http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/ Tiny Farm Forum: Forum: How-to in the field - Recent Topics en Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:52:29 +0000 http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/topic/vh1s-2010-dosomething-awards-2#post-2238 Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:16:09 +0000 sambegirl 2238@http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/ <p>I agree that fresh farming is especially important, and people everywhere need to do support local farming! I’m helping spread the word about VH1’s Do Something Award: City Division. Five cities have been nominated to win the award for their great contributions in fields like education, volunteering, and going green. Portland, OR has been nominated for their fresh farming efforts, and if they get the most votes, they could win!<br /> If you want to vote for Portland, you can visit <a href="http://www.vh1.com/shows/events/do_something_awards/2010/city/?xrs=synd_forumsL" rel="nofollow">http://www.vh1.com/shows/events/do_something_awards/2010/city/?xrs=synd_forumsL</a>! Let’s start the revolution today! </p> http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/topic/round-wooden-water-barrel#post-371 Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:07:22 +0000 lucasm1 371@http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/ <p>Where can I get plans to build a round wooden water barrel to water the livestock? </p> http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/topic/non-bitter-lettuce#post-175 Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:25:07 +0000 organicsheri 175@http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/ <p>I am having an on-going discussion with small scale organic farmers around MB about how to keep lettuce from going bitter. Any thoughts?</p> <p>So far:<br /> it's a cool season crop and will go bitter. period.<br /> water it a lot<br /> plunge in icy cold water after harvest to get the core temp down, down, down.</p> <p>Please join in! </p> http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/topic/how-to-use-alfalfa-pellet-fertilizer#post-335 Tue, 12 May 2009 14:51:58 +0000 Mike (tfb) 335@http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/ <p>So we purchased 1 ton (2,200 lbs, in this case) of dehydrated alfalfa pellets from the <a href="http://www.wamcoltd.ca/">Western Alberta Milling Co.</a> It's certified organic, sounds like a cool alternative fertilizer, and has been delivered.</p> <p>The general instructions from WAMCO are for a ton per acre per year for veggies, applied in spring, and again at a couple of points during the season. Top dressing (spreading on the surface) was recommended, allowing a week for incorporation after, ideally, rain, or irrigation, has rehydrated it. I'm researching around and will have more questions for them as well. </p> <p>We haven't started using it yet, the purpose here is more as a garden start-up supplement than a full-on fertilizer for annual use. (In another forum topic here, I explained <a href="http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/topic/green-manuring#post-278">why we got alfalfa pellets this year, and our overall tiny farming fertility situation</a>.)</p> <p>I originally heard about alfalfa pellets right here, in a <a href="http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/topic/green-manuring#post-280">comment by Matthias</a>. I'll contact him to see if he'll add experience and tips to this topic (unless he reads this first!). Meanwhile, if anyone else has used alfalfa pellets for veggie production, any input would be great!</p> <p>We'll post our progress on this end as the season goes by. </p> http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/topic/green-manuring#post-269 Wed, 04 Mar 2009 22:48:39 +0000 organicsheri 269@http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/ <p>I'd like to start a conversation about green manuring.<br /> I've been thinking a lot over the past few years about sustainability...real sustainability and closing the loop. I rent my land off a farmer with 4 horses who are in retirement. At the end of last year I used a tractor to put a bunch of manure on my garden. However, I had no hand in how it was composted and now I worry...will there be any problems with my veggies? How many weeds did I put into my garden? And quack grass too, no doubt. </p> <p>The sol'n to me seems to be green manures. I grow the fertility right there and have total control as to what inputs go into the ground and therefore the food I sell my customers, and eat myself. The problem with it for my place is that my garden is surrounded with a fence to keep out the friendly neighbourhood Bambis, so that makes turning around at the end of my rows with equipment an impossibility, meaning last year I had to back down each row and then till going forward. Pain in the butt. I'm trying to not use equipment as much as possible, but I know the green manure has to be killed and incorporated into the soil. I don't want to turn it over too much though b/c that'll just bring up weed seeds and hurt my best and most reliable workers--the earthworms. So, I'm thinking of creating something that is lightweight (sometimes when I use a rototiller I feel like it's whipping me around...so I ask others to do it for me) and uses little fossil fuels, or even electricity, and only tills into the top 2" or so of soil. I know Eliot Coleman has developed something and it is sold by Johnny's Selected Seeds in Maine, but the shipping and duty would kill me.</p> <p>Ultimately I'd like to not have to till at all, but I'm thinking that not tilling and green manuring are mutually exclusive...??</p> <p>Any ideas? suggestions? I'm currently trying to read <a href="http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010160.Pieters.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010160.Pieters.pdf</a> </p> <p>Looking forward to the conversation!<br /> Sheri </p> http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/topic/how-to-prepare-a-field-for-planting#post-191 Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:19:53 +0000 LarryC 191@http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/ <p>I inherited 92 acres in Oregon this year and plan on starting an organic market garden next spring. The soil is Jory and the fields haven't been worked in 50 years. My question is what steps do I need to prepare a one-acre plot for a vegetables. </p> http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/topic/winter-rye#post-200 Sun, 05 Oct 2008 06:19:45 +0000 theonlybull 200@http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/ <p>just reading around the 'net, and see lots of cautions about winter rye being hard to kill off in the spring. mike, i see you used it last year, and are planning again this year. any tips on dealing with it in the spring? the mrs. just seeded our garden lastnight. </p> http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/topic/floating-row-cover-supports-or-not#post-147 Fri, 13 Jun 2008 11:12:43 +0000 cdevries 147@http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/ <p>I have always used wire hoops to support floating row cover, even though I was under the impression that it wasn't necessary for most crops. Is that true? Specifically with brassicas, can I just transplant them then lay the cover over loosely?</p> <p>I tried this with my last planting of broccoli and it's all dead now. It could have something to do with the 2 days in a row of 50 km/hr winds we had this past week. The row cover was flapping pretty hard up and down on the transplants. I don't really want to do this again unless I hear that others normally do this. On the other hand I find using the hoops to be a pain now that I am growing a lot more.</p> <p>Chris </p> http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/topic/grass-mulch#post-130 Wed, 07 May 2008 14:34:54 +0000 cdevries 130@http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/ <p>This is a question for Mike directly:</p> <p>What equipment do you use for your grass mulching? I have access to probably 4 acres of pasture that I would love to use some of for harvesting mulch. It seems like it would be too expensive to have someone bale it into small bales before it sets seed. I was considering using my lawn mower with a lawn sweeper, but I don't know how that setup would work.</p> <p>Chris </p> http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/topic/how-to-get-crops-to-market-early#post-94 Fri, 29 Feb 2008 10:31:30 +0000 sunwarm 94@http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/ <p>The elevation here (Adirondacks) really slows down the spring warming, but we will be starting our farmers' market in June this year. This is my first year using early season extension - I'm going to use row covers for lettuce, etc., putting up a hoop house later on - and I'm looking for ideas on how to get other crops matured early. Is there any way to hurry peas along, or carrots? Once summer gets rolling here we do catch up, but I'll be competing at market with growers from the St. Lawrence river valley, a much better growing area. </p> http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/topic/gray-moldy-stuff#post-106 Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:38:37 +0000 homemoma 106@http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/ <p>i have put some basil and paprika seeds into biodegradable pots and as advised i try to keep them moist but that resulted in gray moldy stuff all over the pots. should i replant seedlings or water them with something? pics are here</p> <ul> <a href="http://homemoma.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">http://homemoma.blogspot.com/</a></ul> <p>i am using real soil mix that i brought from gardening store. we dont have sil free potting mixes unfortunately </p> http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/topic/squashes-rotting-off#post-101 Sat, 08 Mar 2008 01:09:35 +0000 krubba 101@http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/ <p>Last summer I tried planting some butternut squash. The one plant grew quite vigorously and probably had a total of something like 20 or more blossoms. After the blossom fell off, there was a little baby butternut, but it would inevitably just rot and fall off. Every single one.</p> <p>Researching it on the web and the only thing any site mentions is blossom end rot. And while I've had problems with that before, I don't think it was the case here (nearby tomatoes were very healthy, and not a single squash grew beyond the initial baby size).</p> <p>The one other possibility I've heard is that the blossoms weren't getting pollinated. I could see this being the case as we had a really bad year for bee's last year (has some scarlet runner beans blooming like crazy but also not forming any fruit until late August, then lots of fruit).</p> <p>Is it common to need to do ones own pollination of some plants like squash? Are some veggies less prone to pollination than others? Any special techniques to use?</p> <p>Thanks in advance...</p> <p>Klaus </p> http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/topic/small-scale-seeding-of-cover-crops#post-69 Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:45:25 +0000 Mike (tfb) 69@http://tinyfarmblog.com/forum/ <p>In a TFB comment, sunwarm asked:</p> <blockquote><p>Following back through <a href="http://tinyfarmblog.com/tag/cover-crop/">some of your entries</a>, I read your descriptions of planting oats. You mentioned that you tried several methods to cover (or not cover) the seeds. Did you find any difference in germination when you left the seeds uncovered?</p> <p>I’ve had poor results from hand-broadcasting seed, and I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong.</p> </blockquote> <p>As long as the seed was good, and you raked it in fairly well, my guess would be not enough water. But it could be lots of other things, I don't know the details.</p> <p>Here's what I've done and learned so far:</p> <p>Late last summer, we seeded maybe a dozen 50'x50' sections in oats, and one in fall rye. Seeding rate was about 80lbs/acre, or about 5lbs for a 50'x50' section.</p> <p>All sections were broadcast seeded, using the Earthway bag seeder (it's a spinning disk seeder, a big version of those hand-crank lawn grass seeders). </p> <p>After seeding, some sections were hand-raked, dragging the rake with light pressure. The raking was quite quick and probably could've been more thorough. Some sections were skim-tilled using the rototiller on the compact tractor. This involves tilling with the tines just skimming the surface, turning as little soil as possible. I imagine it could be done with similar results with a walking rototiller, but having the tractor tiller suspended and being lowered no doubt helped control the shallow tilling depth, whereas a walking tiller might have to be held up a bit to prevent it going too deep and burying the seed. A couple were left with the seed on the surface. </p> <p>There was no watering, and the ground was quite dry, but it did rain within a few days.</p> <p>The rototilled sections did best by far, even germination and good coverage. The raked sections did OK, but with lots of gaps (they eventually grew in, though). The surface seed did very poorly. In fact, I reseeded two sections 3-4 weeks later using the rototill method. </p> <p>One smaller area that was surface-seeded area did eventually catch up, weeks later, but so much of that depended on the weather that I wouldn't consider it successful. Also, weeds started to establish (luckily, in the cool of fall, that was limited).</p> <p>I think immediate watering, with sprinklers (or a timely rain) would have speeded up establishment, and maybe made all methods perform better.</p> <p>For this first experiment, the conclusion is that broadcast seeding followed by rototiller incorporation (SKIMMING!) was most effective, and that a good initial watering would help (obviously). Of course, a careful hand raking would be fine, but it'd take a relatively long time if you're doing a larger area.</p> <p>Another method which I considered but rejected this first time is using the <a href="http://gear.tinyfarmblog.com/2007/11/earthway-precision-seeder/">Earthway seeder</a>. I've since read a <a href="http://www.vabf.org/infosheets/4-06.pdf">how-to paper about small-scale cover cropping</a>, and it sings the praises of the Earthway for half an acre and under (and of the broadcast/rototiller method for larger areas). I'll try it next time. Oats and many other cover crops can be done at 6" spacing, so that's a fair bit of walking up and down, but an hour or two of walking up and down can cover a lot of ground. And you don't need a tractor or rototiller, and there's no raking. </p> <p>You can also gang together two or more Earthway's quite easily.</p> <p>Finally, the walking-along-and-spinning broadcast technique can take a bit of practice. It's easy to lay down uneven coverage until you get into a groove... Two other people and I did different sections, and we were all new to it (well, I've used the broadcaster a few times in the past), so the quality of the initial seeding may have had a lot to do with the results. Although, by measuring the amount of seed used beforehand, the seeding couldn't have been that far off.</p> <p>Hope that helps! </p>