My time as an intern at DFI this fall has shown me that bountiful harvests are only possible due to the hours of prep work done months in advance. When I worked with DFI over the summer, we spent most of our time harvesting vegetables that had been growing since the fall season. When summer ended, we shifted from harvest to cleaning up and preparing for the next harvest. Without having a strategy for the soils health or anticipating which crops need to be planted now in order to be ready by summer, DFI would produce a lot less. I admire DFI’s readiness which has taught me so much about managing a harvest long before it begins.

My time was spent these past five months clearing out hoop houses, amending beds, planting cover crops, and harvesting cold resistant crops like spinach and carrots. While these tasks are normal for any other farm during fall, DFI goes a step further and prepares for the next harvest season using climate smart vegetable production practices. These practices include improving our soil health with organic soil amendments like compost and minerals rather than chemical fertilizers. I was also instructed to use a broadfork to aerate the soil and avoid using a tilther in order to preserve both organic matter and soil health. In addition to this, I planted many cover crops such as peas and buckwheat which both reduces soil erosion over the winter and replenish the soil with nutrients like nitrogen.

The fall season is, however, a lot more than cleaning up and preparing the soil for next summers harvest. It’s also a time to anticipate what we want to produce in the future. One of my favorite tasks I did was planting garlic. Planting garlic wasn’t much different from how we normally planted crops, but it was special to me because it was a full circle moment. Last July I helped to harvest and clean all of DFI’s garlic, and now I was helping to plant the garlic for next summer. The garlic I planted wont be ready for eight months. This taught me about how important it is to manage what crops we want and plan for when they need to be in the ground.

I am currently finishing up the last prerequisites I need to move onto my more plant science focused classes like horticulture, irrigation, and soils. I feel, however, much more prepared to take these classes because of this internship opportunity. I would even go as far as to say that I feel like this internship prepared me better than any of my prerequisite classes. Now, when my future professors teach about soil aggregates, food production, or organic farming practices I will already have a thorough understanding of these topics because of my hands on experience.

Completing the Desert Farming Initiative’s Organic Vegetable Farming internship this fall has not only taught me climate smart vegetable production practices, but has also prepared me for future classes and internships. I am extremely grateful to have had this opportunity. I know that where ever I find myself next fall I will be implementing what I learned this season.