With the recently warming weather, field crops have started to grow more quickly, but nothing but radishes will be ready for this Saturday’s farmers’ market, and the early lettuce in the greenhouse has gotten pretty low after two weeks of harvesting. This is a first: by the end of May, mesclun and usually spinach have been ready in the field. Not this time. Sooo, we decided to fill out the week’s market stand offerings with seedlings. Selling my extra insurance seedlings at the market is something I’ve avoided until now: for the few dollars more, it didn’t seem worth the chance of complaints if anything goes wrong (I’ve heard people blame all kinds of things on the plants they buy)—usually, I’d sell or give only to people I know. There’s always a first time, so Shannon potted up and labeled a couple of dozen spares. We’ll take a walk on the wild side and see what happens… :)
Tools
Equipment for large-scale agriculture is too big or too expensive, and many home gardening tools don’t work efficiently on larger jobs or break easily. Tiny farming on plots up to two or three acres requires its own special gear…
Row cover everywhere
It was impossible to capture all the floating row cover outposts scattered around the feel in just one shot. This pic shows maybe a third of the area under the light, white, spunbond polyester protection. Right now, it’s being used as protection from two separate things: frost and bugs. Let’s see, it’s on all the cucurbits (so far, that’s cucumber, summer and winter squash, and pumpkin) to protect from the cold and striped cucumber beetles, on tomatoes against cold (and coming off in a few days), on the brassicas (broccoli, cauliflower, and the like) against ravaging flea beetles but not the cold (coming off when the plants are fairly big and can withstand the FBs). I’ve used row cover from Year 1, far as I can remember (there are NOTES and even pics…somewhere). Initially, I really didn’t like it, it looked so…unearthy, synthetic,…not part of the garden. BUT, the alternatives, like planting later, ending harvest earlier in fall, temporary wind breaks and cold air channels, trap crops, and all sorts of complex interplanting (so one crop protects another), encouraging beneficial insects, more elaborate timing (basically, closer second guessing of insect cycles and the weather), not to mention a completely adapted, semi-permaculture set-up where everything is at home no matter what, were all way out of what I could handle as I dove into tiny farming with the intention of heading to the farmers’ market in the first season. Floating row cover lets me extend the season by at least a couple of weeks at each and, and I can avoid all pesticides (and there are some killer insecticides allowed even in certified organics) and a lot of bug grief (stemming from lots of LOSS). I still don’t really LIKE row cover, though, the way I like, say, my Sneeboer three-tine cultivator or even the Horse rototiller (I can understand how the Horse is built, get if fixed, or do without). More and more lately, I wonder when FRC will become insanely expensive, or real scarce, or just plain run out… It’s as oil-based as they come, and kind of in a high tech product class of its own. This year, in a small fit of…paranoia (?), I actually ordered a new 1,000’x14′ (300mx4.3m) roll, even though I have enough for this season at least. It’s not much of a stockpile, but, carefully managed, it could get me through 3-4 more years along with what’s on hand, at this tiny farming scale… Oh, well, the more you know, the less you need is what I believe. I’m learning as I go. Keep farming long enough, and I’m sure I’ll get beyond the cover if it doesn’t run out on me first…! :)
Grass mulch, Season 2
The grass seemed just long enough for a productive mulch cut without overloading the John Deere riding mower, so today was the day to start season 2 in the grass mulch experiment. This is just one part of the total mowing area: including the field perimeter and another big area behind where I’m standing to take the photo, there’s maybe four times that much (this area is being kept clear for the eventual bigger greenhouse). The JD’s deflector forms those nice mini-windrows instead of scattering the cut, making raking it up much quicker. I’m still not sure if the time it takes to mow, hand-rake and bag will be worth it on a larger scale: will the work be offset by savings in irrigation and weeding, and maybe better yield, for the crops that’ll be mulched? It takes a lot of big, packed leaf bags to properly mulch just a few beds… Well, we’ll soon find out!
Greenhouse upgrades
Another cloudy, cool, kinda chilly day. There’s always fieldwork to do, but this type of weather is also good for building, fixing, organizing…indoors. Today, some long-planned greenhouse upgrades. They may not look like much, but it’s a pretty big bunch of improvements! As part of Shannon’s kinda intensive “this is what I do around here,” hands-on experience (with full narration!) on this tiny farm, I showed her how to use a couple of basic power tools—cordless drill, chop saw—and she built simple legs for a wooden tray that I use for various small, often-used bits of gear (the tray’s shallowness is an automatic organizer: things can’t get really buried!). Really simple, rough carpentry, but if you haven’t used tools much or at all, and then you build something that’s immediately used in the course of the farming day…it all makes more sense! At the other end of the hoophouse, I put up another wooden crosspiece for leaning long-handled tools, and we separated the most-used and put the least used at the other end. Again, by avoiding a pile of stuff, everything’s easy to grab and put away. And then, we pounded a couple of 2×2 wooden stakes into the ground (pounding with a mini-sledgehammer was also on the farm experience menu today, I pound a lot of stakes for tomatoes every year as well…), and screwed another 2×2 as a crosspiece to make a leaning rack for the seeders and the wheel hoe (you can see one end on the right of the pic, one of the posts has orange tape on top). Finally, a machinery addition, a big, old, rusty, dangerous-looking high-volume fan on a really heavy iron stand. I’ve been meaning to work on greenhouse ventilation for ages…but always ended up using much smaller home-type fans. This one, which was actually being stored in the chickenhouse, I hadn’t noticed till now. It moves a ton of air, and reduces the temperature a full 10-15°F in the middle of a hot day. Cool! To look at, these little building projects are absolutely basic and kinda primitive, but they’re quick, easy, solid cheap, and really make a huge difference when you actually use them… (I just noticed in the pic how the right side of the end wall seems to be sagging, it doesn’t look that way at glance, I should check it out and see what’s up…)
Seedlings away!
Things can change suddenly on the tiny farm. I picked today to move the majority of seedlings to the greenhouse. Although this was MUCH later than hoped for earlier this year, it’s all about the (recently COLD) weather, and I didn’t want to spend much on heat. But you can’t wait forever. There’ll probably be at least a couple of freezing nights in the next two weeks, but it IS getting to mid-May, and these guys will be out in the field, one way or another, before the end of the month. So, it’s out of the Milkhouse and onto the trailer behind the little John Deere riding mower for a little trip…
The greenhouse tables are now just about full, and that’s with a fourth one added a week or so ago. Plus, there are a few more trays of plug sheets on the ground off to the right. Lots more seedlings than ever before… On the closest table, there’s the (excellent) digital min-max thermometer/hygrometer, recording critical highs and lows, right after the fact! New this year are those red and green plastic pots (with cukes, squash, pumpkins, melons)—I decided to stop using the 3″ peat pots and try soil blocks, BUT, I didn’t feel like learning about block making right in the rush, so I used the last of the peat and then dipped into the collection of plastic pots I’ve been given over the years. (I’ll get the soil block maker in the summer, so I can play around with it first…)
It’s always a little…sad when bright, cheerful gear goes dark and empty… There are still a few trays of really young tomatoes, brassicas, and a couple of other late-started things, but the grow rack days are just about over for the year. We’ll soon be stowing the lights and chains, and presto, instant rolling racks for harvest bins. Transplants for late spring and summer will get started in the greenhouse…
And so, the seedling greenhouse gets tucked in for its first full-house night of the season. Boy, imagine if something WENT WRONG in there… :)
Rinsing station gear comes out
Today was the day I decided to bring out the rinsing gear! Upfront for its fourth (or fifth?) season, the trusty Maytag washer turned giant salad spinner. Once again, after a winter in the unheated drive shed, it started up (on Spin, of course) without a protest. (Maybe it’ll get a cool paint job this year, finally?!) Leaning up against the Milkhouse wall, there’s the original, square screen table (formerly used to sift gravel), and beside it, the new one I built last year—just add sawhorses… On the left, the pair of laundry tubs. Drainage pipes lie on the ground… First harvest can’t be far off!
Seedlings stack up
With the cold snap about to break, the final potting up is fully underway, a few days later than last year, but no worries. Even with the new, fourth grow rack, things are tight, with four trays to a shelf instead of the ideal two—better to give ’em all an equal ration of light for a couple of days until the first wave is out in the greenhouse, than leave some of them on unlit tables. At the same time, started the cucurbits: several varieties of cucumber and summer squash, with melons, winter squash and pumpkins soon to follow. The rain so far has been good, over an inch (25mm) in the last couple of days, and a bit more apparently to come. OK, cool. Then, bring on the heat!