Into another heat wave...what impact will this have on seeds and crops?

last year during the hot weather, I took a couple of heat rests when I noticed I was getting a bit light headed - lay down inside and place a flexible ice pack on my neck.

The third time, it occurred to me that i could wrap the pack around my neck and work before the heat got to me.  

The alternative is working by moonlight.

How many spiders are in this picture?  

I noticed this at the base of my nursery wall the other day (farmers have - or ought to - highly practiced observation skills).  

The answer is probably in the hundreds.  Those are baby spiders hitching a ride on their mother.  

Hopefully these spiders will go a long way to keeping the earwigs in check, insects which can destroy a tray full seedlings such as celery, lettuce, and anything in the cabbage family.  

Observation skills part two:  This is our bee meadow that we started in our second year here.  We mowed the grasses and raked in some native wildflower seed.   

The next spring, we checked regularly in anticipation for an eruption of flowers and concluded that the method had not worked.  

Last year we noticed a few flowers coming up that were unlike the rest of the plants in this meadow.  The wildflower seed is expensive for the quantity that we need, and was one of the purchases that were cut when I re-wrote this year's budget.

Three weeks ago, Julia noticed that the view from her office window had changed - the field was covered in light blue flowers.  Then the other day, she mentioned that yellow flowers were blooming in the bee meadow.  I had to go out and look for myself, as I go to the nursery at least twice a day, and the meadow is just around the corner of that.  In plain view from the nursery windows.  I am so caught up in details that I apparently need to step back and look at the big picture a little more often.

I have two jobs.  One is managing the farm as it produces food for the CSA and farm gate store.  The other is building the farm so that I can afford some capital projects that will be needed in the next 5 to 10 years (Our largest shed - 100 feet by 30 feet - is in the process of dismantling itself, so I am in a race against time).  

To capture Christmas and New Year's produce sales, I have some plans for a couple of small hoop houses to grow carrots, lettuce, and salad greens in; and give the tomatoes a head start with early transplants.  The field where they will be located is now under development.

There are three other larger fields for future vegetable growing, livestock pasture, and livestock hay.  This is what I have been working on during my spare time, my "other job".

Each of these four fields were plowed last fall, then disked and cultivated this spring.  Then, I raked of the quack and blue grass rhizome, ran the tiller of the surface to create a seed bed, and sowed a mélange of cover crops to develop and feed soil.

I am an engineer of soil fertility.  I cannot think of any other way to describe ecological farming in one sentence.

Buckwheat to smother the weeds and feed the soil with phosphorus.  Peas and clover to feed the soil with fixed nitrogen.  Jackhammer radish (a type of daikon) to loosen the soil and feed it potassium. 

Around the perimeter, perennial rye grass to block most weed seeds and provide access paths.  Rye grows very lush even in hot summers and makes an excellent green manure to add to the compost; and unlike blue grass and quack grass, does not spread over everything in it's way.  

Most of the cover crops are not local plants, or at least natural to this particular place.  To maintain the eco system, a portion of each field strip was left wild (you can see the cultivated portion background centre).

Not that the plants here are necessarily native.  The sweet clover and vetch are probably left over from when the Schnaur farm family worked this property over forty years ago.

Of the natural wild plants, there are milkweed, milk thistle, devils paintbrush, bugloss, and barren strawberry; and probably a lot I am unaware of.

Two jobs is one too many.  Time caught up to me and two fields were not completed - I could not even get a round of buckwheat raked in to smother the grass temporarily.  

So this field will need to be tilled lightly, the rhizomes then raked off, and then sow the seeds and then rake those in and then hope it is just about to rain AND the temperatures to be in the 16-25 degree range for good germination.  Very challenging to meet these conditions while running the vegetable farm...

 

Doing two jobs at once:  Some of this field is for this year.  Potatoes are great scroungers for nutrients and work well in weak, underdeveloped soils.  

I don't have enough space to put potatoes in our currently operating fields, so most of our late summer and autumn potatoes are going in here  as soon as possible (They should have gone in on June 15).  

In the future, extra carrots, potatoes and some other crops that like sandier soil will go in here.

Opposite end of the same field:  Again, due to space limitations, the kabocha squash is going down here.  The low end of the field has rich muck soil, like the rest of our farm.  (These three new fields have a slight slope; the higher portions have a sandy loam soil).  The squash might or might not do well here, I did very little to prepare the beds other than to amend the soil with some ash.

This area will be covered by a thick mulch of chipped brush until I can get a cover seed in after the squashes are finished.  In other words, this job will not be done until next spring.

Engineering soil fertility for this years crops:  These four beds are for snap peas in the fall.

Currently, I have them covered in buckwheat to keep the weeds at bay.  

In a couple days, I'll cut down the plants and let them rot into the soil surface - green manure, as it is called.  Then, about four weeks before planting the peas, I'll work the green manure into the soil and prepare the bed for planting.

I've been told a few times that buckwheat has an allelopathic effect on vegetables and should be avoided.  If this is so, I have yet to see the evidence.  When I started using buckwheat at the old farm, my soil became easier to work and my yields per foot for many crops jumped noticeably.

It may be that buckwheat has a negative effect on crops but that effect is outweighed by the benefits; how I use it may also make a difference.  

Maybe it is just allelopathic to bluegrass and quack grass, which is absolutely fine by me.  My first mentor Tom said he was in awe of this plants ability to smother grass.  My only question is why does it nurse rye grass seedlings so well?

The tomato plants are growing.  It took over a month for this to happen in previous years, these are at four weeks from transplant.  Obviously, the work I put into these beds the past three years has finally paid off.

Onions, garlic, and green onions take well to muck soil, and thrived with only a minimal amount of work.  These onions will start setting their bulbs in about three weeks.

I'm thinking that leeks will also do well here, so as the new fields develop and expand, I'll start adding this crop into the mix.

Maybe next year, more likely two years.  

In the meantime, the scapes are checked to see if they are ready.  Some are not; this variety of garlic is still a few weeks away from harvest; the scapes maybe a week or two.  Or three.  

Apparently scapes are ready after they have curled twice.  I typically cut a little sooner, partly to avoid the tough part at the base of the scape, partly to fit my CSA schedule.  

These will be harvested tomorrow for this weeks delivery.

Leaf crops also do well, due to the naturally high nitrogen content of muck soil.  

These are two types available this week for harvest:  the dark green Coastal Star romaine, and the greenleaf Black Seeded Simpson (Leopard frog not included).  

Customers will also receive Freckles mini romaine.  

I had no choice but to interplant the radish with the squash.  This is in an area where the muck soil is the richest, so I was concerned that the radish might not do well - it struggled in the same area as the tomatoes in past years and the soil there is slightly looser.  

Last week, it seemed as if the radishes were not growing well but seven days make a big difference.  

Three crops one bed.  This interplanting works well in early spring.  Before or very soon after the squashes are planted, radish and mustard greens can be planted in strips on the edge of the bed.  Assume four weeks available for growing before the squash overwhelms the growing space.

Netting protects the arugula and radish from flea beatles, which could stunt the radish and fill the arugula leaves with holes, causing them to loose shelf life.  Squash seedlings are susceptible to cucumber beatles during their first weeks as well, though do not require protection from them later in life.  

More interplanting:  I have sown rutabaga seeds in two rows of this bed.  Before sowing the seeds, I transplanted some leftover pac choi.  

Both crops are closely related (cabbage family, or Brassicas) so work well together.  The choi will be ready in about four weeks, about the time the rutabaga leaves start to fill out.  

I thinned the turnips two weeks ago and wondered if these were going to do well - no sign of filling out , just a thin tap root to show for all the foliage.

Fourteen days is a long time for a forty day crop - these might be ready for next weeks delivery.  

I once had a customer praise my turnips as the best he had ever tasted.  It may be that they are simply fresher than the store bought alternative; or the Milano variety is superior to whatever variety the stores grow, or healthy soil.

More whetting of the appetite:  Look back at the post from (I think) two posts ago:  The parsley is coming along nicely, and definitely ready for our harvests in July.

For ideas on how to use this very versatile plant, see the "Our Crops" page; scroll down to parsley.  This is a very fun crop to prepare food with.

Use it as soon as you get it - there is no comparison between parsley eaten within 48 hours of harvest, or parsley eaten later than that.  If you can't get to it before two days, chop and freeze it, it will taste almost as good when you are ready for it.

Looking further ahead, I have the white potatoes going well - these are ready to be hilled. 

Harvest is in mid July.  

For August, I have some red fingerlings and new variety for us called Blue Steel that Henry Ellenberger suggested I try.  

The rest of the red French Fingerlings, Red Chieftains and a few German Butterball (yellow fleshed) potatoes for late autumn.

 

Also coming in July, orange carrots.  Lots to look forward to...

Subscription sales are closed for the season.  If you still wish to purchase our produce, the farm gate store will be open most week-ends starting soon - possibly Friday June 21st.  

For farm gate purchases, I highly recommend sending an order to me 48 hours in advance, so I can ensure what you want is ready at the store.  

I'll try to keep the website up to date as possible, though I cannot always guarantee that.

 Aside from the MacDonald's Corners Agricultural Fair, we are NOT taking part in any farmers markets this season.  

Hello Everyone:  How quickly growth seems to come out of nowhere.  These snow peas were not more than a few inches in height a week ago - now they are reliant on trellis twine and starting to flower.  

For trellising, I use the 'basket weave' method.  According to research carried out by the Rodale Institute (if I recall correctly), this method  is the best overall technique for cost of materials, ease of assembly and  effectiveness for holding up vining crops.  

Many of the stakes were from cedar trees I cut for fence posts, allowing me to make use of the thinnest portions of the trunks.  Slightly thicker portions were used for fence railings.   

These are the shelling peas, also doing well.  Last year we lost these due to birds plucking the seeds out of the bed - I kept them covered as they germinated this time.  

I once had the same happen with 200 row foot of corn at the old farm.  After the corn failed to germinate, I checked the beds very carefully, and found that every six inches there seemed to be a hole dibbled into the ground.  I re-seeded the corn, covered the beds with row cover and within an hour, a crow was pacing back and forth over the beds.  

After seeing a successful germination of the spinach, the weather turned hot and the growth froze.  

Same happened to the beets.  On a hunch, I checked to see if beets have a thermal dormancy temperature, and found that the past few weeks have been too hot for them to germinate.

That explains another absence in the field.

The first round of green beans has made it past the stage where the sprouts are vulnerable to rodents nipping the growth bud.  A tolerable few were damaged but the castor oil solution seems to protect the rest of them.  

We've been seeing more snakes than usual lately, particularly Eastern Milk snakes, along with the usual residents of Garter and Red Bellied snakes. It may be these are helping too.

It's been too many months since I have had lettuce.  These are a little too small for quality control tests.  If they are not fully sized up for harvest this Wednesday, I have enough to include four mini lettuces in each customers basket.  

This variety is the heirloom "Black Seeded Simpson" lettuce, a green leaf type with lots of loft so ideal for salads.  It was established in North America in the 1870's, but I have seem some sources suggesting it was first bred in Turkey or the Eastern Mediterranean region.  

The onions are starting to fill out their stems (compare with photo on previous post).  

I am growing two types  bulb onions this year - the heirloom Rosa de Milano red cooking onion and the Red Marble cippolini onion, both if which I was greatly delighted with.  The cippolinis for their mild flavor that was so good in salads and on burgers, and the Rosa's that had a tart but not hot flavour.  These were still firm in the cellar last February.

Not all garlic is equal.  The plants in the foreground are slightly yellowed at the tips of the leaves, a sign they could se a little more water.

A different variety is further back, with little to no tip burn.  

Note to self - if I use these two varieties next year, they'll go in different beds so I can give each their preferred amount of irrigation.

If the rain keeps up, I'll have to harvest these a little early as too much rain causes garlic bulbs to 'shatter'  - the term used to describe when the cloves split outward rom the stem.  This does not change the quality of the bulbs but it does reduce the storage life of the bulbs.

I'll also have to bear in mind that the garlic sprouted much earlier than usual due to the very early spring (or was it an absence of winter?), so the harvest date might have to move forward a week or two.

Through the insect netting, this is one of the winter squash plants with two rows of arugula planted on either side.

This is the arugula due to be harvested next week.

I also planted the radishes with the squashes.

We have some new radishes this season that might pique your interest...

Radishes have been disappointing since we moved here.  I was wondering about this while I sowed the seeds and it occurred to me that the nitrogen rich muck soil we have might not be suitable for these roots.  The new field I am working on may provide a solution; I should be able to experiment with this later in the year as the new fields start to take shape.  They are half muck and half sandy loam.

The kidney beans have just started to sprout, time to give the seedlings a splash of organic castor oil solution to keep the rodents from nibbling the growth tips.  

The clover that I established last year is now old enough to bloom, a real treat for the honey bees and other pollinators.  

Grassing the paths and belts around the vegetable field prevents soil erosion, maintains water in the soil, and provides me with a source of green manure for the compost making.

I typically use perennial rye as it is far less invasive than bluegrass, maintains green leaves through the summer, and sets a thick root mat that only some weed seeds can penetrate.  (Dandelions, thistle and calendula seem to have no difficulty),  

If I had to maintain a lawn, the rye/dandelion/dutch clover mix would be my choice, though the rye does seem to grow quicker than some other lawn grasses.

The dandelions are a must for helping pollinators as they are among the first profuse flowers in spring; and their taproots are good for aerating the soil.  Thistle is good for pollinators as well, though the Canadian Thistle endemic to these parts is sharp enough to penetrate my gardening gloves, which does not help when working in the paths between the beds.

Unlike previous years, the tomatoes are growing steadily.  After enriching the beds last year with all the organic matter, compost, ash, and grass clippings I could spare...

A small amount of fish emulsion seems to do the trick.  This stimulates root development, according to gardening guru Ed Lawrence.  I used to use it at the old farm when I first started, but I had a tendency to burn the leaves rom too rich a solution.  

Out o desperation I tried it last year to get some plants going quicker and they seemed to respond.

This year, I made my first application about a week after transplant, when the soil was saturated with two days of rain.  I figure this allows the plant to take as much as it needs and no more, as opposed to taking too much amendment while the plant tries to take in as much water as it can during a dry spell.

My mentors could not possibly teach me everything, the books don't always have the answers I am looking for, and gogle is so weighed down with advertisements that I am increasingly disdainful of it's ability to provide answers.  I was looking for a manual drill seeder to seed the new field with, and kept getting seeders towed by tractors, hand drills (as in for driving screws) and admonished for not spelling cedar correctly.  I gave up on the internet and phoned a friend.

Talk to you soon,