Whitsend Market Garden

Hello Everyone:  Activity is starting to pick up. 

Flyers are being distributed, advertising campaigns are being planned, new nursery lights are being installed, trays are getting cleaned up and soil mix is being prepared for the first round planting in the next few days.

My rest and relaxation time is rapidly diminishing...

The 2024 production plan is 90 per cent complete.  All I need is a bit of input from CSA customers for a few crop varieties to finish it off.

An aspiring farmer I knew was told by her father (a renowned expert occasionally quoted in the news) that farming was not an "intellectual career".  

I think of that comment often when I am in the midst of the yearly production plan.  Lots of baseline information is required - maturity dates, knowing which crop varieties do best at particular time of year, what a happy customer base wants, yield per plant (and all the seasonal variations that can entail), etc. 

After the info is gathered, it all has to be linked together in a plan that fulfills my goals on a limited amount of land for 30 CSA customers, a well stocked store and market stand, and enough left over to participate in the autumn fair.  The plan needs to have enough flexibility built in to manage how our spring will turn out - will there be ice storms?  30 degree heat waves in early May?  Lots of rain?  No rain?  

Succession cropping allows farmers to produce more food on less land - as soon as our garlic is finished, the beds are cleaned up and late autumn carrots are planted in the same spot.  

Succession cropping complicates the production planning process.  For example, when I have a bed producing peas for the spring, I know that I can use this same bed for a leaf crop later in the year.  Before the succession crop may be planted, the beds need cleaning up (trellis stakes removed, grass rhizomes teased out with the wheel hoe, extra compost applied, persistent weeds such as thistle roots pried out, etc.).  Then about three passes over the next three weeks with the colinear hoe to suppress any weed seedlings germinating from the weed seed bank in the soil - this activity eradicates about 80 per cent of the weeds for the rest of the season.  

Pictured:  Using a co-linear hoe to suppress weeds.  If you are a gardener and dislike all the weeding, this could be the tool or you.  I would not be able to manage the farm without this.

I'm now ready to plant, but is there time enough for the lettuce to grow?  Fortunately, the peas are finished by the end of June.  With three weeks of cleaning ahead, I can assume that lettuce may be planted here by late July, which most lettuce varieties can tolerate.  However, if the lettuce is following the first bean crop (harvested late July), then I know I won't be able to use the bed until late August - maybe too late for lettuce except a 28 day variety such as the mini "Freckles" romaine.  

If the Freckles are already slotted into another spot on the map, then I have to determine if their spot can be filled by a lettuce with a longer growing period.  If so, then I move these varieties around on the map and adjust my dates accordingly.    

I typically find that three drafts are required to get the maps and schedules up to 80 per cent complete.  I then start buying the seeds, only to discover that some varieties I have planned are not available; requiring more adjustments.

Almost every year I start the planting with the plan "mostly complete", and by the end of the season, there are always a few discrepancies between the papers and the fields.  

Interplanting is another space saving method - planting a crop along with another crop in the same space.  One example we use:  When the squash plants are first transplanted, I transplant choi  and sow arugula and radishes along the edge of the squash bed.  These crops take 21 to 26 days to reach harvest date.  Soon after these crops are harvested, the squash starts to put on its growth spurt and soon has the entire bed covered.

Pictured:  Tomato seedlings with radishes.  Judging by the radish leaf size, these are ready to be harvested.  To the left, the tomato stakes are pre-positioned to go into the bed as soon as the radish is out.  

Squash is fairly good at suppressing weed growth in it's understory, though not perfect.  Weed  suppression is much less time consuming than weeding mature weeds.  So, after the under sow crop is harvested, it is very convenient to give the bed a quick once over with the hoe, to eliminate the weeds that are just starting to germinate.  By the time I have done three passes with the hoe over three weeks (eliminating most of the season's weed growth), the squash plants are filling out their leaf canopy and leaving little space for anything to grow quickly.

Pictured:  Arugula ready for harvest in a bed of squash seedlings.

Timing is everything on a farm, and under sowing is no different.  The first year I tried this, I delayed my choi transplants and they were overgrown by the squash, leaving them stunted and not very appealing.  

It's always a big relief to get the plan "mostly done".  I suppose I am good at it though it still ties my mind up in knots and I spend a certain amount of time pacing about, running my hand through my hair, muttering, stopping to stare at the map or out the window at the field.

My best "eureka" moments for solving difficult parts of the plan almost always occur in the first hour or so after waking up - a very good time for brainstorming and problem solving (and a good excuse to linger over the morning coffee - I highly recommend this activity if your career is of the intellectual persuasion).

If I need a break from thinking, there are other more mundane tasks that can be done...

The nursery is getting a spring cleaning.  Dust, dried kidney bean pods, cobwebs, cluster flies (where do they come from?) and leftover detritus from last year all need to be swept away.

One of the heaters requires some cleaning and a spot of WD40.  The fan looks a bit more problematic - 1 year old and showing signs of motor burnout.  

These are essential for keeping the air warm in the nursery - sunlight, insulation, and propagation mats are not enough to keep a stable temperature.  The fan circulates the warm air around and helps suppress fungal infections that kill sprouting plants.

NEW LIGHTS!  One would think that sourcing LED grow lights would be a very simple - I certainly did.  Between my inability to understand anything about electricity and the jargon used to describe it on a package; and the department store folks who happily sell the lights whether or not THEY understand the jargon, I found myself going in circles last spring.  Fortunately, I had just enough illumination coming out of my old fluorescent lights to keep the nursery going.  

After a lot of inquiries, I eventually found myself back at a popular but ridiculously over priced store in Ottawa for grow lights.  

Special thanks to William Dam Seeds - one of our seed suppliers - whom I reached out to with inquiries and who went above and beyond providing me with leads.  

The germination tests are complete.  More green onion seed is required, but the snow peas are looking ok for another year, and the old kidney beans are still doing well.

The three year old sunflower seeds we plant for the bees are responding like they are new.

Old seeds are cast into the wildflower field that we are developing; if any of the old seeds germinate, we'll just let them grow and go to seed.  What some folks call "chaos gardening".  

Out of chaos of planning and onwards to the spring...

Still plenty to talk about.  Future posts to include are the heat stress trials I am doing this spring.  

Until then, I'll be "doing everything and everything else as well..."