Sunday, 8 March 2015

Thanks to those of you who are checking out our site for the first time.

First of all, a note about our flyers:

If you received a flyer on your doorstep, thanks for your patience (particularly if I upset your pup!)

I do not deliver to households that request no flyers, if I missed your sign, please accept my apologies.

As I deliver to specific neighborhoods, print advertising doesn't work for me...I would have to turn down quite a few inquiries.

I realise that my flyers are a bit rough and ready.  Most will wind up in landfills/recycling, so I don't spend money on slick plasticised prints.  I prefer to invest in quality seed and tools.

If you are interested in learning more about our produce, and are considering becoming a customer of our farm this season, peruse the website and feel free to contact me at the email or phone number below.  I look forward to answering your questions.



We still have room for three customers.  If you are interested in eating some certified organic vegetables this season, give me a call.  I will be happy to answer your questions.




Update Feb 10:  

As mentioned in a previous post, I re-started the onions.                                                                                                                                           Here is the second round of onions just starting to sprout.  This is a different variety, the seed is new, and yet the germination rate is a little low - I would have expected about 30% more sprouts.                                                                              I'll wait a couple more days, and if the rest of the onions don't come up, I'll start a third round.  March 15 is about as late as onions can be started, so there is still enough time.
Here are a couple of snapshots of my progress in the nursery, taken March 8th.


Here is our oregano, less than a week old.  The sprouts have just opened their primary leaves.  I included the pencil to give a sense of scale.  The seeds were smaller than grains of sand.

The roots of these little plants are much longer than one might expect.  In the case of the oregano, the tap root is almost four times as long as the stem.

This is useful, as I can allow the surface of the soil to dry somewhat, keeping the plant safe from mold (see "damping off" from previous posts) while still allowing the crop to have the moisture it requires.

Also less than a week old are the two rows of celeriac sprouts.  If you look carefully, you can see the first celery sprouts in the two rows immediately to the right.

The markers at the ends of the rows indicate the name of the crop variety (the celeriac is a variety called "prinz", the celery a variety called "tango".







Update Mar 15:  The celery and celeriac have been promoted from the seed tray to the cell packs.

Very slow growers, this is why it is necessary to start early.

At this stage, the celery (and celeriac) is most susceptible to damping off.






And these are the new zealand spinach (also known as tetragonia) sprouts.  I started these earlier than usually recommended.

I was not sure how successfully these would germinate.  They are considered by some to be fairly difficult to start from seed.  As well, I wanted to finish off some old seed, and was uncertain as to how viable the old seed was.

To complicate matters, nz spinach can take up to three weeks to germinate.  In this particular lot, some had germinated in a week, and most of these required two weeks.  There are about twice as many seeds still in the soil.

If I had started these at the usual time (about a week from now), and they had not germinated, then I would have little time to get the next batch started, and might wind up being late for transplanting them.


The drawback with an early start is that they may require potting up at a later date, which will crowd the nursery.

Another challenge with starting seeds (of any kind) is that the soil of the trays needs to be kept in a balance between too wet and too dry.  As you can see in the above picture, the trays do not always retain their moisture in the soil evenly.

Here are the echinacea sprouts.  When I first sowed them, I was uncertain as to how many would germinate, so I planted three seeds per cell in the cell packs.

As it turned out, at least two seeds per cell germinated, so I promoted some to individual cells.  otherwise, the three plants in each cell would eventually crowd each other by the time they are ready to transplant outside.

My next post will be in about a week, when I start the tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and a few other crops.





Update Mar 15:  As with the celery, the echinacea is growing slowly as well.

They have started to produce their secondary leaves, and their roots are extending deeper into the cell pack..









Between then and now, I will be finishing as much of the season preparations as I possibly can - picking up oats for cover crops, soil amendments such as greensand and rock phosphate, ordering and picking up lumber...all while maintaining that balance between too wet and too dry in the nursery, and keeping the snow  melt from the barn interior.

If you want to help out with hopes and or prayers, please keep in mind that we need a SLOW melt of the snowpack.

In other news, Brandy at Fly Creek Farm says that she thinks her sows have our piglets on the way.

Later,

Bob