Whitsend Market Garden

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