One of the basic things you learn about growing beets is that the seed isn’t actually seed, it’s small dried fruit that contain up to three or four tiny seeds. You’ll often get a tight little cluster of seedlings emerge, which could be a problem if you were precision seeding, going for exact spacing and no thinning. That sort of preciseness has never been a factor on this tiny farm—dealing with the vast volume of tiny carrot seed poured out by Earthway seeders in early years totally eclipsed any thinning issue one may have had with beets. Still, here’s PROOF. Beets aren’t transplant crops, but in this gardening year, I decided to try some in plug sheets. One shriveled fruit per cell. And here you can see, one “seed”, three seedlings! Could’ve also cut one open, but what’s the fun in that! They’re looking quite stretched under the fluorescents. Carrots definitely don’t like to be casually transplanted—they grow, but in my one experiment, they produced stubby little carrots. Probably something to do with the tap root being disturbed. Beets could be the same!
Flashback: 2008
Books! Seed! Orders arrive…
Better than Christmas! The first half of the first big seed order, and my first book order in months, both arrived today.
Seed every year comes almost entirely from three companies: William Dam, Veseys and Terra Edibles. The first two are both bigger, family run companies, one definitely slicker and more marketing-oriented, with a series of color catalogs through the year in addition to their main one, all kinds of enticing special offers involving free shipping, a call center with almost no waits, y’know, the works. The other is definitely more…”indie”, with a single annual catalog, a written commitment to untreated seed only, and a busy signal more likely than not right through the order season: keep calling till you get through. The third is a tiny company specializing in heirloom seed, grown in-house or directly sourced from small growers.
The cool thing about all three is that you’re actually dealing wtih the owners, right to the top. Even in the case of the slickest one, when a seed potato order was a WEEK late last year, the prez himself called to apologize. And I’ve had great, informative chats with various people from all. It’s another small satisfaction, knowing to a degree from where and whom your seed arrives.
The book situation is a little different: Amazon.com (Amazon.ca, in my case). It seems like a sprawling, faceless, digital megacorporation, and I long ago stopped keeping track of who bought out who, but as far as I know, it’s still…OK (like, not like Facebook). And it’s downright depressing/futile to browse a small-town bookstore if you’re looking for specific titles (of course, they can always order in, so I do it myself instead).
Anyhow, the few titles (selected from a long list of must-reads): The Complete Vegetable & Herb Gardener: A Guide to Growing Your Garden Organically (based on a recommendation), The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (finally…eek! :), The Art of Simple Food: Notes, Lessons, and Recipes from a Delicious Revolution (hmm, high hopes for this one, based largely on a Charlie Rose PBS (US public TV) interview with author Alice Waters; I WILL cook more, but we’ll see if this helps…), Micro Eco-Farming: Prospering from Backyard to Small Acreage in Partnership with the Earth (I have NO IDEA how this came to the long list, I forget, but I did mark it with a bunch of stars…). And then there’s the Linux Pocket Guide, ’cause with blogs and web sites, like tiny farms, it’s usually best to know your way around the territory…
Off to start some rosemary really late, and read!
Melon tendrils twine
This is what I’d been waiting for: a melon tendril at last took the offer and coiled itself firmly around the conveniently positioned twine. It’s part of my misguided trellising idea for a few cantaloupe plants. I haven’t grown melons often, and always let them sprawl on plastic, so I guess I’d forgotten that trellising melons is not a great idea. Just the thought of heavy fruit hanging doesn’t make sense. But rather than think about it, I built a little A-frame, and then started crisscrossing twine in a vague 3D grid. Well, I’ll reclaim my screws and scrap wood at the end of the season, and the jute twine can return to the earth.
The anti-garden
A field of goldenrod and tall grass—what the garden would look like, left to its own devices. It’s Day 4 of the first official heat wave of the season, coming to an end. I’m headed to the veg plot, a couple hundred feet slightly up and to the left, to turn on the electric fence for the night. Earlier in the afternoon, it probably hit around 34°C, which isn’t quite up to the crazy new highs we’ve been getting in recent years. Still, it was exhausting because of the thick, oppressive humidity, so spent much of the day indoors with a fan. Uncomfortable, but here at least, not as scary as the scrolling list of warnings and advice on the weather app made it seem, mixed with equally dire details of a possible sudden, severe thunderstorm. All the weather alerts get kind of annoying when most aren’t as bad as the extremes they describe, but I guess they’re overall useful, especially in cities. We’re being looked out for! And the heat is supposed to end overnight. As the sun goes down, it’s already quite cool and relaxing and the mosquitoes aren’t even bad!
Need a wider lens
Stepped out into Day 3 of our heat wave, happened to look up and, WHOA! The immediate impression was exactly like the movie scene where the giant alien spacecraft slowly slides over the city. And you know what happens next. After a second, this wasn’t nearly that menacing, just pretty cool. Unfortunately, my fixed lens couldn’t squeeze in the full picture, the complete half-disc emerging from a mass of foreboding dark grey cloud. Nature!
Tree in the wind
It’s Day 2 of our little heat wave, and apparently time for the daily thunderstorm. This is the second one, same pattern. Heavy wind and darkness roll in for a while, shaking things up and looking ominous. Then rain, building up, pounding down for a few minutes, easing off again, then it’s gone. The whole thing happens in half an hour or so.
The whole thing is a little alarming, especially the wind, mainly because you don’t want the power to go out. But it’s not the storm itself, it’s these short periods and odd combinations of weather that there’s no settling into—a week or a month of one thing, then a quick switch to another. Like now, where after the storm, the air feels cool and fresh for a bit, then it’s back to oppressively heavy, humid heat wave heat.
Weather has become a regular news event, even around here where we haven’t had the extremes I read about. No months long drought with temps above a 100F (35C). No atmospheric rivers dumping massive floods. No wildfires that black out the sun at noon and cause their own local weather systems. No asphalt cracking in the street. No frying eggs on the sidewalk. Just this heat/storm combo for now. I’ll take it!
The green I mean
Finally! Here’s what I think of as the indoor and field green difference in transplant leaves—at times hard to capture with the point-and-shoot. It happens for most transplanted seedlings. Their leaves grow, even quite massively, but their color remains…pale. And then a new set of leaves eventually appears that I call with satisfaction deep field green. It’s satisfying because to me it’s a signal that the plant has fully connected and is hunkering down for the growth it was built for, mainlined directly into the planet and the weather, for better or for worse. Transplant, successful. There’s no doubt biological truth to that, but it’s not a comment on some scientific mechanism, it’s just a feeling! :)
Pie plate protection
A couple of pie plates tied to a post, fluttering and lightly clanking in the breeze…scares birds. Why mess with the birds? In this case, to protect green beans as they emerge as perfectly peckable bird treats. To prevent avian decapitation, pie plates work, more DIY than scare balls, with the added dimension of sound. Not as soothing as wind chimes, but relaxing in the background, probably because it signals…protection!
DETAILS: Wind is always at work, doing what it can. The holes in the soft aluminum, tugged at by the twine, slowly enlarge. A day of heavy gusts and the plates can eventually tear off—there’s a rip from last year on the upper pan. But that’s an extreme. You could reinforce the hole, but I don’t bother. For the next year, maybe make a new hole. There’s a lot of years in one pan. For the post, which can also get blown over, I dug a small hole with a trowel, filled it with water, then pounded it into the mud. Probably a foot down. The whole rig should hang together just fine. Windproofed!