Farm lab (research!)

Return to Jerusalem artichoke

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Various garden experiments are going on here and there. The new oats and fall rye green manure cover crops are doing well. There are five or six tarragon starters, three divisions from a potted lovage, coriander seed dried on the standing plants… Several varieties of hot peppers have to be given a final performance check. And so on. One I keep noticing and promptly forgetting again is the Jerusalem artichoke, planted so long ago. They’re definitely tough. The fuzzy-textured leaves seem rather delicate and wilt alarmingly without water, but they’ve survived with little weeding and maybe one watering all season, and they’re looking happy now.

Another unusual characteristic, compared to almost all of the other veggies and herbs, is how un-uniform they are, at least in this first year, with plants of all heights, ranging from around a foot to over three feet (30-90+ cm). There’s not much variation in leaf size, simply in…height. Well, JA’s supposed to be prolific—we’ll soon see when I check in on the gnarly tubers down below…!

Meet the beans!

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The first planting of snap beans is coming along quite well. Although the rows look nice and full now that they’re growing out, germination hasn’t been great this year, with annoying gaps that still have to be cultivated. If it’s not a matter of not enough water, I usually end up faulting it to the less-than-precise (but trusty!) Earthway seeder. A couple of days ago, I started looking more closely into what manner of germination troubles can happen underground. Yikes! For example, apparently some larval insects living in the soil (possibly earwigs, which are EVERYWHERE) will sometimes eat the emerging root tip (radicle), leaving the seed to absorb moisture with nowhere to grow, and quickly turn to paste. This would explain lots, starting with the pasty little blobs I discovered where beans should’ve been. I’m not sure if this is HOW it’s happening, but the little blobs are real enough—an exciting first! :) More as I discover it. In any case, we’re on our third planting, a fourth to go in right about now, and the first ones in are starting to flower. The selection this year is basic: green (Derby, Jade), yellow (Indy Gold) and purple (Royal Burgundy). Coming soon!

Vanishing lettuce

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Vanishing lettuce

Where have all the lettuce gone? Nine little Two Stars seedlings vanished overnight with only stubs of stem to mark their place. This is a new one for early lettuce in the hoophouse, nothing similar happened in the past. It’s probably field mice (actually, voles), particularly since no leaves were left behind. I dug around for cutworms (a pest I haven’t yet had a chance to meet)—thankfully, nothing! Whatever it was, I found where mice have tunneled in (the hoophouse sits on 4x4s bolted to T-bars pounded 3′ into the ground, IOW, a wood frame sitting on the surface, easy to tunnel under), and filled the holes, which won’t stop ’em, but will be an indicator if they’re out and about tonight. Other than that, there’s nothing else to do right now, besides starting a tray of replacement lettuce, in case the munching turns into a wholesale lettuce slaughter. Let’s see what’s up tomorrow…

Germination test

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Seed germination test

For some reason, I have 250 grams each of Ramrod and Summer Isle bunching onion seed from two years ago. Onion seed is supposed to be good for only a year or two, I’m too anti-waste (and curious) to just toss it, and I don’t want to find out if it’s viable when it’s in the field and I’m counting on the crop… So, my first ever germination tests! Pretty simple: count out a good sample (I went for 100), roll ’em up in a damp paper towel, stick in a plastic bag, wait, then count and figure the percentage. Both varieties were marked 88% germination in 2005 when they were fresh. Anything close to that and I’ll use it, around 50% and maybe I’ll double seed, lower and I’ll give it away… How scientific!

Grow racks at night

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Grow racks at night

Plant racks, light stands…I usually call ’em grow racks. They’re filling up now.

Pushed to capacity, the three racks can hold a total of 36 trays, 12 each, or four trays per shelf. So, depending on the size of the plug sheet—I use 38s, 72s, 128s, 200s—I can start between 1,368 and 7,200 seedlings.

Sounds super-efficient. HOWEVER, it comes down to the light. With four trays per double fluorescent fixture, the light is pretty stretched, and a lot of rotating is in order.

Also, most of the fixtures are the old standard T-12 type, where the light is stronger towards the middle of the tube. You can clearly see the difference in growth if you leave trays in the same position for a few days. The newer T-8 type lights more evenly from end to end and uses less power, but I don’t feel like replacing all the fixtures (a couple in there are already T-8).

It’s an ongoing experiment to see which size plug sheet to best start in for each crop, given the light situation. That in turn determines if or how often I need to pot up to larger quarters before it’s time to transplant into the field.

All in all, I’ll get around 2,500 seedlings off the racks this year.

Tiny Farm Bookshelf, Part 1

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Books on farming

This is about a quarter of my farming bookshelf. I get a ton of info from the Web, particularly in winter when I have more time to cruise around online, but books I’m still most fond of. Let’s see what we have…

For one-stop shopping, you could take Rodale’s Garden Problem Solver and a bunch of seeds and that’s all you’d need to get started. This book wasn’t an early acquisition, I think I got somewhere into my first year, but it’s turned out able to answer just about every organic production question I’ve had, from cultivation to irrigation. It’s a little sun-bleached from trips to the field. And then, The New Organic Grower is probably required reading if you’re selling what you grow: practical and also kinda inspiring on the microfarm marketing side.


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