Friday, April 12, 2013 at 2:07PMBy Faatma Mehrmanesh, Operations Coordinator at DUG’s DeLaney Community Farm
Joy and Trepidation: WE’RE EXCITED! Excited for another year of local food production for our community of shareholders, community partners and farm stand. Excited to try new techniques in organic pest control and maximizing our use of space while building up a healthy soil in a semi-arid high plains environment. Excited to have a new seasonal staff of Farmer Interns and work with new community partners! Excited to get dirty and watch seeds grow into a system of abundant food and abundant relationships.
We are NERVOUS about the forecast of another season of heat and drought! While organic farming does make every effort, with considerable success, to protect the earth we cultivate from the extreme heat and create an optimal growing environment of healthy bacteria and balance in nutrients and pH levels, we can’t predict the outcome or the extremes we’ll experience. Plus it’s not unusual for the weather to be unpredictable here.
Drought: With the worst water levels that we’ve seen in more than a decade and anticipating temperatures higher than we’ve experienced since the Dust Bowl, we have to do our part and make sure that we are intentional about our water use. There aren’t restrictions on agricultural use but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things we can do to use less and still feed our plants. Fortunately for us, organic growing practices have some built in measures for water conservation, like mulching and companion planting, that we already do. DeLaney also converted to drip irrigation about four years ago, to reduce the amount of water wasted (evaporating in the hot air via sprinklers) and have worked closely with the City of Aurora Parks and Open Spaces and Water Conservation offices to ensure that we are taking every measure to use only what we need. We might even do some xeric demonstration gardens around the farm!
Down the Rabbit Hole: Oh Bunnies! Why are you so cute and terrible? As many of you know from experience in your own community or backyard garden, the bunnies won’t go away. They will eat all your crops and they are less fearful than they used to be! Last year the rabbit population exploded around DeLaney Community Farm and brought all sorts of havoc and devastation with them. Drastic times call for drastic measures… within reason.
This year at DeLaney we are excited to partner with Nature’s Educator and their rescued raptors! These falcons, hawks, kestrels, and maybe even some owls will visit us on the farm to exercise and have lunch… on rabbits! These kinds of closed loop systems of problem solving make us so happy and we feel a lot less guilty. I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted on our successes and failures as the season progresses.
Expansion: DeLaney Community Farm is adding SIX new fields for cultivation this year, which is just under a half acre! …and you know what that means…. more food! More food for shareholders, the awesome WIC participating families, for the folks who make it out to our farm stand every Saturday and our amazing community partners, Project Angel Heart, the Gathering Place and joining us this year, Nooch Vegan Market! We are grateful for our long-standing partnership with the City of Aurora for helping us make this happen!
Our 2013 Staff: Every year we invite a new set of dedicated young farmers to work with us at DeLaney. It’s a shared learning experience where we all explore the processes, successes and failure of working a mission driven (peri) urban farm, using only organic growing practices! Our staff this year is Zoe Anjo (Farmer Apprentice), Kim Schmidt (Farm Intern), Oliver Wray (Farm Intern), Emily May, (Programs & Outreach Intern), and Laurie Rochart (Programs & Outreach Intern). It’s going to be an excellent year! Happy Growing!
