// BLOG

From Cubicle to Farmer’s Field

June 2, 2009

lipka_headshot Sara Lipka is an intern for The Farm At Sunnyside and has been contributing to The Atlantic Food Channel on a regular basis about her experience. Previously, Sara was a reporter for The Chronicle of Higher Education, in Washington, D.C.

After months of dreaming about corn fields and ruminating on the agricultural skills humans have lost over time, the author decides to abandon her city life for a job on a farm. Here, she describes how the came to the decision–and how her parents reacted when she told them the news…

To read the entire post, please visit The Atlantic Food Channel.

Playing De(er)Fence

May 6, 2009

Last week we encircled our largest production field with a permanent deer fence. I don’t like fences. They fracture the landscape and obstruct our goal of creating permeability between ecosystem and farm. Yet we had little alternative.

Sunnyside is a paradise for white-tailed deer. Just the other night, I counted 31 munching away in our pastures. Many transit back and forth from Shenandoah National Park, our neighbor to the north.

These animals do enormous damage. They devour our fruits and vegetables (in addition to flowers, shrubs and young trees). They spread Lyme disease, a serious and increasing threat to all who work and live here. They menace our vehicles – the market truck barely missed one leaving the farm on a recent Sunday morning.

Lethal control isn’t really an option. Not that we oppose hunting. In fact, we allow a friend and his father to hunt the farm each fall and enjoy the venison they provide us. It’s just that we’d need to kill deer at an unimaginable clip to make a dent. That would likely prove neither sustainable nor safe, to say nothing of the horrible spectacle it would create.

Our farm’s size and the dispersed nature of our best growing areas render many other options – repellants, dogs, sound machines, etc. – ineffective or impractical. So we do what we can: permanent fencing where the costs justify it, temporary (and marginally effective) fencing elsewhere, cages for our most valuable trees, Deet and high boots for the ticks, cautious driving on the roads. In the end, we’re playing defense and trying to prevent the other team from running up the score.

Contrary to how it may seem, this battle isn’t so much nature versus agriculture. It more accurately signals an ecosystem out of whack. In addition to the havoc they cause on the farm, deer are destroying saplings in our ecological restoration areas, gobbling up our forest understory and otherwise degrading habitat for other native plants and animals. Simply put, their current superabundance is denuding the landscape.

Unfortunately they are not alone. Many species, including aggressive interlopers from other parts of the world, are spreading rapidly thanks to a nasty cocktail of human activities: eliminating predators, fragmenting the environment, warming the climate.

In the end, the cumulative effect is to inhibit diversity and reduce complexity in the world around us. That spells trouble for both nature and agriculture. And so we must resist – keep playing defense – even if it means erecting more deer fences.

Opening Day

April 17, 2009

To me, the onset of spring on a farm feels akin to opening day at the ballpark. Last year’s frustrations and disappointments fade. The air is alive with reassuring signs of rebirth and renewal. The prospects for a bountiful and successful season seem impossibly clear on the horizon before the heat of the summer sun obscures them like a mirage.

After a long stretch of cold and rainy weather, today dawned cloudless and stayed that way. Every living thing on the farm seemed to respond with a sense of euphoric urgency.

The cherries and Asian pears reached full bloom, their branches absurdly festooned with showy white flowers. The afternoon’s warmth awakened an army of pollinators who flocked to the feast – bumble bees, honey bees and orchard mason bees leading the way.

Asparagus spears emerged like rocket ships from under their bed of straw mulch. I picked my first of the season and devoured it raw to satiate my hunger after ten months of deprivation from this seasonal delight.

Morels, those unlikely and elusive delicacies of the mushroom kingdom, popped up from the forest floor. Or so my neighbor discovered. After an hour of fruitless hunting, I returned from the woods to find a small bag full waiting for me.

Seemingly overnight, songbirds reappeared from their southern haunts and sang through the day with abandon. At least three white-eyed vireos were back on territory, and the nasal cry of blue-gray gnatcatchers was omnipresent in the tulip poplar stands along the forest edge. Eastern bluebirds and tree swallows fought pitched battles for the right to occupy the nesting boxes we erected last month.

As evening approached, a deafening chorus of frogs erupted as if on cue and seemed to encircle the farm from all directions. Mostly spring peepers, I think. Their voices continue to echo even now as midnight nears.

Welcome to The Farm at Sunnyside’s blog!

March 20, 2009

Through this forum, our goal is to share experiences in the operation of an organic vegetable and fruit farm. In order to give you the richest perspective on what we do, you’ll hear a range of different voices: the farm owners and employees as well as the occasional special guest.

We aim to cover three broad, related themes:

The unpredictable, demanding, rewarding, exhausting, frustrating, humorous and humbling elements of running a small-scale organic agriculture business;

Our efforts to restore and maintain a diverse and healthy ecosystem on the land where we farm; and

The Rappahannock County, Virginia community that supports, educates and inspires us.

Whether it’s chasing bears out of the cherry orchard, growing greens in the dead of winter, fielding bizarre questions at the farmers’ market or trying to lure rodent-munching barn owls, we hope to cover a lot of ground.

We look forward to your comments and questions and to creating a site that is informative and fun.

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