Welcome to the Pollicello Farm Blog

Blogging the Jefferson Junior farm.  You might be aware that Jefferson was a passionate gardener who actually invented some of the crops and techniques we use today.  Monticello was a home for quite a bit of farming experimentation.  The man's mind was amazing.  He dove into so many different areas of knowledge, constantly seeking to educate himself and branch out into new fields.  He was a veritable blackberry bush of thinking.  He has been my role model since I was a young boy.  Perhaps instead of Jefferson Junior I should go by Jefferson's Pale Shadow.  I'm sure I will be able to match his accomplishment in one area: financial management.  Jefferson died penniless and in debt.  Be that as it may, he lived a rich life and left behind a wealthy legacy.


The Jefferson Junior family dives into gardening this year.  As with everything else, it is not done in half measures.  I dive into the deep end of everything.  Sometimes I drown, and other times I pick up the beat in time to make it powerfully to the other end of the pool.  The amount of knowledge out there to be gained, and the subtlety of organic gardening fascinate and enthrall me.  Every web site visited, every gardening book perused imparts more nuggets of wisdom.


So welcome to Pollicello Farm.  Any serious gardener needs to keep a journal.  This will be our journal.  Welcome, and enjoy the journey with us.


Pollicello Farm currently is located on 47 acres in Fluvanna County owned by a dear friend of mine.  Frank and I have been friends for ten years now, through soccer.  We both were coaches, and we formed a soccer association together.  Now we are going into self-sufficient gardening together.  The Jefferson Juniors have the use of as much gardening space as we can handle -- probably more.  The soil is good -- especially for central Virginia, which tends to be mostly red clay.  Two hundred years of cows have given it an excellent pH and a good nutritional makeup.  We have added a dump truckload of compost to our growing area.


The initial plan was for raised beds using the square foot gardening method.  I've used the method before, and liked the results.  Since then, the method has been revised, and we are taking advantage of the revisions.  However, as we have delved into research, and as ambition has latched onto the space available, we have expanded and modified the plan.  Just this weekend I stumbled across a book called The Vegetable Gardener's Bible with a method called WORD that seems to complement the principles of the square foot method nicely.  WORD stands for Wide rows, Organic methods, Raised beds and Deep soil.  Seeing as my original plan was for 4x12 foot raised beds, with complete reliance on organic methods and heirloom seeds, it does not take much to incorporate Ed Smith's ideas.  But we're not really using "rows" so to speak.  And his "wide rows" aren't rows in the traditional sense of long rows of a single crop.  His "rows" are actually mixed-crop beds that in practice have more in common with the square foot method than with traditional row gardening.


OK, so I started out planning four 4x12 beds for tomatoes, peppers, onions, carrots and potatoes.  Now, the original four beds will be based on sunflowers and tomatoes, with peppers, onions, carrots, cape gooseberries and wild strawberries thrown in.  Companion planting principles will have borage, basil, chamomile, marigolds and nasturtiums included in the beds.  But the four beds are now just the core of the garden, and not even the largest part.


The largest amount of garden space is going to be devoted to the nine Three Sisters Mounds.  Yes, I have gone completely insane.  I'm not going to go into the Three Sisters method, because you can google the phrase and come up with 375,954 sites that will explain it.  Our mounds will be centered around a core of 13 corn plants.  Twelve pole bean vines will climb the cornstalks, while two spaghetti squash and two pumpkin vines will provide living mulch.  Borage, nasturtiums and marigolds will provide friendly benefits.


Also included in the new plan are two Potato Patches with potatoes, carrots and onions helped by borage, marigolds and nasturtiums; and two Zucchini Mounds with two zucchino rampicante vines assisted by the self-same borage, marigolds and nasturtiums (hereinafter "BMN").


Pollicello Farm is supplemented by the Grace House garden.  In that garden will be sunflowers, wormwood, pink bananas, lemon balm, mint, fennel, rosemary, thyme, oregano, calendula, spinach, green onions, chives, strawberries and roses.  Those are just the plants that we are adding.  The Grace House garden already contains Virginia Roses, a magnolia tree, crape myrtles, azaleas, hyacinths, lily-of-the-valley, violets and a number of other little flowers.


We are aiming for self-sufficiency as well as income.  The idea is to produce vegetables for eating and cooking, and materials for products such as soaps/cleaners, medical and skin care products, paper and cloth, etc.  Yes, extremely ambitious and probably shooting a bit high, but in keeping with our political philosophy and life goals.  How well we succeed, you will find out as we do.