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

Left to the last possible harvest in the fall, brassicas like kale, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower (above), were eventually winter-killed and now have to be cleaned up—one of the first field-readying jobs of spring! Today, I started. (EVERY day is a field day from here on in, through November at least, or the first heavy snow that sticks.) A day of tiny farming fieldwork is really just a whole lotta gardening… Now that the ground has dried out enough to be tillable (that could’ve been yesterday, but…errands and CHICKENS), and warmed up enough to direct seed the crops that germinate in cooler soil, it’s a whole new world of things to do…and think about doing. There are two basic ways to ponder the progress of the season’s garden: by timing and by area, each useful in its own way. Timing is mainly about the plants: when to seed, when to water, when to harvest. Area is about where to locate particular plantings, which in my case doesn’t mean absolutely running out of space, since there’s lots more field to expand the garden into if I wanted to (which I don’t), but more like where to position stuff efficiently, so you’re maintaining crop rotation, but not having to, say, drag hoses all the way down the garden to a couple of newly seeded beds that need daily watering in (although there’s a field production plan made up, there are lots of adjustments on the way—where to put stuff will come up again and again!). So, the start of the season is mainly about area, because you have to prep beds and get veggies in in a rough order—cool soil seed, then cool weather transplant, then warm soil seed and transplants—and the timing is a constant: it’s all right away! One way I keep overall track of this garden is by counting sections: it’s about 2.5 acres, divided into 40 50′x50′ squares (each fits 10-16 beds, depending on width). At some point in the next six weeks or so, almost all SHOULD be planted out, nearly 40/40. Today, I started seeding in one…

Tilled and untilled: Partially composted cow manure was spread and incorporated in the fall. Now, a light rototilling to prepare for seeding is all that’s needed. Today, I used the tiller on the Kubota compact tractor.

Rock beats tiller: There are lots of stones in this field, they work their way up continually, and even a fist-sized rock, caught in the right way, can stall out the 48″ rototiller on the Kubota (it’s a tiny tractor!). No problem: remove and restart.

Getting set to seed: I work mostly one or two sections at a time, prepping an area with the tiller, marking the beds, then seeding (or transplanting). This way, I can get the crops that need to be started in as quickly as possible. Here’s the cart towed by the riding mower, loaded with assorted seeding gear (and some transplants being ferried to the greenhouse).

Making beds: Oh, there’s A LOT of tiny farm history behind my bed marking methods. :) I’m still working on the most efficient way to set up beds. Right now, it’s fairly streamlined, involving a 100′ tape measure, stakes, and pacing off distances. This year, I’m planting in 3′, 4′, and 5′ beds (that’s path included), depending on the crop.

Customizing the Rake: Every season, I re-ink faded measurement markings on a couple of hand tools I use the most. Here’s a convenient mark for 42″ from the top of the handle (that’s the planting area width for a 5′ bed. There are other marks further up the handle, and the whole rake is exactly 5′. It’s convenient for quick checks, especially on the favorite rake that I use for touching up beds right before seeding. And so, off we go…!

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… ;)

Hmmm, so that’s what tiny rosemary seedlings REALLY look like with their first true leaves. I’m experimenting with the new camera. On macro, it’s practically a microscope. I can focus as close as 1 cm (less than half an inch) away. That’s a little tough to manage, but with 12 megapixels of resolution, I can focus from a more reasonable 6 inches away and then ZOOM IN in the image editing program. Rosemary gets a whole new look compared to the old camera. What a cool tiny farming tool, if you need pictures…

Here are ALL the indoor seed starting tools I have, most of them always-used, a couple not. Nothing special, and FINGERS I’ve found are handiest for most of the work at this scale. In any case, a few details (and there’s more on #1-5 in Seed starting tools, part 1): 1. The Seedmaster, a gadget for trickling out small seed as you rotate the wheel (the yellow pieces are click-in filters for different seed sizes); 2. assorted white plastic plant labels; 3. a dibbler or dibber or whatever, for poking little holes in soil; 4. a fine-point black waterproof marker (I like Sharpies) for labeling; 5. the mini-transplanter is essentially a tiny, stainless steel shoehorn for easy liberation of plugs from their cells; 6. a moisture meter, simply stick it in the soil; 7. plant snips for thinning seedlings; 8. Mini-Sim seeder: fill and shake out; 9. suction seeder with three tip sizes: squeeze the bulb, put the tip on a seed, release to hold, squeeze again to drop… ($25…what was I thinking?!); 10. digital timer for keeping track of repetitive tasks like bottom-watering trays one by one; 11. plant light meter, reads in footcandles, with settings for indoor and out; 12. digital indoor/outdoor min/max thermometer/hygrometer, mainly for keeping track of temperature; 13. magnifying glass with light, for examining seedlings (and GREEN MOSS) up close; 14. soil scoop for filling plug sheets and pots with seedling mix; 15. spray bottle with good quality spray head (more water per pull; I’ve used a wand mister like I have in the greenhouse, but the hose kept getting in the way, I may try one again for the seedling room this year); 16. small fibrepak flats, convenient for holding tools and seed packets on the potting table (left lying, the packets can so easily get wet…); 17. small bulldog clips, useful for all kinds of things, like organizing groups of seed packets. And the winners are…all of them, EXCEPT for: #9, which I found to be useless for my purposes; #8 which is great, but mostly for heavier hand seeding in the field, like for flowers; and #6, 11 & 13, which are more educational toys than essential tools, but still cool! (Wow, that was a lot of blogwork for pretty obvious stuff, but there you go! :)

More early lettuce. This is Simpson Elite, an improved variety of Black Seeded Simpson, which is a really fast, reliable heirloom from the 1800’s. I grow both. They have thin, delicate, pale green leaves, but they’ve proven tough in heat, drought and cold. And they’re  40-45-days! These seedlings are now about 3-1/2 weeks old. I still haven’t thinned them from two per cell—all the lettuce looks so…pretty, densely bunch in their trays, and they’re stretching a bit, but just this side of really crowding each other. Anyhow, it’s the super-early lettuce…mostly for fun! (This is also my first tryout of the latest new farm tool, a Canon G9…a sturdy, field-ready bit of gear… :)

The first main seed order is finally done. There will be one more in a week or two, and then I’ll be set for the season. Working out the order was relatively painless, it does get easier every year, but without this handy Seed Order Calculator, my head would still be spinning. There are at least 65 different veggies, herbs, and flowers, and must be well over 200 varieties overall (wow, hard to believe when you add ‘em up). It’s a lot to piece together. Of course, I could REDUCE. That’s a whole other story (and then there’s the hybrids/seed-saving issue), but basically, I think variety is a great thing on all levels, so instead of reducing, I resist the urge to add more. For mainstay crops like green snap beans, I’ll try at least 2 or 3 similar varieties to see how they perform in this particular field (depending on conditions, the differences can be quite big). And you’ve gotta Try New Things, grow a little okra, some Jerusalem artichoke, LOVAGE, a row of tomatillos, and…lots more—even if a crop’s not exactly popular (self included), we can all learn! Crops, cultivars, there’s a lot of seed to choose from… And it gets more complicated. On this tiny farm, where plantings are measured in multiples of 50 row feet, not in acres, the catalog price breaks are a maze of temptations and false economies. Seed for many crops becomes tantalizingly less expensive right after the first “bulk” quantity. For example, if 5g of something is $6, and 25g is $18, how can you pass up savings like that, especially when the difference is “only” 12 bucks? Freeze the extra and it’ll be good for years! But those extra 10 and 20 dollars add up real quick, and there are always lots more varieties to try. So it goes, crop by crop, variety by variety at ordering time. It could get real messy if I hadn’t long ago (Year 1!) worked out my seed quantity order sheet, which at least allows me to instantly check on how much space I really have, how much seed I really need, what the yield might be like… That helps! Sheet details!

Added a shelf to the potting table today, a quick bit of rough carpentry. It also needs a couple of coats of varnish to waterproof it for the season, so I took the time to shave down the little edge where the sides join the tabletop. Normally, I wouldn’t bother with a minor detail like that, but I spotted the cool little surform plane (the blade is kinda like a grater) in one of the toolboxes and felt like using it! Rough carpentry may sound like nothing much, but it’s really a particular, essential skill of its own on the tiny farm. I’ve been learning as I go. The “rough” doesn’t mean sloppy or shoddy, just practical: functional, sturdy, simple construction, as much as possible using whatever materials are at hand, and not waiting around to get things done. Need a shelf over here? A workbench fit in right there? A couple of quick walls to turn a corner into a storeroom? A roof on the veggie stand? Grab the tools, hunt down the materials, and bang it up!

The simple shelf is a couple of 1×6 boards. It’s for keeping plug sheets handy when I’m seeding lots of trays of transplants at once. The potting table started out as a long, shallow bin, built from scraps of plywood, to hold harvested tomatoes. I later reassigned it: flipped it over, added legs, and voila! (There’s that trusty saw again.)

Spent about four hours out in the field. The feeling of calm satisfaction as you head in after doing some work in the garden never fails! I dug up about half a bushel of carrots to see how they’ve done. These are, I think, Nelson and Danvers Half Long (the BIG ones)—the label stakes were out, so I couldn’t immediately check the varieties, it’s not necessarily that easy to tell! They’re mostly in fine shape. On a few, the inch or two exposed above-ground had frozen and thawed, leaving the top tips spongy and mushy, but this didn’t affect too many. I can probably get a couple of bushels! This mid-January harvest is actually consistent with last year, except for the extra 6-7 weeks of RealWinter… I also mulched the garlic, leaving a couple of beds clear as a test (I’m not sure how useful an experiment that is, since I’ll mulch them for moisture and against weeds first thing in spring…). Anyhow, a bit of winter fieldwork… More »

I got these about six weeks ago, when the selection was good (because, just any calendar will not do!). Today, I busted them out of their plastic. It’s getting close enough, only two weeks, the Holidays will vanish in a blur as they always do… I don’t know if it’s the new extra focus that comes from garden BLOGGING, this year’s extended Real Winter, Garden Season SIX coming up, or merely some planetary alignment thing (or…something else), but I am really, well, unusually EDGY and wanting to get started… Hmmm. Anyhow, the calendars… It comes down to record-keeping. You read about all kinds of intense systems of garden notes and, from market gardeners, intricate planting schedules distilled from reams of precise planting data. I started out with all that in mind, recording every crop and variety by planting date on a map, and meticulously noting all the action in a pocket notebook (use waterproof ink, field notebooks in your pocket inevitably get SOAKED…forgotten in the laundry or otherwise!). This note-taking activity would trail off a bit as the season got underway, and more so over the years. Now, I’m a minimalist when it comes to records, and this season’s system is the simplest yet. Almost everything worth noting goes into these two fabulously FRESH calendars. And there they are! Like the new seed catalogs, for me, new calendars in December hold all the promise of things to come…! Calendar details! »