The Garden Is Winding Down. Farm School Isn't.
What we learned this growing season—and what we'll be working on between now and the next one.
For 17 weeks now, we've been harvesting CSA shares.
For about eight weeks, we've also been setting out the Farm Stand every Wednesday afternoon, filling the tables with whatever the garden has ready that week.
And we're still going.
The days are warm, we're still harvesting, and there is plenty happening in the garden. But we're reaching that point in the year when we can see the change coming. In just a few weeks, the temperatures will begin dropping, the garden will slow down, and Farm School will start to take on a different rhythm.
Which brings up a question people might reasonably have about a year-round Farm School:
What do you do when the garden is done?
Quite a lot, actually.
Because the end of the growing season isn't really an ending. It's when we finally have time to look around at everything that happened this year and ask some questions.
What worked?
What didn't?
What made our work harder than it needed to be?
What could we change before we do this all over again?
And, perhaps most importantly:
What did this growing season teach us about the next one?
Those questions have given us plenty to work on.
When Something Doesn't Work, Pay Attention
We learned this lesson early in the season when our seeds wouldn't germinate the way we expected.
Instead of simply continuing to plant more seeds and hoping for a different result, we started experimenting. We tested our seeds, tried different growing mediums, changed conditions and paid attention to what happened.
Eventually, we moved our growing station out of direct sunlight while keeping our grow lights and heat mats, and germination improved dramatically.
We can't say one variable explained every seed that failed. Moisture, temperature and airflow all likely played a part. But we learned enough to know that the more stable environment worked much better.
So that's where we'll start next year.
We weren't doing a science experiment because it was on the schedule. We had seeds that wouldn't grow, and we needed to figure out why.
The science was already in the problem.
That experience set the tone for a lot of what we're thinking about now.
A growing season gives you plenty of opportunities to notice what isn't working. Fall and winter give you time to do something about it.
We Need a Better Path Through the Garden
One of the clearest lessons from this summer is right beneath our feet.
We already have a small pathway running through the garden, but by the end of summer, weeds and surrounding plants begin closing in. The path gets harder to navigate, harvesting becomes more difficult, and we're constantly fighting growth in a space where we really just need to be able to walk.
So we're going to change it.
This fall, we'll start with cardboard boxes. Lots of them.
The kids can help break them down, cut them apart and fit the pieces together over the existing pathway. Then we'll cover the cardboard with a thick layer of wood chips to help suppress weeds and create a clearer, more usable walking surface.
It's a simple project, but there is quite a bit to figure out.
How long is the path? How wide do we want it? How much cardboard will cover it? How many loads of wood chips will we need?
There's the math.
And as the cardboard sits beneath the wood chips, we'll be able to watch another process happening. Over time, it will begin breaking down. We can look underneath, find worms and other decomposers and see what happens when something that once looked like trash becomes part of the garden.
There's the science.
We don't really have to go looking very far for either one.
We Need to Make Harvesting Easier
The pathway project gives us an opportunity to solve another problem at the same time.
This fall and winter, we'll be adding arched trellises over portions of the path, getting them in place and ready for next growing season.
When it's time to plant again, we'll grow climbing crops vertically along both sides of the arches.
Part of the reason is to use our growing space better.
But mostly, we want to make harvesting easier.
Anyone who has grown cucumbers knows they possess a remarkable ability to remain completely invisible until they have somehow become the size of a baseball bat.
Growing crops like cucumbers and beans vertically should make them easier to see, easier to reach and much easier for the kids to harvest.
Before we can build anything, though, we'll have decisions to make.
How tall should the arches be? How far apart? Where should they go? How wide does the path need to remain underneath them?
We don't have to create a geometry activity and then try to convince everyone that it's relevant.
We actually need to build the trellises.
The math is already in the work.
We Need More Shade
Summer taught us something else pretty clearly.
A garden can be a very hot place to work.
By the middle of summer, we're spending hours outside in full sun, and that isn't always ideal for the people working in the garden—or for every plant growing in it.
So next year, we're planning to add large shade cloths over portions of the garden.
The basic design is pretty simple. We'll set T-posts around the growing areas, place metal pipes over the posts to give us plenty of height, and stretch shade cloth overhead. We want the cloth high enough that the garden still feels open and easy to work in, and we'll design it so the cloth can come down when high winds are expected.
Some of that work can begin long before we actually need the shade.
We can decide which areas we want to cover, measure them, figure out how many supports we'll need and begin planning how everything will fit together.
Then next summer we'll get to see whether our idea actually works.
Does the soil stay cooler underneath? Do some plants handle the hottest weeks better? Is it noticeably more comfortable to work there? Do we need more shade somewhere else—or less?
We'll observe, adjust and probably learn something we haven't thought of yet.
That's farming.
You make the best plan you can, put it into practice and then pay attention.
The goal isn't to eliminate summer heat from a garden. It's to create a garden that works a little better for the plants and for the people tending them.
The Chickens Have Given Us a Few Ideas Too
Our chicken coop is getting some attention this fall and winter.
One change will be adding nesting boxes that can be accessed from the outside of the coop.
Right now, collecting eggs requires going inside. Outside nesting boxes will make that daily job easier and give the kids a little more independence when they're collecting eggs.
So we'll have to figure out where the boxes should go, how large they need to be and how they need to work for both the chickens laying the eggs and the children collecting them.
While we're at it, the outside of the coop is getting a new paint job.
Then we're going to try something completely new: a chicken tunnel, sometimes called a chunnel, that will allow the chickens to travel through designated areas around the garden.
Chickens are remarkably useful little farm workers. They scratch, peck, hunt for insects, eat weed seeds and bits of vegetation, and fertilize as they go.
Unfortunately, chickens don't understand our garden plan.
A chicken is just as happy scratching around the vegetable we wanted to keep as the weed we'd like removed.
So the problem becomes:
How do we let chickens behave like chickens without giving them complete access to the garden?
That's what the tunnel is meant to help us figure out.
We'll decide where it should run, how large it needs to be, what materials will work and how we'll access it when something inevitably needs fixing.
Then we'll put chickens in it and see what happens.
Does it work the way we thought it would? Do the chickens use it the way we expected? Does something need to change?
That's biology, animal behavior, engineering, measurement and problem-solving.
But we'll probably just call it building the chicken tunnel.
Some Things Have to Be Started Now
Not everything we're doing this fall is about fixing something.
Some of it is simply what comes next.
Before the ground gets too cold, we'll plant garlic.
We'll put individual cloves into the soil this fall knowing we won't harvest them for months. They'll spend the winter in the ground, begin growing again as the seasons change, and eventually be ready for us to pull next year.
The kids who help plant them this fall will be here to watch that entire process unfold.
There's something important about that.
So much of life now is immediate. We push a button and something happens. We order something and it arrives. We want an answer and we can usually find one within seconds.
Garlic doesn't work that way.
It asks you to do work today for something you won't receive today.
We plant it.
We wait.
We watch for it in spring.
We care for it.
And eventually, we harvest it.
No worksheet about patience could demonstrate the idea quite as well.
And We're Building Something Just for Fun
We also have a new jungle gym planned for Farm School.
Our Farm Stand has been helping us raise money toward it, and we're excited to turn that idea into something the kids can actually climb on.
This one doesn't need a complicated academic justification.
Not everything on a farm has to produce food, and not everything children do has to produce an educational outcome.
Sometimes children should get to climb because they're children.
But even here, we want them to have a hand in the place itself.
Wherever it's safe and practical, they'll help prepare the area and participate in bringing the new space to life.
Farm School has never been about adults creating a beautiful little world for children and then inviting them into it.
We want them to have some ownership in the place itself.
There's something different about climbing on something when you remember what the ground looked like before it was there.
Fall and Winter Aren't the Off-Season
All of that should keep us pretty busy.
But projects aren't the only thing that happens here once the garden slows down.
The animals still need to be fed and watered. Eggs still need to be collected. Meals still need to be cooked. There will be wood to chop, kindling to gather and fires to build.
And as the weather gets cooler, we'll naturally spend more time around our fire pit.
We'll bring out the tea, sit around the fire and read together. We'll spend more time with our nature stories and field guides. We'll watch the weather change, pay attention to what's happening around us and have a little more room for the conversations and questions that are harder to linger over when everyone is busy harvesting vegetables.
The pace changes.
And I think that's important.
We don't need to make November look like July.
One of the benefits of being a year-round Farm School is that the kids get to experience the farm in all of its seasons—not just when the garden is green and overflowing with food.
They see the abundance of summer, but they also see what comes afterward.
The cleanup.
The planning.
The repairing.
The building.
The waiting.
The getting ready to begin again.
The Harvest Ends. The Work Changes.
That's really what the next several months at Farm School will be about.
We'll take what this growing season taught us and use it to make the next one better.
Some days that will mean measuring and building. Some days it will mean hauling wood chips or working on the chicken coop. Some days we'll plant something we won't harvest for months.
And some days it may simply mean feeding the animals, building a fire, pouring tea and settling in with a good book while the garden rests nearby.
The kids will be here for all of it.
That's what I love about being a year-round Farm School.
They don't only know the farm when it's green, productive and overflowing with things to harvest. They know it when it's hot and demanding, when it's muddy and cold, when projects are half finished, when we're figuring out what went wrong and when we're quietly getting ready to try again.
They get to see that the harvest isn't the whole story.
There is work that comes before it.
There is work that comes after it.
And there is a whole lot of learning happening between the harvests.
Keep Reading
If you'd like to read more about how learning unfolds through everyday life at Farm School:
How Real Life Becomes the Curriculum at Farm School
A closer look at why we don't separate learning from the everyday work of growing food, cooking, caring for animals and tending a farm.
The Seeds Wouldn't Grow
The beginning of the seed-germination story mentioned in this post—and what happened when a real problem became an opportunity to experiment, observe and figure things out.
No Such Thing as Bad Weather
Why changing weather doesn't send Farm School indoors—and what children experience when they are allowed to live through the seasons instead of avoiding them.
Why Boredom Matters at Farm School
Why we don't believe every minute of a child's day needs to be planned, directed or filled.
Curious About Farm School?
Urban Green Harvest Farm School is a year-round, outdoor Farm School in Boise, Idaho where children learn through gardening, cooking, animal care, practical work, exploration and plenty of time outside.
