Whitsend Market Garden

New post to follow soon...I have a few notes on some new additions to our farm, a new crop request (Kohlrabi) and updates on the onions, celery, peppers, celeraic, eggplants, and more...


The growing field is starting to emerge from it's winter break.  The remnants of last years brussels sprouts are visible just beyond the stalks of oppopeo.  

Beyond them, the windrows of straw covering the garlic bulbs is now visible as well.  

In addition to the anticipation, the receding snow reveals some clues as to what has been happening out here when I am not around.  





A length of electric fence wire has been dragged out into the lane way at some point during the winter, evidently tripped over by an animal.  A quick examination shows the wire was snapped in the process.  

One more task to add to my spring clean-up list.






Inside the nursery, the onions continue to grow. 

The next procedure for these sprouts is to gently tease them out of the soil in the seed tray and into the cell packs (called "promoting" in market garden jargon).  

After they recover from the transplant, I trim the leaves down to about six inches or so.  This allows the stalks to grow thicker, and enables the primary leaves to stay upright and off the damp soil.





The transfer of sprouts from seed tray to cell packs is time consuming.  The benefit is that it saves on use of space.  The promoted plants will be bunched in groups of five to each cell.  In another 8 to 10 weeks, these clumps will be transplanted into the ground together.

This is a tray of cell packs with the promoted onion seedlings.

Onions depend on cues from day-length to know when to start setting their bulbs.  PLant them too early or too late, and the bulb will not form to it's potential size.  

For these onions, at our latitude, the transplant time is early May to very early June.  They are slow groers, and require about 8-12 weeks in the nursery before being ready for transplant. 

At the time these 'extra' onions were sown, I found there were just enough onions to cover our needs fo rthe season.  Kowing that I will loose a few between promoting and transplanting, I have sown a few extra to make sure.  











Now that the seed trays are empty of onions, the next sowing starts.  

These are celery seeds.  Amazing that such small seeds yield such a large plant.

Celery, celeriac, parsley, and eggplant are sown today, as well as a third and final round of onions just to make sure that I have enough.  

All of these crops require about 10-12 weeks of growing in the nursery before they are ready to transplant.  





If I do not plant enough at this time, there won't be enough time to start more plants, so I plant about fifteen per cent more than is needed.  I usually wind up with more than I need, which allows me to choose the healthiest looking plants for transplanting.  The rest go to the compost heap to become "next year's food".

10 days later - A picture of the cell packs that the celery is seeded directly into.  Can you spot the first celery plant to sprout?

Promoting Parsley - this sprout has been teased out of a seed tray and inserted into a cell pack.  

The frst time I did this as an intern, I was certain none of my transplants woud survive.  How could these delicate sprouts tolerate such handling?  

Plants are very optimistic creatures, and young plants are quite resilient.  

The trick is to hold the sprouts by the leaves, not the stem.  







We are down to 9 shares remaining for our capacity.  If you are interested in having your certified organic produce delivered to your door this summer, contact me soon...