Monday - the Sunchokes near Russell Road

 Monday December 5, 2022

It was a little bit of sun and dry day. As usual, it was cold. I started at 10am and worked in the field up to 5pm. It did went dark fast. 

I was cleaning up  in the area near the baby oak. 

I made a semi-circle for the sunchokes as windblock. It is 75% done. This farm has zero trees blocking us from the wind. While sunchokes will not do any winter wind block, at least for the summer, it will be a nice row to plant the beans around it and some greenery. 

The area has nothing but natural green vegetation, and some quack grass. the soil is a bit loamy and sand, but still sticky and wet. I dug out some sunchokes from the side of my house and move them here. 

The ground is very un-even, "ankle breaker farm".  Base of my analysis, this area was probably tilled by a tractor. Over time, grass and weeds took over. The deep trenches are where stones are and areas where snow become ice forming these depressions. This is also the slope that brings the water to city drainage, so this long stretch of deep scar is by water movement. And it keeps going for years, so if you walk around this area, its deep 6 inches deep . 

My solution is to plant native sunchokes in this area to use this section of the farm and also stablize the soil. As water erosion comes every spring due to snow melt, the plant and its roots can absorb the water and retain the soil thus helping remediate this soil. As we also walk to visit the crops, this area will have foot traffic and soil will be leveling. I removed some of the grass to see the depression in the soil and we can actually bring in some mulch to create a walking path, without breaking out ankles. 

More on this for Tuesday work.