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

Moved the first wave of tender seedlings—100 tomatoes, plus eggplant and sweet peppers—to the greenhouse yesterday, with zero (32°F) predicted for the overnight. There’s just no more waiting, with all of the light space in the Milkhouse…taken. It’s a long way from the ambitious barely-heated greenhouse plan of February, but there’s row cover, and the new KeroWorld heater is ready for action (it’s the white box in the middle)… That’s how some plans go when you’re dealing with the WEATHER. Elsewhere in the hoophouse, I’ve let the early lettuce and mesclun blend with volunteer lettuce and arugula from last year’s early stuff going to seed. It’s unruly, tasty, and growing fast. I don’t know how much of it will make it to the farmers’ market: since there’s too much to do around here, I’m not aiming to go extra early this year (yesterday was the first market day), but one way or another, the greenhouse greens will get eaten!

Last night, the greenhouse low was a chilly 5°F (-15°C): the arugula, spending nights under 3-4 layers of floating row cover, still seems to be doing fine. Especially with more extreme transplants like this—a long time in the plug sheet, then an abrupt jump to the harsh greenhouse conditions—there’s a critical period of a few days, waiting for the stressed little plants to settle in. Cover at night, uncover in the morning, till the weather warms up…

The greenhouse is small, and the layout hasn’t really changed in its three full seasons. A row of tables on the north side are where the seedlings go. On the south side, unshaded by the tables, is an open strip, about 8′x32′ (2.4×9m), where I pursue ever earlier lettuce, trying to have something for the very first farmers’ market of the year (it’s the first Saturday in May; last year’s second Saturday is the earliest so far). It’s a simple set-up. Still, every year, there’s one day when I head out there to assess the clean-up requirements and plan what to do. This year, today was that day. A lot of different gear gets stored on and under the tables. It varies each year. Here, it’s mostly floating row cover, kept up off the ground because, apparently, voles don’t like to climb (voles gnawed a hole through a good part of a roll one year…very annoying, imagine unrolling a neat row of ragged holes). Exposure to UV from the sun is not good for plastics particularly, and I do store most things in the drive shed, or the Milkhouse and barn, or under the tables, but things do get left out… Anyhow, this year’s action plan is settled: clean up!

Here’s a look to the north from my new favorite photo spot, on top of the farm stand. We’re down to mainly brassicas, oats and rye (that’s the low, darker green section poking in on the left). The oats has started to die off and topple over, leaving collapsed areas that look as if animals had bedded down… The days lately have mainly been overcast and quite cold, just above 0°F, with a fair bit of rain that leaves the ground mucky. My hours a day spent in the field are winding down, a two or three hour job at a time, weather permitting. Elsewhere, there’s lots of putting in order and stowing away, and clean-up in the Extended Milkhouse where all kinds of junk accumulates over the year. Getting set for winter. More »

Yes, the weather’s crazy. According to the min/max thermometer outside the greenhouse, last night’s low was a chilly 18°F (-8°C), cold enough to kill off all but the hardiest. Finally, and only six weeks or so late—the endless autumn harvest is interesting, great for personal use veggies, but otherwise, it mainly throws off the fall clean-up schedule (I haven’t changed zones, have I?!). Here, the eggplant is clearly toasted, while the peppers, which had been under fairly light row cover (I pulled it back today to harvest some), came through in relatively fine shape . And the oats, well, it’s a monster, lush and green and if not exactly growing anymore, it seems to be getting thicker. It’s fascinating the way cold works in the field. Wind, cloud cover, mini-windbreaks, slight elevation, all kinds of factors add up differently in spots only a few feet apart to determine life or death by cold. Anyhow, can’t wait around forever. I’m soon going to roll up the row cover and till it all down!

With last night’s forecast calling for -3°C, I finally figured a little floating row cover frost protection might be a good idea. In fact, though, with the cloudy, windy, wet conditions right through to Saturday evening, a solid freeze didn’t seem all that likely. And that turned out to be the case. The min/max thermometer outside the greenhouse registered a low of -5°C, but only a few crops suffered minor damage. Even the basil, which is really tender, did well: the top layer of leaves took one for the team, but the rest were fine. Here, some sweet pepper plants sit under cover, but the forecast for the next week is…quite warm. When exactly does the season end?

A pointy English cabbage (Early Jersey Wakefield) and a hybrid 55-day cauliflower (Early Dawn), side by side on the harvest wagon—not too common a sight! The main crop brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale,…) are easy to grow but harder to maintain when conditions get rough. Vicious flea beetle attacks on seedlings (and occasionally, when they really swarm, on mature plants) last from spring well into August. Floating row cover is a must. This in turn makes weeding difficult: either the weeds build up under the cover, or there’s a whole lot of uncovering and recovering to do. Then, the effects of regular drought can be brutal on big brassicas, and our spot irrigation doesn’t always keep up with their thirst. When more permanent drip irrigation is in place, the brasscia situation will get a lot better (next year!). Right now, every successful haul is a particular pleasure!

After a chilly and only reasonably busy day at the farmers’ market, it was a bit of afternoon nap time, and then on to making the first frost decision—to cover or not to cover—of the fall season. I “consult” four different online weather services, in general trust none to be very accurate, but when it comes to more dire predictions, like super high and low temperatures and mighty gusting winds, a certain one out the four usually stands apart and is…quite accurate. True to the norm, today three services forecast overnight lows of around 5-7°C (40-44°F), while the dire one calls for plus 1°C with “risk of frost”. So, a couple of hours before sunset, we started assembling floating row cover kits near tender crop sections. The cover, 14′ wide and cut to 50′, is kept loosely rolled on 4′ lengths of 2×2. Heavy rocks, 10lbs and up, are gathered and kept track of over the season. And that’s all you need: row cover and rocks! Unlike for insect protection, where edges of the cover should be buried, or at least, anchored firmly every few feet, frost protection only needs draping over top, and tacking down at the corners and a couple of additional spots. Anyhow, in the end, I considered the breeze, the slight cloud cover, and my…um, instinct (?!), and decided not to cover…

On this bright and shiny Sunday, we finally released the last of the season’s brassicas from under row cover. The flea beetles have almost vanished and the plants need all the light they can get if they’re gonna make it to harvest. It’s still a bit of a long shot for the broccoli and cauliflower, but the early and prolific Red Russian kale should do fine. For what it’s worth, the long range forecast calls for a warm September—I’m still starting to slip into frost watch mode!