chives, and garlic chives
Students plant out onion sets into the cold, prepared ground

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.

An evening shot showing people gathered and drinking some kind of toast at a long wooden table covered in a white tablecloth with place settings
A closeup of some of the tantalizing food plated up for the 2nd Annual Spring Farm Dinner event
People of all ages share an outdoor meal together at a long wooden table on an elevated deck space

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.

An assistant manager and the farm manager smile as they pose before some tall green tomato vines inside the solar passive greenhouse
A farm volunteer looks serious as she picks basil
A shot of two of the students who are acting as assistant managers posing in front of some tomato vines inside the greenhouse
A smiling assistant manager makes soil blocks
Students gather ripe strawberries in the field

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
A shot of four trays of growing microgreens of different kinds
A basket brimming with bright ripe red strawberries harvested from the field
A closeup of microgreen sprouts growing abundantly
A student smiles exaggeratedly as she prepares to devour her microgreen-covered lunch
A student is piling microgreens on to her plate in the lunch line
A student is smiling as he brings a forkful of farm microgreens to his mouth and more microgreens can be seen on his plate

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.

Someone holds up a handful of small yellow potatoes before a small group of other people there to visit the farm and pick produce
School children walk between rows checking out potato plants and digging for potatoes
Some visitors are picking cherry tomatoes off the vine
School children walk around the farm on a sunny day, picking produce and exploring
Several school children are gathered around the cherry tomato vines picking the ripe orange-gold fruits

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!

Two raised beds with beautifully colored heads of lettuce with colors ranging from bright green to bronzy red
A curtain of bright green foliage, illuminated from behind by sunlight, and hanging green cucumbers
A full, vibrantly green head of cabbage sits in the ground
Some students and kids all help to plant cloves of garlic in raised beds, the cloves of which came from last year's garlic harvest
A student worker is weeding around some collards and mustard greens and is being helped by an eager toddler
A cluster of bright purple bell peppers on a plant
A student is busy collecting flowers from the farm for an arrangement
Four large plastic gusset bags are full of ripe sungold cherry tomatoes
Many eggplant eggplants of varying colors, shapes, and sizes, lay together atop a mesh table
Students spread hay mulch over rows of seed potatoes
An overhead shot of several cucumbers oriented like a large heart surrounding several ripe red tomatoes, all of them atop a wire mesh table
A blue 7-gallon bucket filled with miniature butternut squash that were just harvested
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

All about carrots

March 2, 2022

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.

A closeup of a newly pulled carrot covered with earth in someone's loose grip
A student rinses the dirt from harvested carrots
Two professors remove the tops from carrots to prepare them for washing
Rows of lettuce and carrots in the field extend across the frame
A student crouches in the field reaching as if to pull a carrot
Two students are washing soil from newly harvested carrot roots
Two students remove the tops from harvested carrots and sort them on the wash table

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.

A student smiles with a bunch of freshly pulled carrots
A student wipes the dirt from a carrot root
A student pulls a carrot in the field from frost covered soil
A student is exuberant over her pulled purple carrots

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.

In the greenhouse there is a narrow walkway of gravel between overflowing tomato foliage on one side and carrot foliage on the other
A student pulls carrots from the field
A raised bed of growing carrot foliage in the greenhouse
A professor washes some harvested carrot roots on the wash table
Carrot foliage amidst the backdrop of trellised pea plants
Two professors harvest carrots in the field

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.

A student makes adjustments to the disassembled push seeder
The farm manager walks the push seeder across a newly prepared bed

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
Tags: , , , , ,

The new RS Farm turns four

January 31, 2022

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

A student triumphantly holds up a handful of pulled red carrots
A smiling student hold a bunch of orange carrots that she harvested
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.

A student pulls up an orange carrot
A student cuts red mustard greens
A student holds up a giant turnip root she has just pulled from the ground
A student pulls up a red carrot

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.

The aisle between the raised beds in the greenhouse is a valley of green vines
Newly dug sweet potato tubers have been sorted ready to cure
Sweet potato vines burst from the windows
A view from the west side of the greenhouse showing how the vines fill up the space with two trees in the foreground
Three 20-gallon tubs and one 10-gallon tub are filled with newly harvested sweet potatoes
A student collects ripe ears of corn
Cat prepares corn for fresh eating
Tall rows of corn plants with the tassels visible

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
A smiling student bags up some washed lettuce for the kitchen
Three women students display peanut plants they have just pulled, each thick with peanuts to be dried and picked
Dan Wheeler sketching with student
Eric and two student workers push a bale of hay
Students arrange and process garlic heads
A student looks mock reverent as he clutches a recently harvested ripe tomato
Eric poses with two student workers
A volunteer farm worker transplants mustard green sprouts
Two new student workers pose in front of the greenhouse
Two students happily transplants some turnip seedlings into the greenhouse

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.

a big plot of dirt with four raised concrete block farm beds and some bright yellow strings framing the beds
Three female students build concrete block-lined raised beds

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!

A farm worker shovels pine bark mulch into a bed
A farm worker transplants baby onions into the greenhouse
Two students broadfork a bed that has cover crops growing in it
Tags: , , , , , ,

Autumn On The Farm

November 9, 2020

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.

  • A student picks jalapeno peppers
  • A close-up of a bright red hibiscus flower
  • Many brightly colored flowers are in bloom with dense green foliage
  • A close-up of brightly colored zinnia flowers
  • Students prepare pepper plants to be removed from the farm to make way for cover crops to be overwintered

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.

  • A student thins out extra seedlings that have emerged in the soil blocks and seedling trays in the seed house
  • Two students plant crop seeds into newly prepared soil blocks and seedling trays in the seed house
  • A student pushes the seeder across a prepared bed
  • A student uses a soil blocker to make batches of 20 1.5-inch soil blocks
  • A student makes adjustments to the push seeder before using it
  • A large tray filled with seed blocks of lettuce seedlings
  • A tray of mixed lettuce soil blocks with bright foliage ready to be transplanted
  • Several rows of perennial crops--asparagus, artichoke, and scallions--with a rainbow over them

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

  • Two students transplant beet and chard seedlings
  • A student uses a sprayer to apply foliar fertilizer to growing plants with a good view of the red mustard greens
  • Two students transplant out some fall crops into bed still brown with recently mowed cover crops
  • Rows of crops grow: summer squash, mustard, and turnips with buckwheat growing in between
  • A student transplants out some lettuce seedlings
  • Lush green rows of mixed lettuce and carrots are growing with rye grass in between

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.

  • Farm manager Eric harvest some baby greens
  • Three students pick and process turnips
  • A student harvests baby carrots
  • A student harvests baby carrots into a bowl
  • A near shot of some red mustard greens
  • Two groups of students are harvesting mustard greens and turnips
  • Two students are harvesting turnips
  • A big pot of mustard greens cooking in the kitchen
  • A close-up of a harvested baby carrot
  • Two students transfer newly spin-dried greens into plastic bags read for the kitchen
  • Two students are harvesting red mustard greens
  • Students wash newly harvested lettuce leaves in a large sink
  • A view of several rows of fall crops ready to be harvested: red mustard greens and turnips
  • A student transfers some mixed lettuce greens to a commercial salad spinner
  • Students spin-dry mixed lettuce greens that were recently harvested and washed
  • A student harvests baby carrots

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.

  • Fall cover crops for overwintering grow across several beds with rye grass growing between the rows

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.

  • A student mixes amendments into a raised bed in the greenhouse, preparing it for transplants
  • A mixture of red and green lettuces grows abundantly in the greenhouse raised beds
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Crop Cycles

April 17, 2020

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
  • A close-up of collard greens
    collard greens
  • A row of mature collard greens in the field, ready for harvest
    collard greens
  • A close-up of red Russian kale in the field
    kale
  • A close-up of Muir type lettuce in the field
    lettuce
  • A close-up of several red lettuce varieties
    lettuce

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.

  • A professor poses with carrots and collards she helped to harvest from the field
  • A professor washes down trimmed carrots on washing table
  • Two professors pick carrots from the field
  • A professor plants seeds into prepared soil blocks
  • Two professors trim harvested carrots
  • A professor picks carrots in the field

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.

  • A view of several trays filled with soil blocks
  • A professor is planting seeds into prepared soil blocks
  • Zucchini seedlings just starting to emerge from soil blocks
    zucchini seeds day 3
  • Zucchini seedlings emerging out of soil blocks after 6 days
    zucchini seeds day 6
  • Mature zucchini plants growing in the greenhouse
    mature greenhouse zucchini

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.

  • A close-up of woodland phlox in bloom
    woodland phlox
  • Flowers bloom on a small berm off the solar greenhouse
    phlox and rosemary
  • A wide shot of several old farm buildings in a field in Newbern
  • A broken down tractor in front of an old barn in Newbern
  • An old barn in Newbern with ivy climbing up the sides
Newbern in spring

Tags: , , , , ,