Tiny Farm Blog Organic micro-farming with two acres and some tools ~ a daily photo journal...

A gray and gloomy, windy day…but WARM. Well, fairly above freezing for the most part, and with a little rain, yesterday’s speeded-up melting continued. But we’re still a ways off from actually doing any work in the field. So, another pretty laid-back day. Lynn came by for her weekly installment of tiny farming. Out in the greenhouse, moving tables around and some hand-watering (those barrels of snow water are coming in handy!). In the Milkhouse, more seed starting: 400 more tomatoes, and a tray of leeks (a little late for this batch, but still better than direct-seeding). For her very first time starting seedlings, Lynn seeded 19 varieties into a 200-cell plug tray (10 each, 20 of one). Clearly, I trust her…accuracy. Working in the tiny cells, changing seed every row, and keeping track of names requires a bit of concentration. A little wandering attention, and who knows what tomatoes would be growing where… Living on the edge! :)

Here’s the very first tomato seedling to emerge and spread its seed leaves: a Striped German (a big, bi-color heirloom, one of my top 3-4 favorites over the last couple of years). This is six days after seeding. I don’t usually keep track THIS closely of the seedling action, but with the unusually slow, uneven emergence of most of the peppers and eggplant—new ones are still just breaking out, two weeks after seeding?I’m watching every little move right now with the toms as well. And there’s that fine MACRO feature on the new camera, always happy to take notes…

The main tiny farming action is with the seedlings now; even if the snow melted off tomorrow (which it won’t), it’d still take a sunny, windy couple of weeks, give or take, for the field to dry out enough to fully work. Indoors, with the new grow rack, there is still space, but there’s also quite a bit left to be started, including most of the tomatoes. And some of the seedlings are beginning to call out for MORE ROOM. The rosemary (above) did really well, germinating steadily over several weeks, to the point where there are up to four and five crowded in 1.5″ (3.75cm) diameter cells. And the celeriac (celery root; below), a trial crop this year and the only one started in flats not cells (I sprinkled a packet of seed across two fibre trays), is healthy, dense and stretching. Transplanting tiny seedlings is fun at first few, but can get tedious, especially if you have hundreds to do in a session. To save on time and tedium, I try to avoid potting up by sowing into final locations whenever it makes sense. One way or another, the trays inevitably start adding up, until there’s not enough LIGHT to go around. Into the equation, there’s the barely heated seedling greenhouse and the WEATHER: as soon as it’s reasonably warm enough at night, I can move the hardier stuff out—this month, at least every other night has dropped down to around 5°F (-15°C)… And that’s what this stage of the action is all about: adjusting lighting, timing and starting cell size and, as always, gambling on the weather…!

Inside, in the increasingly GREEN Milkhouse, this year’s artificial sun set-up is done. It’s about fitting in as much area-under-lights as possible, while making sure all of the trays are easily reachable, for watering, rotation, thinning. So, there are the four grow racks, and the lightbox (that’s leek, onions and parsley under there), with its second level (why waste a flat surface that comes with chains?!). For now, this extra space is the new spot for the rescued-and-passed-along decorative plants (the heather was too dried out and didn’t make it, the winterberry are doing fine, and the orchids seem OK…), but they’ll eventually be crowded out and moved somewhere else. The shelves are filling up fast… MEANWHILE, outside, it’s snowing and snowing, again. That’s a lot of snow. Around here, we’re definitely off to a later start this year than at least the last couple, but I’m still not particularly put off, not just yet. Although, it’s not supposed to warm up for another week, maybe two…

This is today’s peaceful but uninspiring view of the garden from the north-facing Milkhouse window…

Another little new-season milestone: the first of the original veggie gang has appeared. These are Gypsy (hybrid) sweet peppers, seeded six days ago, along with other varieties of pepper and eggplant. They started to poke up in the last day or so, and by this morning, the first leaves had unfolded. Along with tomatoes (soon to be seeded), I think of these three—toms, eggplant, peppers—as my original crops. These are the veggies I started first (and way early) in Year 1: winter was storming along outside, while these brilliant little splashes of green were popping up in the warm, bright bubble of the first seedling room (a side room in the farmhouse). I was fascinated and kind of amazed. I used to come downstairs in the middle of the night to check ‘em out, make sure they were still alive and growing… Actually, it’s not so different even now! :)

It’s funny how almost random objects can become practically indispensable tools. Like this rigid gray tray, given to me a while back, just the one, amongst a mixed bunch of plastic flower pots from bedding plants, passed along by a local gardener. For four seasons, I’ve used it to water the seedlings (all parsley in the pic): in goes a plug sheet in its webbed tray, sit for 10-15 minutes, then out to drain for a bit over the sink, and it’s back to the grow racks, good for another few days. I’ll keep this up until the seedlings are well-established, three weeks or more, depending on the crop. Perfect, except, at one point I’ll have maybe 50 plug sheets going at once, which means a lot of moving trays and tracking soak time. Not too efficient. I’ve been meaning to build a bigger watering tray, that can handle four or six plug sheets at a time. But I haven’t yet. As odd as it sounds, I’ve grown…attached to the one-at-a-time approach, and this particular, perfectly sized, always reliable gray tray! Every planting gets its own bit of focus each time it’s watered, developing its own little story on the way to the field. It’s part of the fun. Doing batches will be much quicker overall; the attention to what’s in each tray will be slightly less. Not a bad thing, there’s always lots to do with any extra time—continually improving by increments is also a main part tiny farming. With more seedlng starts this year than ever, I suppose I will build that bigger tray… Progress… ;)

Celery has been surging up over the last day or so, 10 days after seeding. This is Utah 52-70, a pretty common variety. Celery is a member of the carrot family (Apiaceae), along with parsley, parsnip, fennel, Gotu Kola, caraway, cumin, CARROTS, cilantro/coriander, chervil, dill, anise, hemlock. Cool family! It also has a reputation for being hard to grow: maturity in up to 4-5 months, cold-sensitive seedlings, needs lots of moisture. Any two of those three can make it a challenge in this garden, especially with the crazy weather. As great as it would be to grow, celery hasn’t been high on my list! Well, it’s started now, and we’ll see what happens…

Seedling production is on about the same schedule as last year, except there are a few new things on the go: celery, onions, leek, celeriac. The three grow racks aren’t yet full (and there’s a fourth to build), but all that will change in a couple of days, when peppers and eggplant start. This is also when gambling on the weather begins, which at this point affects when I choose to start certain crops. Already, based on the 15-day forecast, it looks like a much colder March ahead than in the last couple of years, and with all the snow cover, a quick thaw towards the end of the month will still mean a few extra days of drying out time. And then there’s April to “consider”—it’s all basically pure guessing, colored by a little wishful thinking. IF there’s gonna be cold and snow for a good part of April, early transplanting will be delayed. So, starting some things in a couple of days, or in a week, or in two weeks, could make a fair bit of difference. If I have to hold things for an extra 2-3 weeks, there won’t be room under the lights as I start more, and out in the greenhouse, given real sun, growth will be quicker and the seedlings will get crowded. And so on, tons of little calculations and gambles… Nothing is THAT critical, but a little more work here, a little crop slowdown there, it all adds up. I enjoy this, juggling increments in the face of the weather, but it could drive some people into quite a state! :)

Some of the early lettuce I ended up leaving two to a cell, to see how they’d do. Now, I divided a bunch of those and potted them up singly to a much roomier 38-cell plug sheet (up from 72), and trimmed off all their leaves (and ate them). After the shock of transplanting straight from indoors to the greenhouse, the lettuce seedlings usually lose their bigger leaves anyway, so why not give them a head start?! It’s extremely time-consuming, all of this careful repotting and trimming—not practical for the market garden at all. But I know I’ll be closely watching the results of this early, cold-hoophouse planting, so I’ll see if they do better than the regular plugs. Later on in the season, I intend to keep experimenting in more practical ways, but time and many other things to do have their way with the best laid plans… (Hint: As a rule, it’s best to start seedlings in the biggest and DEEPEST container that you have room for in good light, and avoid potting up. The less you disturb roots, and the more room you give them to grow (especially, down), the better they seem to do when transplanted.)