County Ag Report: Grow Plans

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine (WAGM) - While winter is still on many people’s minds, spring will be here before you know it! In this week’s County Ag Report, Rob Koenig looks into making a plan for the growing season ahead.

Spring and the growing season still feel far away, but Taylor Putnam of Treystar Farm in Presque Isle already knows his busy planting schedule for the year.

“if it’s bed prep or field prep we’re 2 days ahead, so that way I have a small hand calendar that I always keep with me, and we have a large one, and a dry erase board. The large one stays here in the greenhouse and it mimics my hand one so that way when people come and work for us or help out, everybody has a job and everybody knows what’s going on.”

Putnam has broken down his year week by week for four years now and found it has helped to keep him on track with the growing and harvesting season.

“If you have nothing to offer that’s different, or a variety of things, then you kind of get caught. So that’s why we have that calendar, and it keeps us on track and keeps us looking forward, and helps us plan for even winter settings.”

Putnam says it’s not difficult to make a plan like this to follow and has some tips for people who want to make their own.

“What we do is usually in November we sit down, my wife and I, and we decide okay, this is what was there, this is what we pulled off, this is what’s going in its place. We know what each bed for the acre and a half that we grow, up to two acres what’s going in that field ten years from now, just because of the way we’ve got everything laid out… it starts with what was there, what that plant has taken up, and being able to put it back.”

Putnam has found planning things out like this has major benefits to a garden and life balance.

“Being able to have a family, have some sort of life, instead of wrapping your head against the wall, and being able to have something later and enjoy it. I think laying it out in a field plan is key, keeping a calendar, and just being real diligent on what you’re doing.

Putnam says the best advice he could give to start out is to just sit down and start a plan. The hardest part is sitting down and taking the time to make it.

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