Four Season Farm

We were heading up to Maine anyway so we dropped in to have a look-see at Elliot Coleman's and Barbara Damrosch's farm, Four Season, in Harborside. I have been working my way through Coleman's book "The New Organic Grower" after it was multiply recommended and was really excited to see the place in person. What I have found especially useful, in my current work, is Coleman's focus on making efficient use of well-designed hand tools. 

Please note the little bits of tubing on the rake. Instant row marker for seeding.

 This works for the scale that Coleman and Damrosch are farming. After being on such big organic farms I was suprised to hear that Four Season Farm is only a little over an acre yet produces so much food and for the majority of the year. It's not called Four Season for nothing and producing food through the Maine winter is no mean feat. When we visited it was all sunshine and honey bees but over the darker months the temperature averages between 20 and 30 degrees, and that's Fahrenheit, folks. That's a nice range of -1 to -6 Celsius. Needless to say these guys make good use of greenhouses. And these are either unheated or minimally heated during the growing season.

It is probably obvious that I aspire to be a farmer and there are lots of reasons why. One is that farmers are some of the most genius people I have met. And they need to be. They need to constantly and creatively problem solve, adapt and invent. In one of my new favourite books "Shop Class as Soulcraft",  Matthew B. Crawford, amongst other things, talks about the immense satisfaction he gets from fixing motorbikes. Indeed this realization was the main impetus for writing the book;

 "This book grows out of an attempt to understand the greater sense of agency and competence I have always felt doing manual work, compared to other jobs that were officially recognised as 'knowledge work'. Perhaps most suprisingly I find manual work to be more engaging intellectually".

I've been working on a farm for a few months now under the guidance of two farmers, both very experienced and just two of the smartest people I have had the pleasure of knowing. They are able to approach a problem with a wealth of theoretical and experiential know-how that extends not just what could be done but how to actually do it. Like, how to use tools and make tools especially for the job. Watching them work makes me want to go back to high school and pay attention to mathematical and physical principles. But I might just keep working on the farm and learn that way...the view is nicer. But back to the farm.

I present to you Exhibit A: The Tilther. This little gem was conceptualised by Coleman and combines existing technologies, culitvator and hand drill, to create a nifty little machine that can be used safely (no petrol fumes from a rotary hoe, for example) and with less energy in a greenhouse to gently cultivate beds to prepare for re-seeding. I'm guessing you could recharge the drill battery through solar or other means if you had that rigged up.

Four Season is also home to about a couple of hundred chickens, around half of these are layers and the other half are meat birds. We saw this neat set up for rotating young chicks around pasture.

They also have a couple of pigs. It seems like a farm on this scale would struggle to manage any bigger livestock (and provide feed and good habitat for them). Speaking of scale, we were able to ask a couple of questions about the composting system. There is a sizeable area dedicated to composting, but apparently it is difficult to produce enough material for the area that is under cultivation, so compost is also brought in.

An aspect of the planting design on the farm which is both beautiful and educational is the progressive plantings of one crop in a particular area. Like these onions. It's like a living flowchart. You can see dug onions curing on the ground at the back, the next couple of nearly-done rows just pushing themselves out of the ground and young green shoots in the foreground. This is immensely satisfying to see. From my backyard gardening experience I know there is a fair amount of faith/hope involved, especially in sowing the tiniest of carrot seeds, for example. It's like, 'sure, these will become carrots, uh huh, ok...whatever you say". I think I'll always find it incredible to scratch around a 50 day old carrot plant and find the impossible orange beneath.

I gave Elliot some Tasmanian Miellerie honey to say thanks for letting us look around the farm (he mentioned the Tassie honey when describing his last trip there). Luckily I had filled my bag with Gould's farm grown herbal tea and jars of the best honey I know. Being over on the other side of the world opens my eyes to things I've never seen before and gives me space to reflect on what's so good back home.