Friday, September 16, 2011

FRIDAY FARM LAB AT BAKERSFIELD COLLEGE



Fridays are lab day at the school farm for my Vegetable Crop Production class.  Today we were very busy.  We spent the last two Friday Lab Days preparing the soil for crops.  Today, we actually made beds and planted close to 11,000 transplants.  (*Click on a picture to enlarge the view)


Our teacher is amazing.  He is new to our school, so we were all curious about his teaching style, but as the weeks go by, we are learning that he is organized, tech savvy, and helpful.  He also happens to be the Farm Adviser for our region.  Which means he is the State Extension Office representative to local commercial vegetable farmers.  We live in the 3rd biggest Ag county economy in the country and just below the #1 and #2 Ag counties in the country, so he HAS to be very knowledgeable.  Already, picking his brain just a few times, I am so excited to have him nearby.  We are going to learn a lot from him this semester.


He prepared a diagram of the field that demonstrated what and where we would be planting.  Then, he gave students bright pink flags to place at intervals to mark the rows and sections off. (You may be able to see them in the background of the photo) Next, he broke the class into teams of two students and he gave each team an 8" long cookie spatula and transplants.  The cookie spatula worked great.  We used them to make the holes for the transplants and to measure the distance to the next hole.  It worked like an assembly line.  One student would make a hole, measure forward to the next hole, and the next student followed behind placing and planting the seedlings.  It really went FAST and because of the cookie spatulas, the plants were evenly spaced making the rows look great.


Our professor was able to obtain an amazing 11,000 seedlings via donation from a very generous grower- Greenheart Farms.  Thank you GREENHEART FARMS and customer service representative Paul Hertel for getting our vegetable crop production class off to a GREAT start.  

We planted romaine lettuce, green and red leaf lettuce, purple and green cabbage, and broccoli.  The seedlings looked great, so I expect some nice looking vegetables.  They were all planted about 8" apart.  Have a look at a few pics of our progress.




and when we were done planting, the sprinklers were turned on and everything got a good watering.


This is the last class I need to graduate, and I have some experience in classrooms.  This group of students are really hard workers.  Most of them are young, my son's age.  For the most part they all work well together and are good to each other.  I feel blessed to be in this class with such a nice group of kids, but it does make me miss my kiddo...

At the end of the lab, our professor asked us to get together for a class photo.  I have a keepsake to remember the day.


This class runs through November so I will post about our labs as often as we experience something of interest to home gardeners.  Our field is broken up into two main sections: organic and conventional.  I hope to learn a lot of helpful information through the course of this experiment as we compare crops in both sections and learn alternative remedies for the organic field setting.

Have a GREAT weekend!

This post was linked up to the following HOPS:



(You may notice that I have pasted code instead of a link, that's because I recently found a few instances where links were deactivated after a post was archived by blogger.)

13 comments:

  1. The pictures look great . Can't wait to see it in real life.For anyone reading thess comments. She is the reason my garden is doing so good. If you have any questions, she is the one to ask!

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  2. This is awesome! I would love to watch the progress.

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  3. This is awesome...Makes me wonder if I should find out about classes around here...I would love to make better use of our 5acres but kinda not sure where to start.

    Thank you so much for sharing.
    Blessings Kelsie

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  4. Michaele- I am going to post weekly updates through Thanksgiving, so we can all watch the seedlings grow. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment!

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  5. Kelsie-
    5 acres is perfect! Contact your local Cooperative Extension or County Ag Dept. to see if they are hosting master gardener classes and your local community college.

    I am almost done now, but I have taken all the classes for an associate of science degree for plant science (which is just fancy talk for farmer)at my local j.c.. And- what they'll teach you is geared toward commercial production, meaning it's bigger than a home garden, but applicable to 5 acres of farming/ranching. The plant science major taught me everything from rangeland mgmt and forage crops to veggies and fruit/nut trees.

    Farm school would teach you how to make a pasture system that feeds your lil goats without exhausting your lands, saves you money, and feeds them better. The animal science classes would be great too. Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by.

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  6. Heidi you have won a prize on the PAFA blog giveaway you do not have your email enabled for me to contact you I need that email address please

    http://primitiveandfolkartists.blogspot.com/

    Thank you congrats
    Brenda

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  7. Wow Brenda! That's so exciting. Going to your site now to post email addy. Thanks again.

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  8. ok Heidi I must of missed your post on my blog and I have searched you have won the Halloween Sign
    donated by Charlene of Catsdesigns

    here
    http://primitiveandfolkartists.blogspot.com/2011/08/strolling-through-pumpkin-patch.html

    can you go to that site and please leave a message on that post with your email address so I can contact you and she can then email you for your shipping address
    thank you
    Brenda

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  9. Congratulations Heidi, you've won my Halloween sign. Please, contact me at catennison@sbcglobal.net. I need your address so I can mail out.'
    Thank you
    Charlene

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  10. Thanks Charlene,

    I just sent you an email with the 411. I am so excited. can hardly wait to see it and share a pic here.

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  11. Wow, what beautifully spaced plants using the cookie spatula! Who'd have thunk it! Looking forward to seeing the progress and the differences between organic and conventional!

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  12. Hi Heidi! It looks like this is your week for winning giveaways! You get the garlic and the basket from my giveaway. If you can e-mail me your address, I will get them mailed to you this week. My email is katerifahey@hotmail(dot)com.

    Thanks for entering and for following my blog!

    kateri @ http://dandelionhaven.blogspot.com/

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  13. Holy smokes! I LOVE garlic and baskets Kateri. I must have done something right lately, I can't believe this incredible string of good luck. I am so excited to see them. Thanks so much. I love your blog.

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My email address is whitewolfsummitfarmgirl@gmail.com.