Tiny Farm Blog - A photo journal from the market garden

Melons in training

26 Jun 202625 Jun 2026 by Mike (tfb)

Melons have been out from under row cover for a couple days now, and seem fine. They look a little more vibrantly green in the photo than they do to me. It’s been weeks now of more cloud than sun, and none of the crops have the deep green, raring to grow look so far. But hot sunny days are forecast. I moved the vines to lean on the twine so they can head up. The tendrils haven’t figured it out yet. Those little yellow spots on the one leaf at the bottom left are maybe some sort of bacterial attack. Being out in open with good fresh air circulation will hopefully keep that from spreading. I’ll remove the leaf if it gets worse.

Since I don’t use pesticides, other than occasional plant soap spray, it’s really up to the plants to do their thing. The row cover as cucumber beetle protection worked, although using heavier cover made it more humid under there, perhaps promoting the bacterial spots. Giving them something to climb improves air and keeps them off wet ground. I try to be helpful, without getting in the way! :)

Flashback: 2008

Field day!

3 Apr 201617 Apr 2008 by Mike (tfb)

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…!

Basic tomato cage

25 Jun 202624 Jun 2026 by Mike (tfb)

Ran into these cheapest of tomato cages in town, two bucks a pop, so I picked up a few. They’ve been around unchanged since I started growing veg over a couple of decades ago: three hoops flimsily spot welded to three support legs. Can’t speak for every last use, but from first-hand field tests, they’re pretty useless—a nice, neat-looking gesture to being in control when the toms are tiny, but prone to sag or tilt or snap at the joints under the weight of grown plants. Not great for a home veg garden, and really not for any sort of tiny production quantities. So why bother now? Well, one can always hope and dream. Since these toms went in late, given our short season, and the small number of plants, I can imagine carefully tending them—suckering enough to keep them productively compact, harvesting regularly before they get heavy. Plus, they take literally 30 seconds to place, and, at first at least, they look kinda cool and organized. Like a Jetsons garden. We’ll see how it goes!

Layers of protection

23 Jun 202622 Jun 2026 by Mike (tfb)

Layered protection for beds of cabbage and cauliflower. First, row cover for the flea beetles, who are out in force as usual. Loosely laid on top, deer netting, that doesn’t actually work for deer (it didn’t for the deer around here) but will hopefully deter the groundhogs. The net could easily be chewed through, but it’s springy, tensile tough and very easy to get tangled in. That may be enough!

Box elder regrouped

22 Jun 202622 Jun 2026 by Mike (tfb)

[From 15-Jun-2026] There’s definitely a kind of cheerful dark humor in the relentlessness of it all. When you settle in and observe, the calm and peaceful veggie garden is in a constant push-and-pull of competition and ways to get what they want. Everything’s hungrily chomping, from microorganisms in the soil, all the way to the deer who are hopefully getting zapped by the electric fence (it keeps them on their toes!). Weeds and crops sneak their solar panels to the front, trying to hoard light. The plants, the animals, the powdery mildew, you name it, they all just want to eat and grow, and they have no problem clearing each other out of their way. Wow! But maybe it’s not a battle royale, it’s a wondrously vast, seamless balancing act that can’t be properly described with words. Relax. Don’t overthink. Enjoy the invasive box elder, brutally cut back a couple of weeks ago, regrouped and now trying to eat the work table. Once again.

Birds 2 – Beans 1

20 Jun 202619 Jun 2026 by Mike (tfb)

The first small bed of green beans was coming up fine—then I lapsed for a moment, and the beans were mercilessly attacked. So it goes in the rough-and-tumble world of the country veggie garden. I suspect birds. Can’t be sure but I’m pretty sure. I’ve seen them in action before. The ragged tops of the stems seem to point to pecking action, not the clean angled slice of creatures with teeth.

Instead of seed leaves, beans emerge with the actual bean split in two right on top of the stem, like an irresistible treat on a stick. Not sure what sort of garden raider survival strategy that represents. I usually put out anti-bird measures: inflatable scare balls or aluminum pie plates suspended on string. Or toss on some row cover—the duct tape of the garden—until a few leaves develop.

Here I didn’t act as soon as I saw the first signs of emerging beans. Also, I’m not used to hand-seeding and probably got a little too precise and seed-saving. With a seeder, plenty of seed drops, so there’s room for thinning, even by birds. Unforced human errors!

Anyhow, there are still enough plants for a decent first harvest, and a bigger bed is seeded and underway, with pie plates heading to the field. Bonus quarter point for the beans—you can see a tiny new leaf on one of the bare stems as it goes for a comeback!

The puddle returns!

20 Jun 202618 Jun 2026 by Mike (tfb)

After a pretty impressive inch and a half (3.75 cm) of overnight rain, my water table indicator puddle is back. Not usual this far into June, but there has been a lot of falling water recently. You can see the water in the tamped down route of my path to the veg field, but it also extends into the grass on both sides. A mini-Everglades. If the veggies were planted right here, it would be a problem: plants breathe through their roots, so they’d be spluttering for air, in danger of drowning! Luckily, the veg patch starts not far off, but up a gentle slope, so, pretty much high and drier. With the clouds and rain of this May extending into June, with a few days heat wave-ish break, the weather pattern of the last 20 years holds true—there is no pattern!

Pot experiment update #2b

17 Jun 2026 by Mike (tfb)

Here it is, the final phase of the tomato pot size experiment: side by side and in the ground. It’s a little hard to compare, so far apart and in this weird semi-overcast sunlight. The deep pot toms across the way went in late yesterday, and the plug sheet seedlings, up close, were transplanted 10 days ago. It’s a bit of an odd match-up for an experiment, but this was all an afterthought. The plugs have a big headstart in getting fully rooted, while the potted toms are starting in pretty much twice as big, with a lot more root mass. And they’re off…!

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