Gold Rush potatoes, ready to be buried. Potatoes are yet another work in progress, as I experiment with simpler, better ways to grow ’em at my particular hand-tended scale. This year’s seeding method: use hoe to make shallow trenches, drop potatoes every 18″ or so (more spaced this time than the usual 12″), walk down each trench stepping them in with ball of foot, fill in trench. Quite relaxing! The selection this year is basic, the usual: Gold Rush, Norland, Yukon Gold, 300 pounds (136 kg) in all.
Mike (tfb)
Greenhouse filling up
The seedling side of the greenhouse is already almost full. All of the tomatoes, eggplant and peppers in 3″pots (around 700) are out there, which is only almost a quarter of everything that’s going. I’m gonna have to make some space! There are many things to do. Last frost date is approaching and the long-range weather forecast, not worth a lot but still worth looking at, predicts temperatures steadily rising—planting out to the field will likely happen “on schedule” around the 20th. The farmers’ market is also starting, and I need to do some carpentry to finish up the new stand. Two-thirds of the potatoes still have to go in. There’s a whole list of seedlings that need to be started indoors. There are the flowers and herbs to tend to, separate areas on their own. The grass is jumping and the paths need a first mowing now! And so on. If you’re into a little higher pressure gardening, around here, this is the time of year for you!
Lettuce gone wild…
The early lettuce has company. Several other varieties of lettuce, self-seeded from last year’s crop that was left to flower, just took off. Somehow, there’s tasty arugula mixed in as well. To munch on and to fill in where the voles had their fun, I let it all grow. This year’s lettuce is in there, doing fine, and should be ready not for the first day of the farmers’ market, which is this Saturday, but probably for next week. It’s all…good!
Tinier tomatoes
Big experiment. The last 200 tomato seedlings were started only three weeks ago, way late compared to starting dates in the past. They were also quite crowded in 200-cell trays. Now, I’m transplanting them to 38-cell plug sheets, maybe a little over half the volume of the usual 3″ pots. The experimental part is whether they’ll produce as fast as the rest, which were started earlier and are now in bigger pots. I suspect so (or I wouldn’t be trying it!), but you never know. You can get only so much info and advice before you just have to see for yourself (I’ve read that only special extra deep pots makes a difference, a few weeks of extra growth before transplanting doesn’t). I think I’ve been spending too much time producing seedlings that look great if they were for sale, but are unnecessarily big for setting out in the field. If this works out, I’ll save a ton of time next year.
Spot the spinach
Can you see them? The first thin green lines of the season are emerging. Always exciting! Here, part of the first four beds (650′) of Bloomsdale and Spargo spinach. It’s coming along…
O, the luxury!
No sooner fixed than in the field! This combo of little riding mower and old snowmobile trailer is possibly my favorite tiny farming tool, a decadent* alternative to walking up and down the garden plot.
Around here, you can walk miles in a day, especially if you forget things and have to go back—although, walking around, taking different routes each time to check stuff out, is one of the big pleasures, too… What a simple life. :)
Anyhow, after trying a couple of different garden utility belts, overalls with 50 pockets, and a pull-along garden cart, nothing has come close to being able to toss all the stuff you need onto the trailer and go.
I use it whenever there’s too much to carry. Here, I’ve just finished the second seeding of mesclun and spinach, four beds each (on the trailer: Earthway seeders with plates in the coffee can, my most used rake, measuring tape and stakes for marking new beds, a pail for rocks, and seed in the green trug; the empty trays just happen to be there).
Up until I took this pic, it was a gloriously sunny day, after three days or so of cloud and drizzle (which added up to 20cm of rain). Little luxuries.
*The mower is actually pretty energy efficient: it uses maybe 30 gallons (114 l) of gas in an entire season, and that includes mowing paths and hauling harvests.
Fixed it
The riding mower finally got a new transmission belt, putting it back in commission. It had been sorely missed all spring. This little workhorse, designed to sedately trim suburban lawns, has over the last three years done some serious small-farming duty. It’s used to mow the garden paths, chop up big crop residue like corn, and haul everything around the field: gear, compost, rocks, building materials, harvest bins and baskets. Elsewhere, more gray drizzle and lots of potting up and moving seedlings to the greenhouse. The rain’s been great. Sun, please.