Hello Everyone:

I'll pick up where I left off last week.  This time I'll write about succession cropping when it goes somewhat awry (are any customers wondering why we have so many beans these past few weeks?)

I'll use the beans as the example.

I start the season with a variety of green bean called provider.  It has a couple of characteristics that I need for the early crop.  It germinates in relatively cool soil, when most other bean seeds will rot.  So it is an obvious choice to sow in the field first.

As well, unlike most green bush beans, it continues to set pods as long as the mature pods are being picked - most bush beans will set two flushes over a two-three week period and then cease to produce. This gives me some flexibility for timing the second succession of beans - if I am a little late in getting the second succession in the ground, I might be able to continue to harvest from the provider beans.

Provider has two drawbacks.

Most beans will shut down for a period of time when the weather becomes too hot.  They drop their blooms and wait for the temperature to moderate before resuming.  I suspect if the weather becomes hot before the flowers and pods appear, the plant just waits, though on this point I am uncertain.

I find that provider will cease to produce at a lower temperature than other bean varieties.

The second drawback is that I find that it is rather bland flavoured compared to many other varieties, such as the floral slenderette or the rich maxi flavour.  It is also a challenging bush to pick, hiding many of its pods under the leaves.

The second variety that I am using this year is called Maxi.  It is a two week producer, seems to be more tolerant of the hot summer conditions of eastern ontario, sets all of its pods at the top of the plant (easy to pick), and has a better flavour.

The goal is to provide legumes (either beans or peas) continuously through the year.  To give myself a break from the picking, ideally I try to include a "rest period" between the legume successions.

Provider is a 50 day (to maturity) bean, Maxi a 43 day bean.  Norli snow peas are a 47 day pea.

Knowing from previous years that my snow peas are finished by July, I aim to get my providers in their first flush for about july first, a couple of days before the first delivery day to ensure a decent quantity to deliver.

Therefore, I need to count back 50 days to determine the sowing date for provider - About May 10.

Typically, provider has shut down from mid July temperatures, so I assume that late July is an ideal start date for the maxi.  For this year, the target harvest date is July 28, so I plan(ed) to sow on June 17.

This allows me to remove the providers in mid july and clean the bed, which then frees the bed up for a fall crop of spinach or lettuce to be planted in very early august.  On paper, this is a very good arrangement.

This year, we had a very hot may and june, interspersed with some cooler dates and a pair of late frosts.  The hot dates in particular would have stalled the providers, they did not set their first flush until the second week of july.  This was ok as the peas were also a little slow to start, and therefore a little late to finish.

Unfortunately for the picker (or fortunately for the eater), the maxi's did not stop growing in the heat of late june, and began setting flower and pods along with the providers.

And just to throw another curveball in, the providers set more pods this year than in previous years.

So instead of selling a pound every second week to picnic basket customers, everyone receives beans each week.  Great for the customer who like beans, but for me?  I am left with the challenge of moving the overage and picking like crazy to keep the plants from shutting down and watching the maxi's catching up to the providers and trying to gauge when to switch over and getting distracted from other crops that need tending.  Just to add insult to injury, the snow peas start setting a third flush (very unusual), though by then I am fed up with picking and needing the peas removed to make way for another fall leaf crop and off they go to the compost to make next years food.

So what about next year?  Do I assume that we will have another heat wave in May?  Do I assume that provider will generate as many beans next year as this year, or will they go back to the yield from two years ago?

The advantage of succession cropping is to allow a farmer to provide a continuous supply of crops throughout the year.  But it is not an exact science, and every year is different.

I think this is one of the advantages of having ten years of experience comes in.  With ten years of records to draw upon, one can get a better sense of the annual average to expect for both planting dates and yields.  After all of the picking I have done in the past couple of weeks, I can't wait...

In other news:

The garlic is out of the ground  This year's haul is a mixed bag of success and disappointment.

The French rocambole is very small and not looking particularly healthy.  This variety is not known for being well suited to eastern ontario, though in two of the four years it has done very well here.  If it was not a such extraordinary garlic, I would not keep trying to grow it.  I'll deliver a couple of bulbs if it looks acceptable after curing.

Fish Lake has done ok.  My seed stock from last year did better than the seed stock purchased from my suppliers.  Much of this will be rolled over into seed stock for next year, but our customers will get a few medium sized bulbs.

The Yugoslavian garlic had a lot of variation.  Some bulbs were small, others large.  Since it is a proven variety at Whitsend, I'll be keeping the larger bulbs for seed and distributing the smaller ones.

The Persian star might have done very well.  There may have been some mislabelling from last years whitsend seed stock, so I am not willing to use this as seed stock, just in case.   Customers will get much of this one, you will find it is a large bulb with several small cloves.

The softneck garlic did not do very well at all, the few bulbs I planted barely set a bulb.  Not too surprising, soft neck types - in this case a variety called Aliah - are not known to do well in eastern ontario.

I'm going from memory, so the other varieties will have to wait for another post.

Curing should take about two weeks, then customers will start to receive their first bulbs.

Time for supper!

Bob

Sri Lankan Green Beans (Bonchi Curry)

These are stewed green beans in a mild, flavourful sauce. Adapted from Rice & Curry: Sri Lankan Home Cooking by S. H. Fernando Jr.

Carrot puree with black beans

A vibrant, orange and black one-dish meal.  Extra carrot mash (or puree, if you prefer) can be frozen.

Hello Everyone:

It's been a busy week at Whitsend as I clean up the first beds and start planting the fall succession of crops.

Succession farming is a production model that produces a succession of crops throughout the season.

To use lettuce as an example, I sow enough lettuce for one to two weeks (plus 10-20 per cent for anticipated seed or plant failures) in the nursery several weeks before the anticipated harvest date.

About 3-4 weeks after the seeds are sown, the plants are moved out to the hardening off shelter for a couple of days.  This allows the plants to get used to a controlled amount of wind, wider temperature fluctuations, and the intensity of the sunlight.

When the plants are ready, I take them out to the field and transplant them into the designated bed.

The nursery sowing is repeated every one to two weeks.  This practice continues throughout the season until mid to late summer.

When the lettuce is harvested, the bed is cleaned up.  Any lettuces that failed (too small, went to seed, succumbing to pests, or just extra that no-one wants) and weeds that grew in the understory are composted.

The bed's surface is cultivated once a week for (ideally) three weeks.  An additional application of compost is added for the soil.  Then, the following crop is planted.  In this case, the lettuce bed is turned over to another leaf crop not related to lettuce, such as coriander, amaranth, spinach, etc.

The same bed then provides an additional crop for the later part of the season, effectively doubling my farm field size.

The next season, the leaf bed now becomes a fruit bed (in my rotation pattern, fruits, onions, celery, fennel, and potatoes follow leaves).  Most fruit crops perform best when their soil is amended with compost the previous year.  (Leaf crops do best when their compost is added during the year they grow).

Since most fruit crops grow all season long, the meaning of succession takes on a slightly different meaning.  When I start my first tomatoes in the nursery (about March 10th), I consider this the first succession.  After a week, I observe how many seeds have germinated.  If I don't have enough, I plant a second succession of tomatoes.

The first succession goes out to the field in mid May; if frost takes some of them, then the second succession is available to replace the first losses.

Several successions can share the bed simultaneously.  I interplant the green onions between the pepper plants.  The peppers may only have one or two successions represented in their bed.  With 32 plants per bed, there is room for 32 clumps of about nine green onions.  I only grow about a dozen clumps of green onions at  time, so it often happens that three succession are in the bed.  With two pepper beds, each interplanted with onions, the last successions are going into the second bed as the first successions are being harvested from the first bed.

Another example of multiple successions in a bed are with a crop such as pak choy.

This crop has a lot of appeal to a limited number of customers.  An entire bed is way too much to serve up at once, so the bed is divided into quarters and receives four successions over a period of four weeks.  As pak choi matures in three weeks, the fourth succession is being transplanted as the first is being harvested.  Coriander is grown in a similar fashion.



It would be very convenient if I could plant four dissimilar crops in the same bed that could be planted and harvested at the same time.  This would make caring for the bed easier (also, there tends to be a shading issue with the first few plants in each succession growing next to the taller plants in the preceding succession).

However, I have not yet found an ideal match.  Here are four crops that initially appear similar, yet would conflict if placed in the dame bed.

Pac Choi - 3 weeks after transplant.

Arugula - 3 weeks after direct seeding, this might actually work BUT the pac choi will attract flea beatles.  These will not affect the established choi too much, but will do considerable damage to the freshly sprouting arugula.

Coriander - 4-5 weeks after direct seeding, but is considered a leaf crop which are not planted in cabbage crop beds.

Spinach - 5-7 weeks after direct seeding; this crop needs lots of sun and won't tolerate the shade from surrounding transplants as it germinates.  As well, it prefers a more alkaline soil and grows best after peas.  Not to mention the fact that I require several full beds of spinach for a decent serving at harvest time.



So, for all the times I have referred to succession planting, here it is, a hopefully easy to understand explanation of succession cropping.

I'll leave with a note about another model which I am familiar with - in fact, it is how I have started to grow many of my herbs and flowers.  It is called permaculture.

A permaculture "bed" or garden is a self seeding garden that provides its "spring crops" once in the spring and possibly again in the fall.  Most are harvested and some are left to go to seed; the seed falls to the soil and sprouts the following year.

After the spring crop finishes, the mid season crop(s) have begun to mature, and the process continues until the last fall crops are harvested and or go to seed.  This could be considered succession cropping of a sort, but succession cropping usually refers to the successions of individual crops.

*                    *                    *

I  consider it very good form to bring my writing to a point, but the point may well be that it is getting late, I am tired, and want to "get off the farm" for a few hours.

Talk to you next week.

Send your questions!

Bob

Hello Everyone:

Thank-you for all of your positive comments this past week.  Hearing your compliments about the produce, particularly the arugula, was very encouraging.

Hearing comments about the pleasure of preparing and eating food with flavor and aroma make a lot of the efforts feel worth it.  I know I must be doing a few things right.  Thank-you.

There are a lot of ups and downs in farming.  The spinach germinated consistently this spring (something I have had difficulty achieving in past years).  Then it failed to size up consistently, and a lot of it went to seed much earlier than expected (due to the intense heat of May, I presume).  The heat wave in May also caused some difficulty with the lettuce, though I should have started even more in the nursery, given that one variety was new for me and thus I did not have a fuller idea as to how it would perform.

May also presented another challenge for me.  Within days of the heat wave starting, I began to have difficulty sleeping.  Eventually, I figured out that it was caused by strong tea (my beverage of choice at all times).  As the days became hotter, I started taking a second thermos to stay hydrated, and was over caffeinating myself.  This led to several shorter than desired days and some mistakes while working in a sleep deprived haze.  I used to drink tea with impunity, but I suppose those days are gone. 

I still expect some improvement as my farm infrastructure and growing experience develops.  To that end, I am looking ahead to next year. 

I anticipate starting harvests earlier, with our first harvests in the first two weeks of June (Apr 30/Jun 3 and Jun 7/Jun 10), then a one week break, then the last two weeks in June (Jun 21/Jun 24  and Jun27/Jun30 – Canada Day falls on a Friday next year so one harvest week will have the deliveries pulled back 24 hours.  This will probably cause me some snow pea schedule headaches.

Most market gardens start their season in the beginning of June.  Being a one-man show on a farm that still requires a lot of building, I have aimed in the past two years for a mid-June start to ensure the farm was ready for the first harvests.  Now that the prep station, nursery, and field are starting to develop, I know the efficient work environment will allow me to do more in less time.

With eastern Ontario’s may weather becoming hotter and hotter, I suspect that growing many of the cool weather leaves (spinach, mustard greens, pak choi, cress, etc) will be less challenging.

Timing the harvest of early crops by mid June will provide a couple of fresh beds in which to plant a second round of mid-season crops, which in turn will allow me a little more flexibility for the production plan.

It also means that the customers will receive an extra week of deliveries.  As I often say on this site, lots to look forward to.

Speaking of looking forward, I see that the crops are at an in-between period this coming week. 

Some crops are finishing, and will not produce enough to serve all customers.  The peas are finishing their second flush, and will be done by the end of next week.  Customers who have only received one serving so far will be prioritized. 

The current round of mustard greens and choi’s will also be finished, and the next ones have yet to be planted as the space is not opened up yet for more cabbage family crops.

Some crops are not quite ready for harvest.  The beans are in flower now, and will probably have a small quantity of beans ready for next Friday, but not enough for everyone.

The carrots still have a long thin tap-root on them, and the lettuces are still quite small.  This tells me that they have another week or so of growth.  The potatoes are still in flower, and may require another two weeks of growing.  The zucchini might have two or three fruits by next week – too little for all of you to share.

I will have to be a little inventive with your deliveries next week.  Check out the “this week’s harvest” page to see what I have in mind – there will be several options but I am certain I will not be able to fulfill all of them.

Despite the small delivery next week, there will be a lot of harvest work for me to do.  The first round of garlic bulbs will be pulled and strung up for curing.

Harvesting garlic is a time consuming task. 

The bulbs are very susceptible to bruising, which in turn compromises the shelf life of the bulbs.  So a lot of extra care will be required.

Garlic is one of the major crops at Whitsend.  I grow several varieties each year in order to find the varieties that work best in our climate and soil. 

As each variety is harvested, the bulbs are examined and graded.

As garlic is propagated from a single parent, genetic accidents slowly build up in my seed stock.  Each bulb needs to be examined for signs of virus infection.

Samples of each variety are measured for size and number of cloves per bulb, and compared to the parent seed plant.  The very best performing varieties are then reserved for next season’s seed stock.  So far, much more complicated than pulling carrots out of the ground.

The next stage is to cure the bulbs to ensure a good shelf life.  The garlic has to sit out for a couple of days so that the soil will dry out of the roots.  Then, the roots and leaves need to be trimmed off to promote the bulb curing.  After that, the plants are bundled together in groups of eight, tagged with variety names and harvest dates, and strung up in the barn for two weeks to cure.

All along, the bulbs need to be protected from being bumped, exposed to sunlight, or getting wet.  As well, if any bulbs indicating viral infection are found, steps need to be taken to avoid cross contamination.

With the small delivery anticipated, and the dry weather, I should be able to pull a considerable portion out of the ground next week – there are over five hundred plants to harvest.

When the garlic is out, the beds are cleaned, and preparation begins for planting the fall cabbages.

In a previous post I believe I mentioned "succession cropping" as a potential topic for a future write-up.

This period of late spring/early summer is when many beds have their first succession of crop harvested and their second succession planted.

It makes sense then to devote the next post to that very topic.  Talk to you then...

Bob