My fall post

By Stowell P. Watters

It is good to have the seasons change, it is, it is. I love how fast this all happened; one minute we had seedlings shivering in the cold green house, then we had summer squash multiplying in the back room, and now we scour the eggplant area for those lilting auberginies, binjalies, eggy-p’s, or Solanum melongens (if you want to get all technical). Soon we will pull all of the plants out and drop back into mulch mode; picture Optimus Prime transforming from car to mech, locking and loading. The season for swimming and grilling is over and now we will get out the flannels, roast the root vegetables, read some fiction, cut trees out back to hone that ski run, and begin putting the farm to bed.

An update from Rippling Waters Organic Farm: we are expanding the mandala garden. If you came to see it this season and witnessed the unrelenting vegetative salvo then you know why – it was a huge success, blockbuster. In the name of progress we’ve created labyrinth-like rays shooting out from the center (sun) bed. Piled high with newspaper, seaweed, sawdust, greensand, compost, leaves and hay these beds will cure for the winter and give home to our nightshade crop next season. Our most recent WWOOFer is from a cozy home on the Falmouth coast and has kindly let us use her family’s beach access for countless seaweed-gathering trips. Thank you Eliza and family for the generous bounty.

Pulling that seaweed from the beach - up two flights of stairs and a hill, bucket in each hand – is no easy task and quickly wears at our breakfast energy. So why do it, you might ask, why not apply manure like most farmers? Why not skip the rotting slimy stuff and head inland for greener pastures? Well, I will tell you – if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Seaweed works. While it has nearly the same Nitrogen/Phosphorus/Potassium (NPK) content as your typical bovine manure it lacks the potential weed seeds harbored in dung. In addition to a great nutritive base, scientists have verified the presence of at least 60 elements in common algae – as we learn more and more about soil science we see that a diverse diet is fundamental to a healthy plant, and that plants fed only your classic NPK are weak and unhealthy, on par with a child fed only pizza and soda – he will live but will he grow?

Anything dredged from the sea also contains sodium and boron. Two things most farmers typically lack in their fields. I saw a soil guru at this year’s Common Ground Fair dare a group of onlookers to dump a 55 gallon drum of sea water on their garden. After a series of “uh ohhs” and general sneers he said, with a smile, “It will thrive!” Sodium has a bad name (“Salt of the earth!”) and for an understandable reason – too much sodium and you have got a completely toxic environment. But sodium adds to soil structure and without it plants would be unable to uptake nutrients from the soil on a molecular level; think of it as a phone line from your plants to your soil. So when someone tells you to wash your seaweed off well, you know what to say.

Sea weed also contains a cornucopia of things from the Oceanside that are rich in organic matter (carbon and nitrogen), like crab shells, sand fleas, feathers and worms. The one thing we have found problematic about seaweed is the presence of dog droppings which can harbor maggots- no fun. That aside, the benefits are endless and the cherry on top might be that seaweed is free – just make sure to ask your park ranger first.

We here at Rippling Waters hope you can get a little seaweed in your life as we head into winter- pray for snow!