Whitsend Market Garden

Hello Everyone:

Believe it...spring is here.  At least in the nursery.  The temperature is averaging around 12 degrees; warmer when the sun is shining on the windows.

Here are the onions just starting to sprout in the seed tray.   (Great way to re-use bulk salad containers).  This is the second round of the onions.

The seed trays are re-purposed bulk salad containers that I have modified.

The growing medium is a custom mix of mine - 3 parts growing mix to one part enriched potting soil; from brands that are admissible under the organic standard..

Here are the first round of the green onions.  

The biggest challenge to starting seeds is a fungal infection called damping off, which attacks the base f the stem and causes the seedling to flop over and expire.

I use a small fan to keep air circulating, and a spray of organic camomile on the soil surface before planting the onions.

After reaching about 3-4 inches height, the onion sprouts are teased out of the seed tray soil, gathered into groups of four seedlings and planted together in cell packs.  

At transplant time, it is very easy to pull the clump of four seedlings from each cell and transfer them to the growing bed.  

This year, I am growing some amaranth flower seeds, for a coupe of reasons.  They make nice cut flowers for the dinner table (and unlike most flowers I have tried, easy to transport on delivery day), the ones I leave to seed are food for the finches, and they make an eye catching display at the fair.

Julia has started some flowers for the bees, including nicotiana, french marigolds and pincushion flowers.

Also planted, but not yet germinated, are the celery and parsley plants.  I expect to be seeing them in a week or so.

I step out of the nursery and face reality.  Not quite time to be thinking much about the fair, or transplanting.  

There are other details to see to.  

Applying for a grant to hire someone for the year, resumes to go through and interviews to conduct.  

And dealing with the unexpected.  This is a photograph of the bottom of my trailer.  I was driving to the lumber yard to pick up a supply of wood.  About 200 feet from the entrance of the yard, there was a loud bang and the trailer started slewing from side to side.  Turns out a bolt that seats the axle had sheared, and the assembly slid along the leaf spring.

 I spent eight hours disassembling my trailer and loading it onto a friends trailer to bring back to the house.  Next step is to find a autobody mechanic to determine if everything is still road worthy (except the bolts, I am replacing all of those) and put the entire trailer back together.  

Lesson learned:  Don't buy the cheapest trailer in it's size class!

Farming is a jack of all trades endeavour.  I figure the "gardening" part is abut 20 per cent of the work; the rest of it is trailers, shed building, sales and advertising, administrative work of all types and research.

So I am back to lots of that before the next post, when I will be starting the peppers.  Talk to you then...