Copper Death Day 6

I said before I wouldn't post any more pictures, but KDA said to keep taking them, so here is day 6 of copper death. I think you can see how pronounced the toxic effects are now. Still makes me sick to have to look at this.

On a less somber note, the new fence (yep, that's barn red!) that is at the entrance to the farm is only 4 boards and a little chainsawing away from being done. Another to do crossed off the list!

Disaster in the Tomato Fields

This post could also be called "There is no FUN in Fungicide" (thank you Fran). So, it happened last Friday, but the saga started on Thursday. Though our tomatoes were thriving, looking wonderful and just getting ready to start picking, I received notice from the ag extension it would be best to treat the plants for early and late blight. As a sustainable farmer, I prefer not to spray anything, but, as these tomatoes were under contract, I decided to go ahead and get a fungicide on them. I looked up organic solutions, and arrived at copper sulfate, which also goes by several other names. It is a water soluble fungicide, so I could get a couple small sprayers and Silver and Thomas could get it on easily. So after running some errands Thursday, I stopped at a local agricultural store (I cannot name it due to possible legal proceedings). I asked if they carried copper sulfate, yes. I asked how much I should get, was given a number for an acre, which was divided for a quarter acre, I arrived at getting ten pounds, so I would have some for another time if needed. I received the ten pounds of CS in a brown paper bag. Since there was no label, I asked the person what the product to water ratio for mixing was. I was told one pound to one gallon of water, I asked for a pen from another person that was there, asked the ratio again and wrote it on the brown bag, along with 5 pounds for quarter acre. Good to go. I headed home.

Bright and early Friday, Silver and Thomas arrived. Their first course of action for the day was to weed wack and get the grass mowed (this is our way of organic pest control), and by the time I arrived at about 9:30, that was almost all done. Next to the spraying. We assembled the new sprayers, and following the instructions I received from the ag store, put 2 pounds of CS in each sprayer and added 2 gallons of water. They sprayed, but seemed to run out long before we hit 5 pounds. We actually have more that a quarter acre, and 25 pounds would actually be 6.25 pounds to the quarter acre, so we finished up the 10 pounds. Silver and Thomas had to leave, so I ran errands, returning to the farm at about 6pm to collect the days eggs. I was just leaving when I looked at my tomato field. My heart stopped in my throat, tears welled up in my eyes, and I felt like I had just received a kick in my stomach. My tomatoes were dying. What had been a vibrant and green crop was now brown and as any observer could see, in dire straights. I had my camera with me, here are the first glimpses of what I saw:

I was paralyzed with fear, all the hard work that we had done, what happened? It had to be the spray - I had no other explanation. I immediately called our extension agent, David Hull, and told him what I was looking at. He told me he was on his way to the office, then would come right to the farm. In desperation, I thought that maybe I could wash the stuff off and undue some of the damage. Fran arrived and took over, and David Hull arrived. The news was worse than bad, it was deadly. The concentration that the ag store had told me for the product to water ratio was wrong. Not just wrong - poisonous. According to a generic copper sulfate that David had found on line, the proper way to mix CS is 2-3 pounds per 100 GALLONS. So I had used a mixture about 90 times more concentrated than it was supposed to be, in essence, toxic. Then other things started to come to light. First, it is not legal to sell chemicals in anything other than their original packaging. It should have had a label on it. If it had, I am sure I would have double checked how to mix - but as it was, all I had were the verbal instructions. Now here is where I kick myself in the arse for trusting that a store that has been in business for more than a half century would give me incorrect mixing instructions. My lesson learned? Trust no one.

So, where so we stand now? I have documented over the past four days the death of my money crop for the year. I will not be able to even sell the tomatoes that are just now ripening, as they too could contain toxic levels of copper. My land has been poisoned too, it will take years to make the soil healthy again. I am angry and hurt. I was counting on this crop to break the farm even for the year, and now I have lost that and my farm market crops which were also planted in that same field. My recourse? I have called the state about the packaging and labeling issue, they came out to the farm this morning and took my statement, pictures and a sample of the tomato plant. They were on their way to the store that sold me the product, I'll let you know how that worked out when I find out. Here are more pictures of the death of my tomatoes.

Day three after spraying:

Day four after spraying:

Today, day 5, they look even worse, so I am done with the pictures. Once the lawyer says I can rip them out, I will. Then till and add some composted material, and finally this fall a cover crop of buckwheat. I will pull soil samples next spring, and hope that at the very least I can put flowers in that field next year. This has been such a tragedy.

Fine Fencing to Greet Our Guests

One of the projects I have had Silver and Thomas working on is putting up a new fence and a gate. Previously, there was just barbed wire, so I had them rip out all the wire and old posts. Then they measure 8 foot to center for all the new poles, they got them in over the past week. Yesterday they finished tamping in the posts. I had a new gate delivered on Thursday, so they hung the gate yesterday, and painted the posts last night. Fran and I, being the oddballs we are didn't want a typical fence for our farm - nosiree - no black or white or brown fencing for us. We chose barn red. And the gate matches!

I arrived at the farm bright and early this morning. I am using the former hen area for our storage room, since it can be locked up. We have lots of tools and equipment I would not like to lose - so I worked on that until Fran arrived. The he and I got to working staining the 81 planks that will constitute the rails of the fence.

We got about half done, so Silver and Thomas, who did not work with us today, will be ready to go tomorrow. I will continue to stain the remainder of the planks while they hang what we did today. Tomorrow, I'll post the finished job - it will surely stand out!

Shazam

It has been almost magical - the lapse of time from my vacation to now - when I can get 15 minutes to put together this post. The magical part - as in "where has the time gone" is one of life's great mysteries. It only seems like yesterday - and then it is two or more weeks in the future, and I apologize. I really try to keep up.

There really has been an incredible amount that has taken place since I last posted - so here we go, in no specific order:

The sunflowers on the 1/4 acre I planted are all in bloom!

These are all black oil sunflower - so I am hoping to harvest enough seed to get me through the winter with my birds, and maybe a little extra.

At Horus Hill, everything is in bloom. The front gardens boast bee balm, coneflower, coreopsis, cleome and so many more.

Also, without pictures (coming soon tho), is the relocation of the hens. It was very much like the running of the bulls! But without the sharp pointy things (excluding beaks and talons). Fran and I were the Chicken Wranglers. Yesterday, we were ready for the move. We went to the farm and figured out how to get hens from point A - to point B. Doesn't sound too complicated, but if you've ever had chickens you'll appreciate this. After trying to grab one or two by slowly opening their henhouse door we realized it wasn't going to work. Nope, not even a little bit. So we let them all free, and I played St Francis of Assisi -I called the hens and they came running behind, streaming into the new pasture. Well that was easy. Only they were not interested in staying for long, so we had to shut the gate as they all started flowing right back out again. Trapping perhaps 2/3 of them in the official chicken yard, we set about collecting the remaing dozen plus. Except for every two we'd put in, we'd see four more coming from another direction. This continued for about 20 minutes until we realized they had to be getting out somewhere (d'Oh!). This was very disappointing as we had already spent a good 40 minutes patching some fence areas that we suspected they could push through. Turns out when you have enough chickens pushing on something for a while... its gonna give. And they had pushed out the fencing under the barn gate. So we fixed that with timber and concrete blocks and decided to just give up the chase for a while and work on moving the roosts. This went extremely well. They came out without too much fuss, and fit almost perfectly in their new location. Plus no blood was shed and there were no trips to the emergency room. Yay! We decided it would be easier to just wait til sunset and collect the remaining stragglers at that point. Which is what we did. There were 12 renegade birds in the old henhouse whom we collected and moved to the Chicken Mansion. We got every one settled down, gave them extra corn as a treat and called it a day. Mission accomplished! Then, this morning.... there were 3 eggs in the old henhouse. (heavy sigh) Farming's fun.