Hello Everyone:
Much talk about, there has been a lot going on at the
farm over the past couple of weeks. Too
much to do and no time to write except on my
day off, and with an uptick in the farm workload for fall, the day off
is all the more important.
First of all, the farm has corrected it’s aphid
imbalance. My own actions probably had
an influence, but I can’t be the only reason why they have returned to normal
levels so quickly.
My approach to farming is to mimic nature, not replace
it. As with a natural or balanced setting
such as a wild meadow or forest, there will always be a background population
of a wide variety of insects (and bacteria, viruses, fungi, animals, plants etc.)
that will compete and co-exist. When I
plant a concentrated amount of nutrient rich foods, I tilt this balance somewhat. Nature responds by introducing a means of
reducing all of the extra nutrient to it’s ‘balanced’ level. How nature does this informs me as to how I
can continue to tilt the balance toward more food, and then mitigate natures
first response.
In simplest terms, when a particular insect population
starts to increase beyond it’s background population, I interpret that as a
symptom. One factor that leads to aphid’s
thriving is water stress experienced by
the crops. This has been a fairly dry
season.
Compounding that, I may have inadvertently introduced
some aphids with a compromised bag of potting soil, as mentioned in a previous
post. The aphids started in three
transplanted crops - cabbage, russian kale,
and lettuce, all transplanted around the same time in three very different
parts of the field. The russian kale was
very close to the toscano kale (unaffected), and the cabbage very close to the closely
related daikon and arugula. Neither of
these neighboring crops were affected.
The aphids on the lettuce are only suspected. The lettuce in question had no aphids on it,
though it was transplanted at the same time and with the same soil as the kale
and cabbage. However, a couple of small pig weed plants on the bed had small populations being tended by ants. Easily removed, the ants actually helped by
concentrating the aphids (which seem to do better on pig weed than lettuce, if
the ants farming activity are any indication).
At any rate, these cleared up with no damage that I am aware of.
The cabbage was so bad that all of the plants in the
affected bed were removed and destroyed – sealed in a metal container until nothing
was left alive and then kept in the sun to sterilize any possible eggs. The Kale was only affected in a couple of
plants. I removed the worst of these ,
and the worst of the leaves of a few neighboring plants.
Since then, I carefully observed the other crops for
aphids and found only two other instances.
One (of two) zucchini plants were near the cabbage, and had aphids. These were concentrated on a couple of
leaves, again, tended by ants. I
estimate that more than ninety per cent of the aphids were removed by removing
about four zuke leaves. I also noted
what appeared to be an uptick in ladybugs on the zukes, though only because I
had never really noticed these bugs in zuchinis before – maybe they were always
there and I never saw them.
I also found aphids on the nicotiana. The nicotiana showed no signs of un-health, so
I left them as a ‘trap’ for any aphids that hatched from the soil of the now
empty cabbage bed. If this particular
species likes nicotiana, I figure that the aphids will go to these plants first
(these are also close to the cabbage). That
way, I can use the flowers as a means of monitoring the progress of the aphids
for the rest of the season and for early next year.
What have I done? Simply remove the worst infected plants, and allow the farm to run it’s course.
In certain conditions and certified procedures, I can
use “organic pesticides” such as a chrysanthemum based solution; or I can make
a spray of crushed garlic from my own farm to apply. These may work against aphids, but they have
several drawbacks.
They would kill aphid
predators such as lady beetles (and I suspect ants as well).
I would also loose valuable information such as nicotiana
being such a great trap for the aphids.
Finally, I would waste a lot of time spraying every
leaf involved, and have no time to relieve the crops water stress or solarise the
potting soil, in order to prevent another outbreak.
A final lesson that I have learned from this episode is
that I sometimes tend to assume worst case scenario. I thought at one point that I would loose all russian
and toscano Kale, cabbage, arugula, zucchinis (green and gold), lettuce, and
just about everything else; plus have aphids hatching next spring from the soil
and an entire season of battling tiny insects.
Faith and confidence are as important as knowledge and activity when it
comes to farming.
Julia calls plants “…the worlds greatest optimists”. I spend plenty of time around our crops, I
should allow some of this optimism to rub off on me!
Before I sign off, I have a couple of other stories and
farm updates to relate, but no time for the writing. See below for a sneak
preview, I anticipate being back from a self imposed farm email holiday for the
next few days and will continue this edition of the Whitsend Post a week from
now. Time for family.
Have a good holiday.
Bob
By the way - Littledown Farm (whom we rent our land from) still has beef for sale. Here is a link to their farm:
www.littledownfarm.ca
Also, I am certain most of you know, but just in case - we do NOT have pork this year. The forage crop did not do so well in the spring and I was obliged to not buy the two piglets as there would have been too little for them to eat.
Coming post:
Those of you who were here for the Open House may recall that this patch was covered in grass.
Beds 1 through 8 were lost after the third season due to mistakes made building them (too much tilling, resulting in an overabundance of quack grass.
I started clearing this group of beds using a low wheel cultivator with curved tines. The tines pulled the grass rhizomes up from under the soil. After allowing them to dry out for 24 hours, I then used a bed rake to collect and remove.
Next year, I will grow crops here that will help clean the beds further - beans and potatoes.
Preparing fertility for next season:
All of the remnants of crops that are finished (tomato vines, squash vines, discarded celery, cornstalks, etc.) are gathered and piled onto one last compost windrow for the season.
This will likely be ready by late summer next season, thus becoming "next years' food".
Very little goes to waste here!
Frost mitigation - no one size fits all solution!
Some crops have two row covers - the first on short hoops. After placing the row cover on the short hoops, I then put down a second set of long hoops over the short ones, and use a second row cover on these. This creates an extra layer of air between the crops and the cold.
Some crops receive just one row cover, these are fairly cold tolerant but not as much as kale.
Some crops have two row covers - the first on short hoops. After placing the row cover on the short hoops, I then put down a second set of long hoops over the short ones, and use a second row cover on these. This creates an extra layer of air between the crops and the cold.
Some crops receive just one row cover, these are fairly cold tolerant but not as much as kale.
Sometimes straw is preferable to row cover:
I had a final celery or two reserved for the farmhouse. As we are falling behind in putting food by (not to mention running out of fridge space!), I chose to leave these in the ground.
Straw is a little more effective than row covers, though it does make a mess of the crops, particularly items like lettuce.
A little longer to apply than a row cover, but much cheaper than nylon row cover.
Some crops taste better after being frosted.
Kale takes on winters might without much complaint. Russian Kale in particular can survive a lot of cold.
For deep winter harvesting, plenty of straw helps to keep the leaves from drying out from the wind.
I often wondered if eating a lot of this will improve ones own cold tolerance...
Preparing for next year: feeding the soil with rock phosphate and boosting the phosphate with buckwheat.
Typically, only 3% of the applied phosphate is in a form usable for plants. Some plants, such as buckwheat, are more efficient in drawing rock phosphate from the ground, so I have started to plant this after application. When the buckwheat dies off from teh cold, the plants decay and are incorporated back into the soil. The extra phosphate that was taken up by the buckwheat is now available for the next crop.
Preparing for garlic: Other than preparing the Kidney Beans, this is the final 'big task' for produce this season, though the garlic being planted now is for next year's harvest.Cleaning and aerating the beds: These beds were cleaned back in late August, after the lettuce was harvested. A couple of late pig weed's and dandelion sprouts were cleaned out and the edges of the bed trimmed back.
Note the holes in the bed surface, these were made by the broad fork to provide oxygen to the lower levels of the soil column. Oxygen promotes the bacteria and other living bio-mass in the soil which is so important for building fertility.
Compost continues to break down in the soil, processed by bacteria, worms, etc. Each 'processing' of the compost - such as through a microbial mats 'digestive process', then a worm, which in turn may pass through a bird, etc.. - breaks down the nutrients and re-combines them in more complex and novel molecular arrays. Complexity and diversity strengthen the community (in this case, the soil), which in turn makes for a better place to grow (the crops).
Soil is alive when viewed this way. A considerable amount by weight is living organisms, one way or another.
Good food is simply a by-product of effective fertility engineering.
Garlic loves leaf mold. Current research is devoted to the peculiar preferences garlic has for growing locations. One suspected factor under study is the relatiobnship garlic has with mold and fungus.
These leaves were collected last fall and kept in a separate pile to accumulate a mold colony. If these leaves had been mixed with grass clippings, bacteria would have broken them down into regular compost.
By leaving the nitrogen out of this particular cycle, the leaves decay much more slowly by mold activity.
After applying compost, I apply the moldy leaves and incorporate it all into the bed.
As garlic (being a bulb crop) falls into my 'fruit' category for the rotation pattern, the beds are also amended with rock phosphate. three of the four beds for garlic this year had some buckwheat on it, so I will be paying extra attention to these beds in order to compare the efficacy of the buck wheat application. No end to learning and fine tuning.
The rock garden was too warm for (last weeks) frost...the Thyme and Sage rocked on!
This week, with the minus seven predicted lows, the herbs were covered with straw.
The straw will remain on until next spring, when (hopefully), the plants will come back either through their roots or by having self seeded.
