Month: March 2009

Last-frost countdown begins!

16 Nov 20231 Mar 2009 by Mike (tfb)

Today I marked the official farming wall calendar with the weekly weeks-to-transplant countdown: 11, 10, 9,… I do this every year, and usually a lot earlier than this! Because so much is kinda, well, UNKNOWN this growing season as far as overall production conditions on the new farm, my reaction is not to overplan and not try to anticipate every last possible potential problem. I suppose the approach varies by the person! Anyhow, having those numbers finally up there on the wall somehow really gets the adrenaline going…

What that “11” represents is 11 weeks to average last frost date, which around here is May 18 (I actually backed it up by one day, to start on a Sunday, just felt like it). This is a pretty arbitrary number, weather conditions have consistently varied SO MUCH in the last few years, last frost is ony a loose guideline. It’s something to base the gambling on.

So, it’s now 11 weeks until the odds are even that there’ll be no more frost, the soil has warmed up sufficiently, and it’s reasonably safe to transplant. From this, I can figure the timing of seed starts.

It goes like this… For tomatoes, I aim for about 6 weeks from sowing the seed in plug sheets to transplanting, so I still have FIVE WEEKS before starting toms. But, I usually want to have at least 100 tomato seedlings ready to go 2 weeks earlier than that, in case the weather’s really good, and for that I have to start in 3 weeks. Peppers I aim for 8 weeks, so that’s start in…3 weeks.

Broccoli, cauliflower and other brassicas are only around 6 weeks, BUT, they’re quite cold-hardy and can be transplanted out 3-4 weeks BEFORE last frost, sometime in the last half of April, so that means the first wave starts in a week or two! Onions and leek can also go out early, and are indoors for around 10 weeks. Some onions are already started, and the rest have to be started right about NOW.

And so on, for around 20 veggies that start as transplants…

The scratchy “11” on the calendar was originally a “7”—at first, I accidentally started numbering backwards from April instead of May. For a moment there, that was a shock! :)

Lead bean, Part 2

20 Apr 20223 Mar 2009 by Mike (tfb)

I ended up putting the sprouted fava beans in a pan of water, instead of discarding them after the mini-germination test, and put the pan on a south-facing windowsill. A few days ago, a little natural selection happened: the pan got knocked to the floor, and the kinda brittle main root snapped on three of them, leaving only the biggest, healthiest one in one piece. I put it back in the pan… Amazing what a plant can do, in a few days, with nothing but water and some sun. Tiny hydroponics!

The great WARM outdoors!

20 Apr 20226 Mar 2009 by Mike (tfb)

Ahhh, yes, THIS is what warm weather feels like! For the first time this year, the temperature topped 60°F (15°C), with a hazy sun and a gentle breeze. We’ve had some melt-off days already, but this one tastes like spring! Usually, there’s a day like this sometime in February, so it’s been a long time coming, and makes me wonder how even crazier the rest of the weather will be. No worries…today feels great.

The photo is a good to-do list for when real spring comes and the ground is dry enough to work and get around on. There’s a jumble of spare lumber taken from the barn when we cleared an area for the new seedling room—it needs to be sorted and stacked, and some of it will be the new chickenhouse! (Only patches of snow are left on much of the land, but I’m sure it’ll be back before it’s really gone.) The abundantly overgrown grasses that partially surround the barn and border the moldboarded garden areas is a big clean-up job. And, up the slope, the Kubota compact tractor calmly waits for after the hired-big-tractor disking and the compost spreading, when we do the final tilling of the garden beds. Coming soon. Cool!

One-horse farming

3 Apr 20167 Mar 2009 by Mike (tfb)

Conall‘s winter job this year is cutting firewood on Canada’s east coast (Nova Scotia), in partnership with his trusty workhorse, Dixie. It sounds pretty intense. He started tiny farming from scratch two seasons ago, our first full-season full-timer, way back in ’07. Last year, he was out in NS, on a tiny, one-horse farm, learning to plow and cultivate veggies, and bring in the hay, with Dixie. This winter’s job involves heading into the woods with Dixie, where he fells small trees with a chainsaw, guides Dixie to drag the logs, at times through waist-deep snow, to a clearing, cuts down the logs to firewood, loads it onto the sled, and hauls it out for delivery. Conall’s plan for this summer: a Dixie-powered market garden… What I wonder is, the Kubota compact tractor vs Dixie?

Apple a day…

15 Mar 20098 Mar 2009 by Mike (tfb)

Biting into the barcode on an apple, dreaming of the first garden meal… This is one of the many little quiet-before-it-all-goes-crazy times that happen through the season, a few things already going, just waiting for the moment that seems right to start seeding the rest. I’ve been steadily reducing the time indoors for seedlings, and this year, with the greenhouse not yet moved and set up, and the disking of the newly plowed land being hired out—you can’t count in a scheduled date until the machine is in the field!—I have to keep in mind that there may be a bit of an extra delay, beyond the weather. So, I’ve been carefully waiting… With transplant seedlings, give or take a week or two or even three can make a lot of difference, or very little at all—weather, weather, weather!—and there’s nothing concrete to go on, just…instinct(?!)…a FEELING about when it’s right to start… :)

Snow off, snow on

1 Oct 20119 Mar 2009 by Mike (tfb)

From delicious warm weather to snow, to mini-melt-off, to more cold and snow… The weather is yo-yo-ing, changing every couple of days. Seems unusual, but what isn’t with Our Weather of the Last Few Years? At this point, the only way I could keep track of all the weird weather configurations is with a detailed daily weather journal, constantly updating the stats. Somehow, that doesn’t particularly appeal to me! In the pic, the overnight snow makes a pretty topping for the useful wood scraps, ends of 2×6’s, conveniently piled just outside the new seedling room door…

Express yourself: parsley

16 Mar 200912 Mar 2009 by Mike (tfb)

Three weeks old, and the parsley is already well past its seed leaf stage, where everyone pretty much looks the same, and is busy expressing its true nature. On the left, Green Pearl, a curly variety, starting to pucker and…curl. On the right, Hilmar, of the generally stronger-tasting flat-leaf type. Curly, straight, plants, people…we’re all bobbing around in the same big boat! (I’m still WAITING, holding back for a few more days before starting the next wave of seedlings… :)