Hello Everyone:


The finish line for the spring preparation is within sight.  I can't begin to describe that amount of work over the past few days...cultivating, bed preparation, watering, seeding mid summer crops, transplanting late summer crops...and all of the maintenance that keeps the farm infrastructure going.

Old routines die hard and I neglected to get the "This week's harvest" page updated by Thursday or Friday as promised. 

First harvests are always a little small.  This year's first harvest is smaller for a couple of reasons.  

First being the late ground thaw date, which pushed back some of my earliest planting dates.

There was more bed preparation required this season as well - the last two years the field has been quite weedy, partly due to the effect of  the eary spring interruption two years ago by the municipality spraying our frontage and compounded by the very wet conditions ast year making cultivating less effective for weed control.

I was nine customers away from hiring part time help this season.  I put in extra hours for preparation this spring and can say that I have made a ot of progress catching up.  

Her is a review of the field so far and some hints of what our prospects are for the season...pix to follow.  Today is my day off (and here I am typing) but we can stop by the field on our way out to snap some pix...



Garlic, Onions and Leeks:

The late cold and some coolish nights seem to have had a positive impact on the leek moth.  This season I have only seen two so far, down considerably from previous years.

These are nocturnal, though I sometimes see these during the day if I disturb the grass where they are sheltering.  I usually see them in the early evening as I am finishing up for the day.

Row covers keep these insects out, though after the garlic reaches a certain height, the cover is no longer effective and I have to leave the pants uncovered.





The garlic is looking a little small from previous years, but otherwise the plants appear healthy aside from a bit of irritation caused by the row covers.  The mice have absconded a few onion and leek seedlings but are now too well rooted  the for them to pull out when they nibble the tips.





Snow Peas:  May 1st was the latest I have ever planted out peas and despite that, they have just grown extra quick.  It looks like I will hit the June 20th harvest date after all.
















Green Beans:  Some mice damage but overall enough to get  started.  The Romano beans are doing  well and may be earlier than  anticipated.

Kidney Beans:  After four years of mistakes, missed opportunities, and just too much to do, I have reached a point where planting in the east field has started.  First out of the gate are the Kidney beans.   These four beds represent one third of the total, another nine beds are in later stages of growing.  I stagger the planting of these to ensure that I can harvest them over a period of weeks, spreading out my workload and ensuring that if there is a week that is very wet (not the best time to harvest kidney beans) then the entire crop does not require the extra curing.



Lettuce, Frisee Endive, and Celtuce:  Aside from having the first harvest pushed back a week, the weekly transplanting has gone according to schedule.













Spinach:  I suppose it is possible that the mice carried these off - at least one text suggests that this crops is susceptible to them.  I grow weary of blaming the four legged cretins but there were certainly more sprouts back in the spring.

The discrepancy in size might be a better clue...could the fertility in these beds be weak?   Each bed had a slightly different fertility regime last year, so that might have been an indicator.

I am going to try again in the fall and use a double helping of compost to see if that makes a difference.

I have to keep reminding myself that there may be more than one factor at play here.



Kale:  Doing very well and maybe earlier than anticipated as well...this crop does better if harvested sooner but I have to balance this with having enough leaf to cover everyone...I may start this and the chard early, giving half the customers one crop and the other half the other crop, then alternating two weeks later.











Chard:  Also doing very well despite some early difficulty with low germination rates in the nursery...I wound up seeding many more than I needed to and was left with a lot of extra transplants for with there was no room in the filed for.  Costly for seed but the result was being able to choose the healthiest individuals for transplant.  This may be an example of a happy mistake.









Arugula and Mustards:  Did I plant enough or too much?  This all went into the ground three weeks ago when I was still uncertain how many customers I would have.   I can confidently sow more than I need for most crops, but with brassica crops being quite specific about where they can be placed, I have to err on the less is more (for later) side of the equation.



Parsley and Cutting Celery:  Doesn't look like much right now, another slow grower.  Should be ready sooner as I started it earlier in the nursery this season.  The cutting celery is just starting to germinate in the nursery.

Pak Choi:  Another crop with a very narrow ideal harvest window., and one I can say that I have yet to master.  Looking very good, the flea beatles have been much reduced as the east field has progressed.  The east field has typically had a lot of  wild mustard in it, and this has given the flea beatles a head start each season.  These usually cause no more than aesthetic damage, but controlling the mustard and using the row covers helps alleviate this.








Amaranth:  Another crop I planted a "middling" amount of as I was uncertain how many customers were going to join this season's roster.  If there is not enough for the first round, then there will certainly be ample time and space for more.

Tomatoes:  40 per cent more red tomatoes and 100 per cent more cherry tomatoes available.  There will be extras for these and still some left over for the farm gate stand.  Pus our new heirloom, "Gold Bison".

Peppers:  Less fertility for this year, as I suspect too much nitrogen has been the result of some fruits having a bitter taste last year.

Potatoes:  Slow emergence for some reason but coming along well.  These are otherwise very predictable.














Cucumbers and Zucchini:  Off to a good start.  Last year their appeared to be a bit of cucumber mosaic virus in the cukes and zukes.  I suspect it came from the cucumber seed.   New seed from a different source from last season could eliminate that.  Every tool, watering can, and planting tray was sterilized as a result, and I continue to sterilize the tools after working in the four beds where the infection occurred.  I also ceased using the heirloom zucchini in favor of a hybrid that is resistant to cucumber mosaic virus.

Pictured here - cucmbers under sown with  radish.





The hybrid zucchini (variety called Dunja) is a monster of a plant with the potential for an equally monstrous yield.





Butterscotch and Delicata squash:  On the way...I started these a little late to ensure that they don't start to flower before the Delicata squash does.  This allows me to save some delicata seed despite the small field. 

The draw back is fewer fruits per plant, so I planted twenty per cent more than I would ordinarily need.



Celery and Fennel:  Not much to report on here except that unlike last year, the second round of celery was planted out on time, and the third round of celery has already progressed to the hardening off shelter (last year the 3rd succession was cooked in the outdoor nursery).


This here is the celery pictured in the nursery two months ago.








The first succession of fennel germinated well.  I wanted to finish up some very old seed, so three seeds were planted in each spot to ensure that at least one came up.

Despite that, there were still a couple of empty spots, so I transplanted a few of the extras.

The long tap root cannot be disturbed for this process, so this is a somewhat surgical task...dibble a hole, tease out the transplant without disturbing it's neighbors, suspend the tap root into the dibbled hole, and water in so that the soil fills in around the tap root without folding it.

Carrots:  Growing slowly but surely as expected.  I often say growth is exponential, and carrots and celery provide good visual examples of this...these plants start so small and seem to stay that way for a long time...then one day, they are there!


Celeriac:  I have high hopes for this year's crop.  After getting a tip from gardener Ed Lawrence, I think I have the missing ingredient to getting them to size up...trimming off the lower leaves as the plant matures.

Parsnip and Hamburg Parsley: The beds these (and the celeriac) are in have a high water table, lots of sun, and better fertility than other parts of the field.  Reasonable to expect a decent harvest from these crops.  I am very curious about the hamburg parsley.




Red and Gold Beets:  I wish there was room in the carrot/celeriac/parsnip beds for these, as beets are a heavy feeder.  If the beets don't size up here, I will have to switch places with the carrots for another attempt in the fall.












Turnips:  A little concerned about the amount of growth so far...more thinning will hopefully  alleviate that.

Rutabaga:  As mentioned in the 2017 review, I had to decide weather to pant these early (bigger roots) or late (better tasting roots).  I compromised and planted them neither early nor late.

Radish:  Hard to go wrong with these except for planting dates...there is a narrow window for such quick growing crops such as these as they can become pithy if left 48 hours too long.  PLant them too early and they are a little on the small side for harvest day.

Watermelon Radish:  Always tricky finding good spots for thsi crop.  With that in mind, I am planting fewer and spreading them out a little to grow larger roots.

Flowers:  We have a new color of zinnia this season.  I'll give the first blooms to whomever guesses the color...

Hint, it's not red or yellow, which I already have.

Several oppopeo/amaranth flowers...probably more than I need, few folks take them due to their size.  I try to leave a few as the gold finches really like the seeds in the fall.

Fewer marigolds and more dianthus made it out of the nursery this year.  100 per cent achievement is not possible in agriculture...only 100 per cent effort.

Hello Everyone:

New post for May 27 below...






As of June 6th - I have sold 74% of the shares for this season.

Sales closed except for some returning customers who are still planning their summer.




New Post May 27:

 I saw a new bird for the farm yesterday...never seen one like this before.  If anyone has an idea as to what it might be, feel free to send me a note.

The size was about that of a jay.  There were three of them, mostly spending their time in and around the brush piles.

Their eyes are yellow, kind of like a pigeon.  Beak is slightly curved.  All three birds were fairly identical in marking and color.



(Update June 6 - It's a Brown Thrasher.  Great name.  Julia identified it and Mom, Dad, and Pam confirmed it).




I'll start this assessment of the field so far with a bit of pessimism, and then get on to the more optimistic news.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the late thaw has pushed back some of our crops.

The lettuce is quite small and I am not sure if it will be ready for the first harvest, even for a mini size head.

At this time of year, leaf growth increases exponentially, but I can't envision these being ready in time.

The first crops of lettuce I choose are typically romaines that may be grown as baby leaf crops or as full size heads.  With that in mind, I can hold these in the field an extra week or two if necessary to allow them to fill out without worrying about them going to seed.


I have similar reservations about the spinach, but at the very least, I am pleased with the germination results especially for the second round.


And now for the optimism...

The frisee endive is coming along nicely, I am anticipating having some of these for farm salads - another advantage of planting more than I need for the customer base.

These take a little longer and should be ready mid July.  I planted two rounds to ensure that anyone away for the first harvest can still have some when they return.

I anticipate doing another small round for the fall for those of you who really like it.





The garlic is doing quite well.

One unusual observation I made this year is the number of garlic's that have a delayed emergence.

Over eighty five per cent of the garlic's emerged a couple of weeks ago and are now about a foot in height, but about ten percent are just starting to emerge.

I have a couple of theories:  One is that some emerged under the straw back in late February when there was a temporary thaw (almost all of the field was snow free for about five days).  These plants may have emerged and then been nipped by the return of the cold a week later.  According to the resources I use, this will likely have a little effect on the bulb size, but otherwise should not pose any major difficulty.

Another theory is that mice have nibbled some of the bulbs and stunted them.  Only digging one of the late bulbs up will answer me that.

As for mice damage to the onions...so far only a few nibbles and a couple of missing plants.  Usually, the onions can take a snip off the top of the leaves without any noticeable impact - I do this in the nursery to keep the plants from falling over and getting caught on the neighboring trays when sliding the trays off the shelves.

However, at this young age and so soon after transplant, the mice sometimes pull the entire plant out.

I have been using the tomato stakes and some 3-4 inch logs to hold down the row covers to try and keep the mice out, and this seems to help (something I discovered last year).  Not perfect, and not enough stakes and logs to go around, but the results are better than in previous years.

In a couple of weeks, the plants will be mature enough (and tall enough) to be out of reach for the pesky critters.

By then, they will be on the hunt for my sprouting beans. 

I have heard recently that rodents can't stand the scent of castor oil.   One of the employees at 5-Span Feed and Seed in Packenham said this was a very old technique, and he uses it in his own garden.  So I am checking with my certifying agency to determine if I can use this on the organic crops.  I sure hope so as it would be satisfying to turn the tables on these pests...they have been an expensive and thankless visitor over the years!

Other crops that are arriving more or less on schedule and as expected are the fennel, celery, and radishes.




The past few days I have been transplanting as fast as I can, trying to make yup for the late transplanting due to the late ground freeze.


Last Sunday particularly, Julia was there to help by keeping a steady flow of seedling trays from the hardening off shelter tot he field, allowing me to work like a transplanting machine - left hand reach for the plant, right hand pull open the soil bed, left hand into the soil, right hand pat the root ball in...repeat...

Here are the kales coming out of the cell packs...


Meanwhile, Julia kept refilling the watering cans and placing them in the sun to warm up the well water, reducing some of the transplant shock for the crops; and making sure that the nursery was watered and fresh seed and seedling trays were prepared for the following rounds of lettuce, basil, etc...


Transplanting is best done on a cloudy day, giving the plants a little relief from the elements while they sort out their new surroundings.

I don't have time to wait for clouds, so I pull the row covers over them to offer a little protection.

These will come off in a few days and then it is up to the plants to do the rest.

These are the first green peppers to go intot he ground.







After transplanting, its time for more direct seeding.

(An old picture - I no longer grow Dakota Pearl variety potatoes, they were replaced by the fingerlings).

Another trick I use to save time with trasplnats and seed potatoes is to use a trowel to loosen the soil at at each planting point.  I then pour a little water in until the soil here is the consistency of a slurry, and then start inserting the plants or tubers.


After transplanting, I water the surface around the root ball to remove any air pockets around the roots.  This keeps the roots moist for several days longer than if I just watered in at the end of the process, affording me a little more time to get the irrigation tape in.



When that was done for the day, work immediately turned to maintaining what I have achieved so far.  Now that the first seed crops have been in for a week or more, it's time to start suppressing the weeds just as they start to germinate.

Look closely at the picture, you'll see the co-linear hoe, weed sprouts caught on the blade, and two lines in the soil surface indicating where the carrots were seeded.

The weeds have just started to sprout, and the weather is fairly dry, so I can drag the hoe blade along, disturbing the tender weed roots and exposing them to the dry air and sun.


Do this three times in a three week period (more often in rainy seasons) , and the seed beds remain fairly weed-free until I disturb the soil surface at harvest time.


It takes me about five minutes to clear a bed using this hoe, ten or more if their are seeds or freshly sprouting crops in the bed.

It takes about three times as much time to pull mature weeds, and the weeds root ball takes soil and nutrients away with each pull.



This is a great tool for those of you who love to garden but want to reduce your kneeling or squatting.  The hoe is available for the ridiculous price of fifty dollars (one five inch blade and an ash handle?) at a local gardening and tool supply store based here in Ottawa.  I have to admit that price has paid for itself over the years.



After surface cultivating beds with current crops and ready to receive crops, I turn to a few beds that will be needed in the coming weeks.

Here, I cultivate a little deeper, using either the curved tines or a stirrup  implement on my wheel hoe.

Another nifty tool that is very ergonomic and ingeniously engineered (the drawback being some of the components are cheaply made and tend to break - not what I would have expected of Swiss craftmanship.





Witht he curve tines on, I lean on the handles and let gravity do most of the work.

The tines pull out grass rhizomes under the soil (and stones, and deep tap roots, and the odd artifact).  They also break off clumps of grass from where the edge of the path has tried to grow into the bed.

This task also takes about five minutes per bed, maybe ten or fifteen if the bed has received very little attention in the past few weeks.




I mentioned deep tap roots above, though this season I have tended to leave these in the beds, opting instead to cut the heads off the plant repeatedly until the tap root starves - no green plant can live without sunlight.

This will eventually decay in the soil and thus add some more fertility and organic matter.

Once the root has shriveled up and decayed, the space becomes a reservoir for water, air, and hiding space for worms, toads, snake eggs, etc.



When all this is done, there is more work around the barn, tending the electric fence, and mowing or whipping the weeds along the main paths and around the work space...there are irrigation tapes to roll out, compost windrows to flip, and notes to take...no time to waste!

Bob

Update May 12th:

Just returned from our annual seed potato trip.  If you have tried to contact us, we were well out of internet service for several periods of time and too preoccupied learning some of the finer details of potato growing (and sampling home grown pumpkin pe, raw milk sour cream, and of course potatoes...)

I worried myself to sleep Thursday night over the recently transplanted onions and leeks, the germinating peas and spinach, and all of the plants in the nursery, but Dick did a splendid job looking after my row covers and keeping the nursery watered and warm.  We lost a couple of kale seedlings but everything else appears to be fine.









I have increased the number of deliveries for the season to 15 from the previous 12 indicated on the 2018 Basket details page.  The amount of produce will not significantly change, but this will add a little flexibility for customers who are spending time away in the summer and even out some of the larger weekly harvests.  Two extra delivery dates will probably wind up in August and September.

I also added a June 13 delivery.  As I peek ahead at long-term weather models, there is increasing chance of a warmer than usual mid to late spring.  (In spite of the dusting of snow on the ground today).  This may have a negative impact on  spinach, a crop that prefers cool weather, and one that I am hoping to improve upon this season.  So I have moved it's sowing date ahead by one week in hopes of getting the most out of early spring temperatures.

Harvesting the green garlic a week early will probably improve its quality as well.

See "This Week's Harvest" page for the June 13 anticipated delivery.


And now for the May 19th post....


I have always thrived on the intensity of a short period of deeply focused work - in high school it was the fall running season; in my early twenties when our music group was preparing for a recording session or a series of shows.  Later on, I used the same planning and coping skills while volunteering and later working on the CKCU funding drive and other project management jobs.

Looking after my sleeping and eating habits have been my strong points, though I tend to fight against the flow more so than other folks who do similar types of jobs.  The fact that I am dealing with a living field, under a ceiling of ever changing weather helps keep my perspective.  I'm a perfectionist, detail oriented person so I have to step back once in a while and remind myself that no-one scores 100 per cent in this sport.

Having said that, the farm is starting to take shape for the season - it's been a very busy pair of weeks here with several 12 hour days of bed preparation, seeding, transplanting, and setting up the irrigation system.  The three day trip up to Coe Hill was a pleasant break despite worrying over the onions and leeks on the cold nights.



Several of yesterdays photos did not turn out, so I will fill out the post over the course of the week, but here are a few previews...


Spinach germination has been a real challenge the past few years.  Each time it failed to appear, I considered another potential reason and corrected it for the next time - only to have another failure.

Last fall, I drilled into my notes and set out a chart of every year I sowed spinach and looked for a pattern that might explain the difficulty.

I eventually figured out that there were multiple factors.




I used to use row covers on the beds to keep the soil moist after watering.  However, I later learned that leaf crops require lots of sunlight, and the row covers typically reduce sunlight by about 15 per cent.  So I ceased using those and relied on the irrigation system to keep the beds moist on warm, windy days.  That did not work either; I assume the cold water from the well was probably rotting the seeds.

The last time the spinach germinated well was in a bed not serviced by the irrigation system, so that was another clue.

This season, I have watered by hand, sometimes up to four times a day (the breeze dries off the soil surface quite quickly) and the results appear to have paid off.  The germination is not as good as I would like, but I think we may have enuogh plants to serve everyone - assuming they continue to grow.  We'll know better in mid June how this works out.



Pictured here is the second round of spinach just as it breaks the surface.




The peas have germinated well, as usual.

These are about two weeks old.  In another week or two, I will be pounding in the stakes to trellis the vines to.

One of my most anticipated crops of the spring...the first few will be taste tested in my lunch farm salad, just to make sure they are good enough to send on to all of you...









Here is a crop that I have not planted for several years - endive.  Very closely related to lettuce, used as a salad.

I tranplanted these yesterday.  PLants are best tranplanted on cloudy days (better yet, with a gentle rain) but I can't always count on the weather, so I water them in and then place older (tattered) row covers over them to provide the shade while they get over transplant shock and adjust to the full strength sun, temperature swings of outdoors, and the soil.



To prevent damaging the young plants, I usually place the irrigation tape in the beds before transplant.

Lettuces and endive are two of the very few crops that like wet leaves (most crops suffer when their leaves are exposed to too much moisture) and so I prefer to water these by hand - I think it helps the texture of the final product as well.  However, I won't always have time to water by hand, so they will get some added moisture from the well.




The potatoes have started to go into the ground.  As of this writing, I have most of the spring white and fingerling potatoes in the ground.  I'll do a supplemental sowing in a month or two to make up for any losses.

I expect to be posting a photo of the potatoes emerging in about a week or so.

Look closely, and you can see where I have drawn the sowing lines for a bed of carrots just to the right - these were sown about ten minutes after this picture was taken.


The next three days will be a flurry of activity as peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, kale, chard, radish, beets, turnips, etc are sown...its a little later than I would have hoped owing to the ground being frozen a week later than I anticipated this season.  So no time to waste...

Talk to you soon,

Bob

(more to follow for this post...)


New Post

A few more updates from May 5th:

Yes, those little green shoots are the first leaves of garlic to emerge.

The bulbs were sown last November, and covered over with spelt straw to keep them from freezing through the winter.

Many gardeners leave the straw on until harvest, and allow the garlic to grow through it.  For a couple of reasons, I take much of it off and re-use it elsewhere.

More to follow...



Back in the indoor nursery, the delicata (winter)  squashes are also germinating.

The Butterscotch squash is due to be sown in about three weeks.  I have staggered the planting between the two in hopes of getting the delicata to flower and produce fruit first, so that the seed is not cross pollinated with our other variety, Butterscotch.









I have cleared some spare (unlit) shelves in the indoor nursery to make way for some plants from outside.

With a couple of cool nights on the way, I will have to bring in some plants such as tomato seedlings fro the unheated outdoor nursery.

At this time of year, there is very little nursery space.








The outdoor nursery is doing just fine, even with a predicted plus 6 tonight.

The temperature should remain about 10 degrees in there, not the best growing temperature but well within the plants tolerance level.

A few crops such as celery are intolerant to temperatures below 15 degrees, so even though they are more mature than the tomatoes and peppers, they remain within the indoor nursery.

Hello everyone:

Before getting onto the post, I have a couple of announcements:

I will be closing sales soon.  If you are interested in purchasing a share of the harvest, please contact me very soon.

If you have been in contact with me but are waiting to determine what your plans are for the summer, I can hold your place until a later date.

I will be sending out our first e-blast of the season within the next 48 hours.  If you do not see it, check your spam box.  If it is there, adjust your email settings accordingly.

If you do not have it at all, please contact me and I will check to see if I have you on this year's list.

!!!  VERY IMPORTANT  !!!

When communicating with me by email either for requests, notification of absences, sending in recipes, etc, PLEASE use a separate email with a specific heading (eg "absent for next delivery").

If you add your email to a chain of emails, it is possible I may not see it.  I want to spend my farm time doing farm work as much as possible - growing and tending your food and improving the farm and my farm skills as much as possible.





And now for the post for April 28:

It's been a very, very busy week here at Whitsend.  Monday to Kingston for a chainsaw safety certification course, Tuesday fieldwork until 4 pm and then off to Ferguson Falls for a National Farmers Union meeting, Wednesday out in the field all day and then raking the lawn after supper (A silly task, but while living off farm, I have to maintain the 'suburban standard' method of yard treatment), lot's of shopping and computer chores for Thursday, in the field all day Friday except a quick jaunt over to Farm Credit Canada Corp. to drop off an application package, and then off to Julia's birthday party Friday night.



And sowing more seeds...

And doing some engine maintenance on the tiller...

And repairing a leak in the outdoor nursery...

And electric fence maintenance...still unresolved, can't figure out where the short is occurring...

And sowing more seeds and promoting the ones I sowed last week...

And closing a sale...

This is what you pay me for.


Field work will continue Monday, the beds are getting cleaned up and prepared for the first direct sowing of peas and spinach and carrots...

Jen from Sysabee and I have trading documents all week, trying to figure out why her version was not functioning on my computer.  Now that that is fixed, I have started tweaking the request page.

Time is running short, so I will be distributing this very soon.  (one last test to run to make sure the glitch we had doesn't translate onto other customers computers).

Customers will receive a page detailing the season's crops they can expect in their baskets, and some options they have for choosing crops.

Please fill this out as much as you want to (there are three questions that must be entered - name, basket size, and a box to tick indicating you have read the document.  Even if you are ok with whatever you receive - many of you are - please send it to me anyway, I will be using the printed out version to track what you are receiving throughout the year.

After we have this system up and running, attention will turn to developing an online tool to accomplish this request system.  I expect this will take the better part of the year.  The goal is to try this out a couple of times during the season, and then have it up and running for next year.

This is new territory for me, so I have no idea how long it may take.




The past week I have been putting some of the hardier plants (onions, leeks, parsley) in the outdoor nursery for the day and then bringing them in for the night.  They get better light here than under the grow lights, and besides, the space under the lights is limited, and with so many other plants coming along, there just isn't enough room.

A couple nights back, I forgot to bring the onions in at the end of the day, and was greeted the next morning with some very sad onions - they were all limp and laying down.  The min/max thermometer indicated that the low reached plus one inside the outdoor nursery.



As onions have such a long lead time and must be planted within a certain window of time in order to bulb, I set about my scheduled tasks for the day wondering if that was it for the onions and leeks.  Green onions and parsley could be re-planted, but that would put a lot of pressure on the nursery with the squashes set to be planted soon.  I kept telling myself of the resilience of young plants and all of the fail safes I had in place for moderating the temperature change...







...three days later and almost all of the onions have stood back up and continued their leaf growing.  I lost a few (less than 2 per cent) and assume these ones were probably weaker in some way than the others, and may not have performed as well during the season anyway. Not everyone makes the team, as I sometimes say.




I mentioned in our last or second last post that the hotwax peppers (sometimes referred to as the "somewhat hot" peppers) had failed to sprout a week after the green  peppers.  I checked the package and found that the seeds were three years old.  I double checked my notes from previous years and found that three year old pepper seeds usually had a slightly lower germination rate, but certainly not zero per cent.  I recalled one of my mentors (Dick, I think) suggesting that field seed sometimes germinated slowly if it was old.  So I continued to tend the seedling tray and finally I have been rewarded.



Almost all of them emerged throughout the week, and I now have a decent compliment of mildly hot peppers to compliment our green peppers and super hot peppers.

Had I been less experienced, or not blessed with good mentors, or impatient, I might have given up!





The beds are finally dry enough to do a lot of work on.


Having permanent beds with grassed paths provide an advantage that they are ready for planting sooner than a bare field.  The grass turf can be trod upon much earlier than a soil path, which would get gouged up with deep footprints were I to be walking on it the day after a heavy rainfall.







For comparison, here is part of the new field.  The grass seed was sown late last fall and has yet to sprout.  The established beds pictured above are about the same elevation as the beds pictured to the right - you can see how saturated the soil is where the water is pooling along the fence.












Having permanent beds has many benefits; one of which is that they are ready to go as soon as they are thawed out.

(I have a couple of posts from the years 2012 to 2014 that go into this in more detail.)




Old weeds that survived the winter and some quack grass rhizomes that were missed last fall teased out of the soil.

Aerating beds to stimulate aerobic bacteria, which in turn work on turning simple nutrients into complex molecules that the plants can  use.

Cultivating beds to disturb any fresh weeds that may be trying to sprout, and breaks up clods of soil so there is more surface area exposed to the air.




Saw our first toad of the season while doing this work.


The list of tasks is seemingly endless.  It is exhilarating work, with a little foreboding on the horizon - what if I can't get it all done in time?  As I prepare the beds, I try not to think of the plants back in the nursery.  Once I sow seeds there, the clock is ticking.  Five weeks after sowing lettuce, the bed in the field has to be ready to receive them; four weeks for kale and pak choi.  And the sowing date for the squashes is soon upon me...





I made a mistake in the nursery last week while sowing the tomatoes.  I had been counting pepper sprouts to see if I had enough plus a few for my projected needs.

I then started sowing tomatoes, but I suppose my mind was still thinking peppers (12 plants per row, two rows per bed).

I was happily sowing tomato seeds at a rate of 12 plants per bed (only one row for toms) and didn't think much of it while marking off the number of seeds used in my production binder.


I realize many of you city folk may not know the difference between a pepper plant and a tomato plant, but there is a significant difference in size.

I planted twice as many tomatoes as needed.

So, I will have lots of plants to choose from (I'll take the healthiest and most vigorous growers); and then sell off as many of the sprouts as I can.  Customers can have a couple if they want to try their hand at growing these too.

I'm sure my mentors might be appalled at this waste of seed, but this is the sort of mistake I don't mind...far better too many than too little.  If this is all I have to fret over, then I must be in fairly good shape.




Bob