Getting Started at Historic Penn Farm

Located in New Castle, Delaware is Historic Penn Farm, a 310 year old, 112-acre private land trust of the Trustees of the New Castle Common, managed by Delaware Greenways. Currently a couple acres are in use by William Penn High School for a student assisted CSA and the rest of the land is cultivated in GMO modern conventional agriculture crops cultivated by one farmer and lots of equipment.  Historic Penn Farm's vision is to transition to sustainable agriculture practices, the most significant of moves would be the ceasing of use of GMO seeds, glyphosate herbicides and routine soil disturbance.  In support of this vision, we have decided to lease 1/2 acre at Historic Penn Farm to grow a diversity of open-pollinated, heirloom vegetables, salads, flowers and medicinal and culinary herbs in application of permaculture ethics and principles, without the use of any chemicals or spray applications whatsoever.  We support the healthy growth of our crops by amending our soil with compost and mineral supplements and mulching with rotted straw.

While off to a late start this season, our plot was disced by our neighboring farmer by the suggestion of management in April, breaking up the sod roots and leaving clumps and clods.  Without the aid of tillers, animals or machinery, we prepare our planting beds by hand with shovels and rakes.  Our beds take the design of keyhole garden beds to achieve as much planting area with the least amount of space in walking paths.  The beds are shaped freehand, making sure we can reach every part of the bed from some angle.  We begin by raking away the sod clods to the main paths, then dump compost on top of the soil and mix it into the soil with shovels.  We break the largest clods with a triangle hoe and shape and smooth the surface with different garden rakes.  Garden beds in mixed crops are mulched with spent straw hay and beds in salad greens are sown thickly to cover the soil surface.  

We are currently relying solely on rain for irrigation as a makeshift hose watering system supplied by management is pending repair and a wellhead implied in the lease is pending installation.  We have had some interesting trespassers and onlookers from our bordering shady back lane.  We anticipate a showdown with animal guests, and tentatively plan a low tech fencing system targeted specifically to rabbit and deer control.  We hope to direct successful harvests to cook meals for homeless communities in Philadelphia, PA and Wilmington, DE and to sell specialty products at Historic Penn Farm's Tract 6 Farm Stand.  Stay tuned for updates!    

 All the foreground area not covered in grasses was prepared for planting manually

 with these tools

 Weeding our first beds

Photo credits Frederick R. Dannaway